I half envy you guys on the fixies. My commuter was previously set up 1x with one brake and I liked it that way. Very light and simple. My commute changed to include some hills and I changed it to 1x and two brakes... have never changed it back though I could probably use it that way in this year's situation

It's an older GoPro (Hero 7 Silver) that I have mounted on a chest strap, so yes right in the sternum area. I tried using a helmet mount but discovered I look around too much and it made for distracting videos.

My brother gave the GoPro to me as a gift a little more than five years ago. He was hoping he could see videos of me getting attacked by geese. I do get attacked by geese on occasion, but the joke is on him because the geese attack from the side where the camera won't pick it up.

See? You do have a response, and as I predicted, it's invalid. Us roadies (well, speaking for myself as someone who types for a living) have wimpy fingers that can barely bend a paperclip. Bending a valve core is not really a concern like it is for burly mountain bikers or Bender Bending Rodriguez.



Know that I write these posts with a big smile on my face, and it's all in jest.

I debated myself first about that but it seemed to be expected of me!

Rode every day this week so far, and to pub quiz. That'd be six short round trips this week if I can ride again tomorrow, which is pretty good! I totally lost track of my rides in July so I'll need to read back and figure it out in order to update the mileage thread.

Thanks.

It looks huge but my ratio isn't really high because the rear cog is also large. It's perfect for flat ground. Front is 52, and rear is 19. 52 / 19 * 27 = 74. So for Americans, it's a 74" gear. The ratio is 2.74. I don't know what the rollout is.

My fixie is my beater bike. I designed it to be unserious. No fenders, no nothin. We have some small hills here, and I don't usually enjoy climbing them with only one gear, so I ride the bike only occasionally. My future commute will be over the Brooklyn Bridge or the Manhattan Bridge which are longish hills. Maybe riding that route on a fixie will be OK because it's only four miles each way.

One interesting thing is that my commute is only 2 miles each way this summer so riding every day is easy. There's no reason to take the subway or bus. Getting a short ride in isn't a huge amount of exercise but it feels really good. I've had commutes of 13 miles each way, and I didn't enjoy doing it every day so I only did it one to three days a week, and I took the subway on other days. A short commute seems to be better for my health than a long one since I can do a short one more frequently.

Warm with a slight headwind for much of the ride. It really wasn't that bad, but as I've said in the past, I'm not at my best in the mornings and little hardships seem to get amplified.

A rant from my trip home yesterday. As I crested the climb out of the valley, I got passed by a fat guy on an e-bike. Not a big deal, this is a regular occurrence these days. I followed him to the end of the trail, which leads into a residential area. From there, that guy hopped onto the sidewalk and kept riding at about 30 km/h (about 19mph). He had to stop for a big SUV that pulled into a driveway in front of him, while I was able to just go around. Served him right. Look, I'm trying to be more accepting of e-bikes in general, but riding that fast on a narrow pedestrian sidewalk when you can almost keep up with traffic on the road (the speed limit is 40km/h, about 25mph) is just stupid, and there needs to be some enforcement.

I could rant more, but life is too short. Have a great weekend everyone!

Mine is 46 / 17 * 27 = 73, so a bit smaller (but a noticeably smaller chainring and slightly smaller cog. Math!). I wouldn't go any bigger because of some of the hills on my commute (which exceed 10% grade for a few short sections), and in fact, I have a 44T chainring waiting in my parts bin. Not there yet. Not quite.

I spent a winter commuting on a fixie with a 66" gear. That really taught me to spin fast. I clocked myself at an estimated 180 rpm. It's good to be able to spin without bouncing on the saddle.

I have a track racing bike with a front brake and an 83" gear. I don't think I could climb a 10% grade on that. In fact, I don't think I could climb it with my 73" gear.

Events conspired and I drove Thurs and Fri. I took a 25-mile ride yesterday up to Manitou Springs. The route I took is basically my work commute but 200 yards from the office I stay on the Midland Trail on up to Manitou.

Sunny, dry, low 70s to start, high 80s at the end...very comfortable. I didn't stop and rest in Manitou like I usually do so it was pretty constant riding, and thanks to the trails, very little stopping.

Took my lightest bike, the carbon/aluminum 2006 Felt F65 with no backpack, but with 2 water bottles.

I did okay and recovered in under an hour.

Great! Just wanted to say that I've taken up indoor rowing during the last 8 weeks (logged 180k meters so far). So, my days now have around 4-5mi walking, 5mi RT cycling and about 6mi of rowing Haven't been around these parts in while!

Hope all is well.

Uneventful ride.

Good thing too as this is the state of my truck right now. When Ford turned the V6 Cyclone into the twin turbo Ecoboost they hung the turbos right on the exhaust manifolds, which is good, but in spite of added weight, heat, and vibration incurred, they deleted one of the nine bolts, and three more go unused. The trucks therefore warp the cast iron manifold and it snaps the overloaded aft stud. This the the 2nd time I have done this job. My replacement manifold this time is a no-name. The latest Ford version replaces the cast iron with cast stainless, and there is an aftermarket hot-rod one that uses a different better cast iron alloy and eleven holes.

