60 miles and a dump

Catchy title eh?  First off, the dump simply refers to another info/brain dump that this post is fixing to turn in to.  But first…  I commuted by bike the full distance 3 days this week.  My last attempt (last week) as well as the week of the 4th on my third day I didn’t feel quite up to a full ride in to work so I drove in a little closer to work on those days and biked in from there.  That effectively cut the 10 mile commute to about a 6 mile commute.  It definitely helped on those days.  But this week, I did 3 days the full distance for a total of 60 commuter miles!  At some point I’m going to push towards a 4 day commute, but I think I’ll put that off one more week and do another 3 day full ride week next week.  So, on to the dump.

Great support for bikes at work

A couple of weeks ago I approached the office manager to see if we could purchase a bike rack for parking our bikes at work.  There are five of us who bike in pretty regularly — three of those five are from my department!  I was pleasantly surprised to receive word back almost immediately after my request that it had been approved and already ordered!  As soon as it arrived, I was like a kid at Christmas…  I grabbed my tools and slapped it together and found a place to put it in the shop.  We ended up purchasing this six-bike unit.  VERY cool!

Panniers

So yesterday, I needed to lug my laptop home with me, but I wasn’t quite prepared to do it on my bike.  So I had to get creative.  I ended up locating an extra laptop bag — a standard current Dell bag.  I grabbed some wire, only because I couldn’t locate any zip-ties, and began rigging it up to secure the bag to my rack.  Amazingly, it attached very nicely and looked pretty good.  I even received a comment on my way home from a fellow biker who thought it was very clever.  The only drawback to the laptop bag as a Pannier was that it sat a little too far forward and my heel would hit it if I peddled normally.  So I had to keep my foot angled like I was pedaling with my toes in order to clear the bag.  It wasn’t too bad, but it wasn’t very comfortable either.

I’m been Jonesing for a Pannier bag that will fit my laptop so I can cart it to and from work, but DANG!  The only one that I’ve been able to locate that even mentions a laptop runs about $160 list.  That means I might be able to locate it for something like $125-$130 online.  But DANG…  that’s a good chunk of the cost of the bike itself!  I just can’t see paying that kind of money for a pannier.  So now…  I think I’m going to look in to some sort of DIY project to create my own Pannier.  We’ll see what I come up with.

DIY

Speaking of DIY stuff, the day I purchased my bike, I sat in on a two-hour maintenance class put on by our local bike shop.  One of the things that the instructor mentioned was using a large rubberband to close the front brake when parking your bike, especially against a wall, so if it happens to get bumped that the wheels won’t roll causing to bike to fall over.  I thought that was an engenious idea.  I wasn’t crazy about using a rubberband, so I sought out another solution using some of my wife’s sewing materials.  I took a 1″ wide strip of heavy-duty elastic and made a loop (much like a rubberband).  Works like a charm.  Every time I park my bike, I put this strap on the front brake and my bike stays nice and secure.

Other Wish List Items

Seems that like with hobbies, none of this stuff is cheap.  Just trying to make the purchase of this bike pay for itself is likely to take me most of the summer.  On that note, regarding my gas mileage/savings, I filled up on Sunday, the 6th with 19.485 gallons at $4.29/gallong for a total of $83.77.  As of today, Friday, the 25th, I have only traveled a total of 174 miles and my gas guage is just under a half a tank.  For the month of July, I have driven to work 6 days, 2 days of vacation/holiday, 1 day sick, and 10 days commute by bike.  Upon my next fill up I’ll be able to determine my gas mileage in the pickup and THEN I’ll be able to determine how much money I’ve saved on gas.  Of course, that saving has already been consumed by the purchase of the bike, but hey…  my ROI is looking pretty sweet so far!

So back to my wish list times…  One of the next things I want to acquire is a bike computer, a set of fenders, a good air pump for my garage, a maintenance rack would be nice, a pannier bag, and another pair or two of padded biker shorts.  I also want to begin considering some sort of wet weather gear.  I already have a hi-viz rain jacket, but I need something for the lower portion now.

So, just like my photography hobby, this stuff just isn’t cheap!  There’s always some sort of accessory that you’ll want to get.

I’d be interested to know…  how many other are actively riding more these days?  Not necessarily commuting, but just getting out for a ride every now and then.  How frequent and how far are you traveling?

OK…  that’s it for now.  Dump over.  Time for me to get ready for my weekend.  More work on the deck!

Have a great weekend!