Work Free Wednesday

I've been trying to take a three day weekend for a few weeks now, but things always kept popping up at work until I last I ended up taking Wednesday off this week. So instead of a three day weekend, I only have to deal with a pair of two day work weeks--not a bad trade! In the end, Wednesday was a great day to head out riding.

I started my day off with some pre-breakfast comparo riding between the Surly:

and ye Olde Trek:

My intention was to do four laps of my Avery Park extended loop, two miles each, alternating between bikes. My hope was that it would help me decide which of these two very similar bikes I liked better. But that wasn't quite what happened.

Trek: Fixed, and 650B

I was getting closer to selling off my 650B wheelset, but decided to give it one last go. If I'm riding solo on the road, that usually means I'm on a fixed gear, or want to be on a fixed gear, so even my previous Trek single speed conversions haven't really given me a fair comparison to my ever faithful Cross Check. This time, it would be different: earlier in the week, I pulled the welded freehub off my beater 700c rear wheel, and fixified my 650B wheelset. I don't usually enjoy cracking into hubs, so I had been putting this job off, but it was actually pretty easy and satisfying to do. It was a good excuse to break out my cone wrenches, at least.

6:30 this morning, I was ready to hit the road to get a ride in before the soccer games started:

There's really not much to see here, but this freehub is welded shut. No longer free then, I guess... I shall deem it the fixedhub henceforth:

Ye Olde Trek Rides Again, with a Sella AnAntomica even

I spent some time in the garage last week changing my old Trek 620 from a fixed gear back to its stock configuration. My intention was to get it ready to sell, on my path to just three (or maybe four) bikes. But, and there's always a but, partway through the build I got the idea to put my Soma Oxford bar on there in place of the laughably narrow stock drop bars, as a sort of trial moustache bar.

My first try was a complete failure:

It's easy to see the reason why:

Ice Cream, You Scream... and Stonefield Park

We celebrated Mother's day, the sequel, with Jodi's mom today. We met up with her and Jodi's sister Ginger at the Velvet Ice Cream factory in Utica, Ohio.

Henry and Sam goofed around while we waited for everyone to show up:

 

I got all four big kids to pose by the old mill wheel:

and then we fed some ducks and possibly the largest goose I've ever seen:

Fixed in the Fog

With the boys at my parents and Kate likely to sleep in, I was looking forward to slipping out this morning for a nice road ride. Unfortunately, I woke up to dense fog, so I skipped the road and just did my loop through the Metro Park. I was on ye Old Trek 620:

Day 30: Success and Fame in Blogging

Thirty straight days of biking and blogging. They said it couldn't be done. I thought it couldn't be done. But as I write this post, ride done for the day, Wild Turkey close at hand, I'll have biked and blogged for every day in April. I rolled up a somewhat meager 120 miles for the month, which works out to an average of four miles per day.

That's the "success" bit.

Before I talk about the "fame" bit, let's go over tonight's ride. It was another of my famed head-to-head matchups, this time the venerable Cross Check up against the even more venerable Trek 620:

Four laps around Avery Park, two miles each, alternating bikes each lap.

Day 5: Books, and 100 Posts!

After the kid's soccer games this afternoon, I took ye Olde Trek and headed to the library in Dublin. I'm enjoying the Trek much more as a flat barred, fixed gear bike than I did as a drop barred, geared bike. It felt good to be out on a stripped down bike, surging with the cranks over the small rises along the way. Does it plane? Maybe, and if I think it does, that's good enough.

I stopped for a quick picture:

30 Days of Biking and Blogging

The hip thing to do in April for internet savvy cyclers is to pledge to ride every day in April. Biking bloggers take that one step further and vow to blog every day about it. Because, you know, there aren't enough pictures of bikes leaning against walls out there.

I can't make the pledge: I have a road trip scheduled with my brother over a long Easter weekend, and I won't have the hardware to ride or blog during that window. But, I'll do what I can to join in. Here's my picture of a bike against a wall:

Ride Reports: Trek 620 and Breezer

With our long winter maybe, finally, hopefully receding, I was able to get out today for a few quick rides. First up was my Trek 620. I picked this bike up about a month ago off the local Craigslist. Then, it looked like this: