bicycles | Second Bike Ride

Went biking again today; the ride out was the same, but the ice cream parlor is closed on Mondays, which is a travesty.

I decided that the gearshift problem was annoying me too much -- I couldn't switch to the hardest gear in front (the chain wheel?), which meant that every downhill was for coasting. Now, coasting is fun, but it can get a little boring, and I kept wanting to go faster. My aerobic capacity has never been the best, but I have enough leg strength that I usually spend most of my bike rides on the gears that aren't working. So instead of coming home, we took the bikes in for their spring tuneup and walked home. (That's 5 miles of biking and 2 miles of walking, so respectable. But no ice cream.)

Sadly, it will be a week, but I figured that the wait time wasn't going to get any shorter any time soon. (Yes, I could have left a deposit, taken my bike, and brought it back in a week for the tune-up. But that seemed complicated and I have an excess of stress as it is.) The gearshift is busted and the bottom bracket is loose. I may also try to retrieve my half-clipless-half-normal pedals from a friend. I never got the hang of clipless pedals, but I would like to.

So, no biking to ice cream every day this week. :( This also slows down the adjusting-to-the-bicycle-seat program. But it's probably best to get the tune-up out of the way, especially with the gearing issues. It's kind of disturbing to go down a minor hill and have no traction on the pedals at all.