I was hoping this repair would also find a long-suffered phantom oil leak where oil is seeping onto the hot engine and turning to smoke and then it seals up once it's hot. Oil lost is very small and no drips on the driveway so I've just been tolerating it. But it looks like it's on the right valve cover and not the turbo oil line like I thought







Chose not to afford this - truck has >190,000 miles and I don't think I'll still own it by the next time it breaks down this way specifically

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 2168:

Yesterday afternoon I decided to catch up on some road bike maintenance. It kind of snowballed quickly into a "while I'm at it" situation.

• Having nearly 7,000 miles on the chain on my road bike, I decided to replace it.
• Of course, with that kind of mileage on the chain, I probably wasn't going to get away with using a new chain on the old cassette. So I opted to replace that as well. The old cassette had seized up on the hub, so I had to get creative to get the old one off.
• While I had the wheel off the bike, I noticed the original jockey wheels on the derailleur were worn down to little nubs. That might explain why I couldn't pedal backwards without the chain binding up in the derailleur cage. So I went ahead and replaced those too.
• My rear wheel was a little out of true. Not to an unrideable degree, but enough that I could visibly see a wiggle when I rode. As long as I had the wheel off I removed the tire and put the rim in my truing stand and got it nice and straight. I find a great deal of satisfaction once I dial in a rim to be perfectly true.
• As long as I had the rear tire off, I decided to swap tires with the front wheel to even out the wear between the two tires. I know there's debate on whether or not you should rotate bicycle tires. I decided that if I didn't rotate the tires I'd be replacing the rear tire by itself in a couple of months. As long as I was halfway through the tire swapping job I might as well go for it.
• When I re-mounted the wheels I noticed that the brakes had worn to the point of sitting a ways off the rim. There was still plenty of pad left, I just was getting close to running out of lever travel. So I adjusted the brakes and got them both nice and close to the rim. The brakes engage almost too quickly now, but that will lessen as the pads continue to wear.
• With the new chain and cassette installed I had to do some derailleur adjusting to get everything shifting nice with the new components.

This morning I woke up and felt unusually tired. I slept seven hours, which is usually enough for me, but today I felt quite exhausted. I think some of it was residual from not sleeping much all of last week, some of it was residual from having a very mental and emotional day on Saturday, and some of it was the lingering effects of the muscle relaxant I had taken before bed for my back. In any event, the combination of things came to a head and I didn't have the motivation needed to get on the bike at the my normal time.

I decided to sit down in my chair for a few minutes. I wound up falling asleep for an hour and a half. Oops. So I arrived at work late. I made up for it by skipping lunch.

The ride to the office was nice. 67°F with a tail wind. The newly tuned-up road bike was very enjoyable.

Uneventful, but enjoyable rides to work and back. Took the 1984 Nishiki International 2x6. I like comparing it to the 2006 Felt 2x10 I rode the day before.

Having 6 different bikes to compare and contrast keeps the commute interesting, as does having multiple route choices.

In today's seminar, I learned that the African Burial Ground is less than a mile away, so I swung by it on the way home. I looked at it from the outside but couldn't get in. The extra mile I rode turned into a nicer route so I'm grateful for that. So it was 3 miles instead of 2 miles, still a tiny distance.

I'm really enjoying riding my fixie this week. It's light and simple. One downside is that it has no luggage ability and no lights so I have to mount lights every ride and hang my lock on the handlebar. These are minor inconveniences. Riding a fixed gear in tight traffic makes me feel in control, but that might be an illusion. Mind you, I do have a front brake, and a very good one at that.

1st commute in 3 weeks (back from holidays in Norway - beautiful country!!...didn't cycle there though). Lovely morning and still bright enough at 5:30am that I didn't need a front light. Travelling west to work so the sunrise in behind me. No wind eitther after a very windy weekend.

Another uneventful but enjoyable commute.

I took the Nishiki 12-speed again but lubed the chain and derailleur jockey wheels which felt a little draggy on Monday. It seemed to pedal smoother, quieter and more easily.

Took the same first 3 miles from the house but optioned to take a different route for the last three to the office. A quarter mile from the office at the intersection where they painted the city's first "bike box" recently there was a downed power line so I had to detour a block over. Same on the ride home.

The city painted over all the graffiti on the overpass I took over the highway. I prefer the blank blotches to the insanity that seems more commonly scrawled on the city's infrastructure nowadays. It's not political, it's not clever, it's not artistic or uplifting, it doesn't even seem to be gang-related. Just a collection of names, possible words and random shapes that bear the sad hallmarks of mental illness and drug addiction.

We live on a short steep-ish hill so the last half a block is a minor grind. Our neighbor fosters a group of kids and when they're out on the lawn they will say hi and cheer me on. They seem to be getting a little old for this kind of behavior, but I love it. Especially when they yell, "honk your horn!" or "Beep-Beep!" Then I blast the AIrZound airhorn and they cheer.

