Jose Mandez

Alcon,

I've been cycling in some capacity off and on since late summer 2006, right before I started college. I didn't really get "hooked" until the summer of 2007 when I gave up the old vintage fat-tired one speed I'd been riding for a Trek 400 Elance 1987 model that my cousin gave me. I found I enjoyed the 10 mile commute from my house to school, though I still didn't commute to school as much as I would have liked due to a heavy class load. In the Spring of 2008, after the cold winter months were over, I took up sometime commuting again, as well as taking a short (less than 500 miles) touring trip after each semester. During the summer of 2008, I commuted almost every day a 20 mile round trip to the youth center where I was a volunteer. Gradually, as different components of my bike failed and needed repair, I learned to repair them from consulting different sources. I have been riding pretty much nonstop since March 2010, when the cold Indiana winter once again allowed me to commute to school...I moved to south Texas in August, where I work as a Registered Nurse. My commute to work is now 19 miles, which probably makes my cohorts think I am insane (I myself wonder sometimes, especially when I am in the middle of a string of 12 hour shifts), and so far I have been commuting by bicycle about 80% of the time. I don't consider myself a hard core commuter, because the weather is so warm and dry here that I hardly ever had to commute in the rain or in the cold. Back in Indiana, I rarely commuted during the winter due to cold, and putting rain fenders on my bike seemed like more trouble than it was worth.

I don't ride much for "fun" anymore since I've commuted to work as much as I have, though I'd still like to do short tours once or twice a year while on leave from work. The Trek 400 Elance is getting kind of old, so I've started riding a Trek 520 1988 model that I just bought used about a month ago. I'm into late 1980's/early 1990's Trek bicycles, which make up the bulk of what I own...I prefer freewheels to cassettes, because I don't want to have to carry a chain whip around with me everywhere I go, and because anything more than 6 gears is just overkill for a guy like me. I enjoy commuting because it gets me where I am going while getting some good exercise at the same time, I while enjoying the scenery of God's great world. I was never mechanically inclined, and I hated working on cars because there were so many parts and everything was so confusing, and so different depending on what model and make of car you were dealing with...however, I found that bicycle repair is easy for even a mechanically impaired person like me. I've learned how to install and remove bottom brackets, cranksets, freewheels, spokes, deraileurs, gear shifters, and brakes, and it is all very simple, and gives me a feeling of self-sufficiency...I know that I can fix just about anything that goes wrong with my bike, usually with a part that costs less than $50, and I know that I cannot say that for my car. In short, I've found that simpler is better, and a bicycle is a remarkably simple machine that gives me almost a childlike sense of freedom when I ride it. In fact, these days I get rather bored on the rare occasion that I do drive my car. I feel like my legs should be doing something.

Apologies for the longness of this. I'll be on here off and on.

-Jose Mandez

10 Wheels

Hi Jose,
Thanks for joining.
Nice Intro.
Where are you in Texas?
I came from Indy toTexas.

Jose Mandez

I am stationed at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, TX. I live in a rural community about 20 miles from downtown San Antonio. I occasionally see sport riders out where I live (you can spot them by the tights and the $5,000 bicycle) but don't really see other commuters (though a few people do commute to the hospital, I think most of them are coming either Fort Sam Houston or from someplace nearby in San Antonio.