ClubJuggler

The rear shock on my mountain bike hasn’t been doing much lately so when I took the bike in for a different repair recently the mechanic suggested I needed to get it fixed.  After researching the options and talking to some friends, I decided to send it to Push Industries and have them do a “Factory Rebuild” and a “Factory Tuning”.  I removed the shock from my bike last night and sent it out today. It is scheduled to arrive on Friday and be worked on starting next Monday.  Hopefully it will be done soon and back so that I can ride my bike again before my birthday comes up at the end of the month.

Originally published at clubjuggler.com. You can comment here or there.

Tonight and this past tuesday night I was at the local Red Cross office getting certified in CPR/AED and First Aid. Now, with those certifications, I'm planning on joining the National Mountain Bike Patrol. Anything that helps get me out on the bike more often. :-)

"Crazy Bike" on Google Video
Amazing video of a girl doing really astounding things on a bike! Filmed 2000 or 2001 in Wuerzburg, Germany. I wonder if anyone at the IJA Fest I'm going to next week knows who this is. One of my goals at the IJA fest next week is to learn the basics of unicycling, but this girl basically does unicycling tricks (and more) with a bicycle. Definitely a must see!

I've talked to several people who've heard this story, but I had only read it once so I wanted to make sure I got the specifics. Here is the original news story about the cyclist, Ryan Lipscomb, whose head was run over by a truck. His helmet undoubtedly saved his life. In addition, other links have pictures of the helmet. As you can see from the pictures, it didn't run over the middle of his head (that would have most likely been fatal) but it did run over the back part of the helmet.

• Original story in the Madison, WI news
• AP Article
• A short piece in the Boston Herald
• A larger picture of the helmet

Out of curiosity, I was looking at at the TTA's website to see if there were any bus routes from home to work (in the interest of possibly saving some gas and perhaps biking a bit, since the buses all have bike racks on them). This was one of the routes it gave me: (route). Look at the parts I put red boxes around. Somehow, I don't think walking down I-40 for 3.67 miles is really that good of an idea, but maybe that's why I see some people doing it sometime!

Apparently I missed Drive your Bike to Work Day[1] which was yesterday. But, today I have my bike on my car. I was planning on going biking after work, but since I managed to forget the box with all my bike supplies (you know, little things like helmet, shoes, gloves, glasses....) I will instead be going home before biking, so for me, today might as well be Drive your Bike to Work Day. (Check out the pictures of the hazards of low clearance!)


[1] Yes, it's satire. Since this is Bike Month and this week, specifically, is Ride your Bike to Work week it's not too surprising. :-)

Moved my bike computer and lights over to my new bike tonight. Measured how far the tire goes in one revolution by positioning the valve on the floor at the end of a 2x4, then getting on the bike and moving it slowly until the valve was again at the very bottom of the wheel. At that point, I clamped down on the front brake and carefully got off and marked where against the 2x4 the valve was positioned. Measuring it comes to just slightly over 79.5 inches. Google tells me that's 2019.3 mm, so since it was slightly more than that I rounded up to 2020 and programmed the bike computer with that.

I was looking back at the measurement of my previous bike and comparing the two values. The previous bike I had measured at 2057.4 mm, but I did that one without me sitting on the bike. It's interesting that this one is almost an inch and a half shorter than the previous one. I wonder how much of that has to do with the fact that I was sitting on the bike while measuring this time and how much of it is the tires. These tires are '26" x 2.14" (49/52)' (I don't know what the 49/52 means...) and the previous tires are 26" x 2.1" (47/52). If someone can figure that out, please let me know.

Anyway, I've now got my bike computer, my rear tail light and a handlebar light mount on the bike. Hopefully this week I'll get to ride some and can start posting bike logs again.

( Lunchtime ride at Regency )

My REI dividend came yesterday, on my birthday, so today I used it to buy myself a new bike: a 2006 Marin East Peak from the REI in Cary where it was on clearance (being last year's model). Now I just need to figure out a time to ride it! Check out the specs on it in this pdf file.

( Bike Log )

( Log from lunch bike ride )

It's been a while since I've posted anything, so here's a catch up post.

( Biking adventures )
( KDE on the mac )
( Geocaching )
( Music )

So, anyway, that's what I've been doing lately. Maybe sometime I'll actually try to update this journal more regularly so I don't have these long catch-up posts. :-)