Thursday, February 23, 2012

New adventures in urban cycling

As has been the case semi-regularly since I moved over to Harvest, I escaped for a bike ride yesterday to take advantage of great weather. Fifty degrees, not a ton of wind, sunshine. Perfect for February.

I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to try to catch the UP group, but ended up missing them by a few minutes. Instead I decided to head north to Ponca Hills, do a few laps and head back to the office with about two hours on the clock.

Just shy of Florence Blvd., I felt my rear tire go squishy. The tubeless setup didn't seal, which left me with a decision to make: tube it and roll on there or pump it up and hope that it seals. I opted to head back downtown to Greenstreet and see if I could get it to seal.

Yeah, that's a no. So I tubed it, cleaned up, bought a couple of extra tubes and rolled on.

I made the most of my remaining time, riding as hard as I could to make the time worth it. How hard did I ride?

I passed a guy on a motorized bike.

I was coming down Center around 44th Street and heard something that sounded like a chainsaw up ahead. But all I could see was a bike a couple hundred yards away. When I got closer, I saw the back wheel wobbling like crazy as the sound amplified.

To be fair, he was going OK – low 20s. But amateur moped builders of the world, take note: don't use a damn Magna for your frankenbike death trap. I give that bike two weeks, maybe less, before it self-destructs.

Anyway, it ended up being a solid ride. Or solid enough, considering the start. It looks like tonight is a brief trainer workout, given the weather and the schedule at work. Eh, it happens sometimes.

2 comments:

Shim said...

Sorry we missed you, shoot a text next time we'll wait for ya.

bryan said...

It's my own fault — I decided way too late to get down there in time.