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jinianYesterday I accomplished two things. I had sort of wanted to do more, but two things is a respectable number. I made cherry pie and shared it with friends (and it was really, really good, thanks to my homemade filling and Wim's wise advice in the matter of crust-making), and I performed Bicycle Maintenance.
I had a flat tire, so Wim showed me how to extract the tube from the tire. We put it underwater to search for leaks and found what looked like a large weak area, so we figured we should just get a new tube instead of trying to patch it. The nearby bike shop didn't have the right size tube because I have a kid's bike. Hmph. We had to go to Greenlake.
Gregg's Greenlake Cycle has got so much stuff. We were like geeks in a hardware store. (Oh. Wait. Never mind.) We managed to escape without too much damage to my bank balance, though.
So, after dealing with the tires, we used fun fun foaming degreaser [credit to Bax for recommending degreaser a while ago] on the gears and chain in the hopes of making the sticky chain links unstick. The little gears in the back, which I am sure have a name I don't know, were completely encrusted with dirt, and the gears in general were just all disgusting. I scrubbed 'em with a toothbrush and they're much better now. Just before going to bed, we sprayed things down with lube, and I hit the sticky links with it again this morning.
I made such good time to work. Who knew that a bike which is actually functional was so much easier to drive? (Though properly inflated tires transmit bouncing from rough road to the rider a lot more effectively, too.)
The cloud in the flawless blue sky, however, is my helmet. Wim finally convinced me to get a helmet, and even to wear it. *sigh* I want a forcefield around my head instead. Not only does the helmet make my head hot and my hair look silly, and not only do I have to remember to bring it and worry about places to put it, but I really hate having any compression on my neck. It gives me dizzy, hazy-feeling headaches, which is not something I want when biking. I'm just wearing the straps really loose for now in the hope that I'll get used to them; I understand why they don't want you to do that, but I figure some helmet is better than no helmet.
Maybe I'll eventually get to this point. But do I want to?
I had a flat tire, so Wim showed me how to extract the tube from the tire. We put it underwater to search for leaks and found what looked like a large weak area, so we figured we should just get a new tube instead of trying to patch it. The nearby bike shop didn't have the right size tube because I have a kid's bike. Hmph. We had to go to Greenlake.
Gregg's Greenlake Cycle has got so much stuff. We were like geeks in a hardware store. (Oh. Wait. Never mind.) We managed to escape without too much damage to my bank balance, though.
So, after dealing with the tires, we used fun fun foaming degreaser [credit to Bax for recommending degreaser a while ago] on the gears and chain in the hopes of making the sticky chain links unstick. The little gears in the back, which I am sure have a name I don't know, were completely encrusted with dirt, and the gears in general were just all disgusting. I scrubbed 'em with a toothbrush and they're much better now. Just before going to bed, we sprayed things down with lube, and I hit the sticky links with it again this morning.
I made such good time to work. Who knew that a bike which is actually functional was so much easier to drive? (Though properly inflated tires transmit bouncing from rough road to the rider a lot more effectively, too.)
The cloud in the flawless blue sky, however, is my helmet. Wim finally convinced me to get a helmet, and even to wear it. *sigh* I want a forcefield around my head instead. Not only does the helmet make my head hot and my hair look silly, and not only do I have to remember to bring it and worry about places to put it, but I really hate having any compression on my neck. It gives me dizzy, hazy-feeling headaches, which is not something I want when biking. I'm just wearing the straps really loose for now in the hope that I'll get used to them; I understand why they don't want you to do that, but I figure some helmet is better than no helmet.
Maybe I'll eventually get to this point. But do I want to?
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Date: 2001-07-09 09:05 am (UTC)b) maybe you can find a specially fitted helmet?
1) the only time my helmet ever came in handy was when I smacked my head on the thing I was attaching my bike to and it radiated ALL around my head instead of just giving me a bruise in one place
2) pedant girl will notice if I have a 1) without a 2)