Corybantic

I would like to be able to take my bike up on the train or bus then ride home one or two days per week. I’ve thought about this before and looked at maps. 1) I never had street view 2) the google maps never had the re-route option in the past.

I just spent two hours pouring over my options. The link below is what I have come up with. Any thoughts?
http://maps.google.com/……

I’ve now ridden in most weather. Sunny, warm, cold, night, day, rain, freezing rain, and snow. So far I’m unfazed. My friends who work at Gore seem to know what they are doing, well except for the warmer rainy days. 🙂

I’ve figured out what clothes to wear in most weather. That was a big challenge. I was either too cold or too hot. I think over the next two weeks I’m going to set out to make my own face cover. Kinda like a bandana and a face mask in one. The other thing I need to make is shoe covers. The ones I have just don’t work.

I did have to convert my blue bike into the winter snow bike with studded tires. Today I picked up a new cassette and chain. I hope that stops the skipping in the smaller rear cogs.

I talked to Mary several weeks ago about selling my car. I don’t think she is totally sold on the idea, but she supports the decision.

Next we have some repairs we need to make to the yaris, the some cosmetic cleanup to the fit. Anyone want an ’08 Fit?

With the profit from selling the Fit I will be 1) purchasing a cargo bike from metrofiets in Portland, OR and 2) putting the balance into a family transportation fund.

While part of this is about saving money the bigger part is about only using the resources you really need. So I’ll establish a savings account in which I will put the proceeds of my car purchase, plus on a monthly basis the money I would have spent on gas, insurance, and maintenance. From this fund I’ll pay for my bikes, cycling clothing, cycling accessories, zip car, and public transportation. It will be interesting to see how much money is there in one year.

As for the metrofiet. I contacted Phil via email, from there we had a pleasant conversation and exchanged about a dozen email discussing options. We agreed on an estimate, and I submitted my deposit. Now comes the waiting. Although I got word the other day they purchased the steel and will begin making various components of the bike as they make batches.

That sounds like great progress, but I am still many months from being united with my new transportation awesomeness. It takes time to turn a pile of steel into a machine of beauty.

I am a few days from hitting 10 weeks with only using one car for our family. My Honda fit has not moved since September 30th, it’s brake rotors are even rusty.

Once I used Our car to get to the train station; that was due to a ride home the night before and resulted in a complicated dance of ferrying my bike back home. Thankful yet again for my brompton.

Once I drove all the way to work. I got up late one morning and wanted to get to work early due to issues we have been having. Turns out in hind site taking the bus would not have mattered. We learn.

Both of these times it was in our yaris. Only once have we truly needed two cars. This was last Saturday when Mary was visiting her friends in Baltimore and I needed to attend a funeral with elie. Zip car solved this shortage of wheels. The amazing thing is that in the 9 weeks of my experiment up to that point there was only ONE time in which we needed two cars.

The cold has actually been pleasant. I get lots of weird looks and questions when people realize I still ride my bike in the winter. I have nailed down my clothing choices for 35f and warmer. Still figuring out the range in between 25f and 35f. I think after today I have that figured out.

I am very comfortable riding at night, but in the past it has only been once in a while. After seeing so many under lit cyclists out there I have become more observant of my own visibility. I moved my head lamp onto my helmet some time ago, a good choice. Recently I added a little blinker to my backpack. I felt the blinker on my brompton while bright was just too low, about 17″ off the ground.

In addition I just ordered a new helmet mounted light called VIS 360. It has a rear light that attaches to the back of the helmet with built in lion battery. A small wire attaches to an LED head light at the front of the helmet. Several things attracted me to this. 1) one battery that charges with micro-USB. 2) side amber lights 3) attached to the helmet creates movement that motorists see more.

After I get this I will still use my old light as an on bike light as well as my bike mounted tail light. Redundancy is good, I almost went without a headlight once because I forgot to charge it, not again. I’ll let you know next week how the VIS 360 works.