Year End Commute Review

Been little over a year at the job, little over a year of saddling up at 7:10 every weekday morning. Had a few close calls, handful of angry drivers, couple dozen less than friendly words exchanged, bit of sign language here and there... All told, a good year of commuting; no injuries to report or serious bike problems, nothing too unsavory. It'd be great if I could report a dramatic decrease in the number of cars plugging the roads, especially considering the political climate, price of oil, and environmental impact but Americans are quite large, very selfish and exceedingly lazy so, oh, well.

The stats are good though, I clocked a little over 3600 miles purely on my rides to and from the office. Apparently this was enough to crown me the 'greenest' commuter at my organization. Woo go doe. I'm hoping for a little stiffer competition next year; considering that my commute of 6 miles each way really isn't very long there should be someone who could easily dethrone me. I hope so!

Spirit

I think this film really capture the essence of riding. Its not just about the bike, the location, or whatever is highlighted in the newest freeride flick, the spirit of biking is the simple desire to turn pedals and see where they take you. I find the more places my pedals take me, the more at ease I become.

Paying Winter Dues

Winter in the Pacific Northwest means two things; rain and darkness. As we near the darkest point of the season, the daylight hours have been squeezed down to about 8:15am to 4:30pm. What this means to the worker bees is that when we leave for our jobs in the morning its dark, and when we come home at night its dark. What this means to worker bees who commute on bikes is that our headlights' rechargable batteries get a constant workout.

Last week, with the death of my 7point's rear shock I was suddenly thrust into the market for a new rear squisher. I knew I didn't want to go coil again, even though I'd be giving up performance by not doing so. Eventually I found an excellent deal on a Rock Shox Pearl 3.1 and pulled the trigger. After receiving it I installed it this week and was happy to note that it weighed 1.5 pounds less than my previous coil shock. Not bad. Today Was my first chance to test it, and though the pouring rain did its best to dissuade me I did manage to ride for a while. The shock feels great and matches up with my Totem nicely. It feels good to run Rock Shox air front and rear, I'm starting to take a liking to this company again.

I'm glad Sabrina and I have another girl living with us right now. Being able to split the rent and utilities 3 ways is a huge help for the bike and savings budgets.

In other news, I created a blog for Nate, Sadie, and my bike film project. I've always liked the dynamic nature of a blog; being able to post content from a browser anywhere, add comments, and the auto-archiving abilities of the RSS script. If I was smart I would have set this current page up that way, and I still might in the future. Check it out: Bent Hanger Productions Blog

Bike Tales Update

The Epic and The Rip

57 Degrees, 3-6 Inches of Rain in 24 Hours

One of the fun parts about riding a single pivot trail bike with a single-piece swingarm is that if you hit a corner with sufficient speed, and apply enough power to the pedals at just the right moment you can make the bike "whip". By whip I mean the bike flexes on its main pivot whilst in the middle of the corner with pedal force applied before snapping back as you exit the corner. When riding on pavement the feeling is similar to having a flat tire due to the flex. I've nearly perfected this on flat, dry corners on my commutes home from work.

Because it takes a good deal of physical effort to snap the bike around corners, I need to have some motivation. This means I never whip in the mornings, ever. There is no motivation in contemplating a long day at work selling another 8 hours of my life for meager compensation. However, say its a Friday evening, and I know there is beer in the fridge, then BOOM! I've got the motivation and I'm snapping all the corners like a mad-man.