joyota

Hello all,

My name's Ken, and I live in the Ann Arbor, MI area. I'm fairly new to considering "cycling" an official hobby of mine, however I've had the same bike and have loved riding for about 12 years now. I've owned my bike longer than any of my other possessions. I once had a bike commute from my apartment to work of about 5.5 miles and loved making the commute via bike whenever I could, but since moving towards the outskirts of town 4 years ago, my commute more than doubled in length and I wrote off any chance of commuting by bike when that happened. Only recently did I realize I currently average 13mph on public roads including stop lights and could potentially make my commute home in an hour if I can work up my physical performance and make some adjustments to my equipment. So the love of cycling has been re-kindled and I want to learn as much as I can about commuting. I doubt I'll be an everyday commuter (especially during winters in MI), but someday I'd definitely like to try and cut the amount of car commuting I do in half during the Spring-Fall months.

Anyway, I'm in the process of converting my old Nishiki Blazer from an ATB to a commuter and have already referenced a bunch of threads from this site on the subject, so I figured why not join the community. Here's my bike after I finished a 10 mile ride last night just before sundown.

10 Wheels

Hi Ken,

Welcome to Bike Forums.

I started on a Nishiki.

I have a used trailer for grocery shopping.

Put some smooth road tires on your bike for a faster ride.

joyota

Thanks! I've already got two different pairs of tires on their way to my front door that I want to try out and see which ones work best for me.

10 Wheels

Cool

qcpmsame 

Hello Ken, welcome to BF, great to have you here with us. Try the Commuting Forum, if you haven't visited it already. Best of luck with the bike upgrades and don't sweat the performance, it will improve with the miles you are logging.

Bill