Unusually mild July going into June. Keep waiting for the other fiery shoe to drop

Tom, time to watch Premium Rush again, where the first-act rival has a road bike with a shifter, the nerve

Nothing like the first rainy day in I can't remember how many months to get a flat tire. But, it beats driving, and the rain washed the tire-changing grime off my hands by the time I got to work.

You assume I've seen it? I'm not even sure I had heard of it. But now that I've seen the trailer, I must see it. I can't do stunts. I can almost do a track stand. In a way I'm sad fixies have gone out of style. I guess they'll come back. But it does engender bad behavior. Just in the last two days I did a few things a wise person wouldn't do. What am I doing this for, I'm 64 years old! But it's such a nice feeling. My flat handlebars are pretty narrow, and I'm going through narrow spaces while drivers wait at the light. Also, my cranks are 155 mm long, allowing me to spin fast. It feels weird at first, but I got used to it.


Nice scenery in the trailer. It captures Manhattan pretty well. Some of the stunts are Hollywood in flavor though.

Like that bumper sticker: a bad day fishing is better than a good day at work. So fixing a flat in the rain is better than commuting by car. I'm not planning to buy a car in the foreseeable future. I searched for jobs that don't require one. I have my bike, and we have subways here.

I haven't been bike commuting lately due to being off of school for the summer. I have been riding a bus to my job at summer camp

Today, I rode my bike the four miles uphill to the bus stop.

I was amazed how much stronger I was. I spend five weeks with the summer campers riding a single speed bike as a mountain bike and powering my way up hills with brute force. Even just a couple of weeks riding like that made a real difference in my speed and power.

noglider One of the women in my improv troupe is a former Olympic track cyclist...fixed gear, of course. I believe she's my age, 63 or possibly 65. She is racing this week in some sort of master's series at the velodrome here in Colorado Springs. We've held practice at her home a couple times...she has an amazing collection of bikes with flywheel trainers as well as rollers!

The stars aligned and I was able to ride on a Wednesday, today. I took my main commuter, the drop bar 2015 Charge Plug 2x8 (non electric despite the name). I strung together bits and pieces of different commute routes taking some sections in the reverse direction I usually do (inspired by the recent discussion)...It was so fun!

I left work early taking the longer (but faster) trail to trail route FORGETTING that the trail was closed a mile from the house due to street work. A local FB group discussion mentioned a one-block detour crossing at the next light south. I knew a backstreet route to get there so I wouldn't have to ride on the lumpy, narrow sidewalk. But when I got the alternate intersection the curbs were removed with sections of pavement removed as well and no possible passage across the street. So I ducked down a parallel side street to the next light and ended up having to take another stretch of lumpy, narrow sidewalk.

It was still better than driving, and trying to remember how the streets connected without using GPS was fun and adventurous! I hadn't ridden some of these streets in 20 years!

This may end up being the first 5-day bike commute week in a very long time!...Fingers crossed!

Well yeah, I assume you’ve seen Premium Rush, and Pacific Blue, and Rad, and On Any Sunday, and Chasing The Badger, and so on

That shows you how behind I am, not just in bike movies but huge swaths of culture. I became a classical music nerd in 8th grade and am sometimes oblivious to lots of music and movies that "everyone" knows about. My music tastes have broadened but mostly towards somewhat esoteric genres. Thanks for the titles. I'll add them to my list. I do like Jason Gordon Levitt. He was really good in Don Jon.

Still cool-ish temps in the morning, I rode the 26" Drop-Hopper to work on the trail-to-trail route yesterday. The trail was still blocked at the one intersection, and the official detour south is also blocked, so I tried crossing north and then west. The sidewalk was still blocked but accessible just a car length down. Neither street has a shoulder or is safe for bikes due to high speed limit and high traffic volumes.

I'm sure the city engineers thought pedestrians and bikes could use the underpass, but it has been flooded for weeks and weeks due to a poor design that sees it flood regularly for long periods since it was built over ten years ago.

Again, the '97 Rockhopper shod with 2.125" smoothies felt lighter and faster than it should...and oh, so comfortable, even without the sprung seat its predecessor had. Another fast, refreshing ride in.

I took a different route home through downtown. It had cooled down to 90F with high overcast or haze from some of the wildfires perhaps.

There is a steep 3-block long hill hill on San Miguel Street about a mile from the house. After a year off the bike in 2010 it took me 6 or 9 months before I rebuilt enough strength and stamina to ride up it non-stop on the way home...and I remember that every time I ride up it...every time.

Even though I can gind or hustle all my bikes up it now, the Rockhopper's extremely low gearing makes climbing it fairly easy, despite being my heaviest bike. So there I was slowly making steady progress up the hill hunched over on the drop bars when I saw a woman watching me while watering her plants. With her gray hair, Bermuda shorts, flip-flops and sleeveless top she looked like some meek retired grandma. BUt when I finally got up even with her she looked me square in the eye, smiled and said calmly, "You...are a BEAST!"

We shared a good laugh.