Back In the Saddle - With No Batteries

Today was the first beautiful day that I was free to ride - and it was glorious.
I pumped up my tires, lubed my chain, and set out across the Manhattan Bridge.
I left some basic tools down in Miami with my other bike, so I needed to replace those. Also, I was determined to solve one of the problems that dogged me all through last summer - my misfitting helmet.

I don't like things on me when I ride for fun. No backpacks, camelbacks, fanny packs, messenger bags, hydration belts, lycra, or compression shorts... I don't even wear a watch. What I do wear is a helmet, because honestly, if you ride anywhere in NYC you have to be a total moron not to wear a helmet. Personally, when I see a helmetless rider go by, I give them a Darwin Award for improving the odds that they remove themselves from the gene pool.

Given how I dress when I ride it's no surprise that when I bought a helmet last year, I bought one that was way too big. I thought it was great. No binding, no pinching. I perched it on my head, clipped the chinstrap, and off I went.
This was fine on the commuter bike, but when I got the Centurion it all changed. Leaning over drop handlebars for the first time, my helmet dipping over my eyes, I realized I had a problem - that I didn't fix for an entire year.

Hello new Trek 'Vapor' helmet, and thank you yet again to the nice guys at Metro Bikes on Hudson.

Did you know that a properly fitted bike helmet should stay on your head if you tip forward without the chinstrap closed? And I don't mean with your ponytail shoved through the back. You need to take some time fitting these, and the guys at Metro Bikes are wonderfully patient.

The fit between a Giro, a Bell, and a Trek are significantly different, so don't just get one that looks cool. It seems like a no-brainer, but most of us are riding around in helmets that won't do crap to stop our brains from splattering when we flip over that cab - because they don't fit.
Here's a link to a little checklist to make sure your helmet fits correctly.

Got my gear, hopped on my honey and headed out over the Williamsburg Bridge to go meet up with a friend. Whipped out my trusty camera to take a shot of the spectacular view - cloudless spring skies over Manhattan, and discovered...
NO BATT.

NO BATT = NO PIX.

Sorry.

Buying Bike Stuff I Don't Need

Living in NYC means that I worry constantly when I leave my bike unattended for even a minute - even though to most people it looks like a POS, this bike means a lot to me. Keeping it whole means carrying around heavy locks and taking every removable object off my bicycle when I do something as simple as going to buy a soda in a deli.
I've learned my lesson the hard way - more than once.
The easy answer would be a backpack, but I really hate biking with a bag on my back. It just takes the fun out it.
With that in mind, this spring, I bought a
Trek Interchange Trunk Pack so that I wouldn't have to mess around with crap velcroed to every tube on my bike.
I love it.
Except that I put the matching quick release rack on the commuter bike and kept the Blackburn rack on the road bike.

Months of velcroing later... I finally decided to swap them last night. I mean, it's no big thing. Just unscrew the bottom of the racks from the rear wheel hub and then the bent metal part from the seat post clamp. Then, swap 'em. Right? Wrong.
I have now learned that the shiny metal things are called "brackets". I know this because, my bike is 20 years old and the screws on my seat post are a bigger than the ones that fit the Trek rack and are bigger than the ones that fit every set of brackets sold at the local bicycle shop.
I did discover a new bike shop. (new to me, that is)
Sid's on 34th street was very helpful and they offered to drill out the hole on the brackets for me to make them fit. It's always nice to discover a bike shop where they don't give me attitude for either a: being female, or b: not being a serious enough biker for them to care about.
While waiting for the mechanic to do the modification, I also helped myself to:

1. A new set of bike gloves. (mine have been through the wash too many times, no really...)
2. A nice red jersey. (on sale! 25% off)
3. A tube of mechanics grease. (it's "the king of lubes")
PLUS
4. Custom drilled rack brackets with all the screws. (so I know they all fit)

I really only 'needed' one (1) hex nut and bolt to replace the one that is rusted and stripped on the old Blackburn Rack. It's the only part that I couldn't just take off one bike and re-mount on the other.

This habit of buying 'stuff' that I don't really need is why I've got the one mile = one dollar rule. I can buy anything I want. I just have to have biked enough miles to cover the cost.
I better hope the weather is nice this weekend. I need to put in 110 miles just to break even.

Who is bike dummy, and what is this blog about?

Enough with the Tour bull*&%$
I am a bike dummy and this is my blog.
I wanted to start this blog to keep track of my embarrassingly late start in bicycling and understanding my bicycle.
I've had bicycles before. I had one when I was a kid. It was a second-hand Raleigh and I slow speed crashed into the superintendant of my friend's apartment building on it the first day I went out. He yelled at me and I cried.
As a kid, I spent summers out on Fire Island in a community that didn't have a lot of kids, so the few of us that there were all knew each other and ran wild. There were no cars and no roads, only boardwalks. We would take red flyer wagons to the top of the hills and speed down them using our flip flop shod feet as brakes. My friend Katie and I would 'borrow' her older brother's banana seat bikes and race around the island, our plastic flags flapping in the wind behind us.
Now wagons may be hard to control and flip flops may not be very effective for stopping, but the wheels aren't very big, so it feels like you're hurtling down the hills, but in reality, it's more like a bumpy little avalanche.
A bicycle is much, much faster.
- Aside #1 - this is how much I don't know. I just googled 'reverse pedal brakes bicycle' so I could describe what I'm guessing were the 'coaster brakes' the banana seat bikes had. You had to push the pedals backwards to make the bike stop. Here's what one web site said in its description of the pros and cons associated with coaster brakes:
Pros: Coaster brakes generally require less maintenance than any other type of brake. (This is good as we would just drop our bikes in the sand when we were done riding)
Cons: When coaster brakes fail (usually the result of chain breakage or derailment) they fail suddenly and completely.
Ah, Yeah. Flying down the 'big' hill by the post office directly at the perpendicular turn to the main boardwalk - and straight off the end - sort of like Evel Knievel - only without the ramp on the other end.
My family got priced out of lower Manhattan in the 80's and we moved to Brooklyn.
Got myself another used Raleigh and used it to travel to and from babysitting gigs. Chained it to an iron fence outside a brownstone, went in to pick up my money, I swear I wasn't inside for longer than 5 minutes, came out to no seat, no gears and no derailleur.
This time in college. Got myself another used bike (probably another Raleigh). I was riding in downtown Brooklyn when some guy catcalled out his car window at me. Now, I grew up in NYC, and I won't say I've heard everything, but I've heard more than I care to repeat, so who listens anymore? I was minding my own business when he blew by me, reaching out of the driver's side window as he passed - to grab my ass and knock me off my bike into the cars parked on the side of the road.
I cursed him, I cursed all car drivers, I cursed all men, I thanked the powers that be for sparing my life, and I limped home.
I don't even know what happened to that bike.

Before I got the bicycle that I have now, I had never even thought of what it took to maintain one.
I've never even had a bicycle long enough to change a tire.
The wheels always got stolen first.