Some notes about the Bicycle Totals area. The Front+Rear miles is a stat on the number of miles on the rear tire. I rotate my tires when I purchase a new tire. The way I do it is that if I am replacing a worn rear tire I put the brand new tire on the front and take the front tire and place it on the rear.
Well I picked up the new wheels Saturday! It was a sad way to get a new bicycle. This the the fourth bicycle I have bought in the past 20+ years and not once did I buy it because I wanted a new bicycle. The last time I bought a bicycle just to buy a bicycle was in 1989 24 years ago! That was a Trek 520. Which was stolen in 1995 when I bought a Mongoose Mountain Bike which was never really what I wanted but... Then that was hit by a car with me on it and destroyed in 2002. At which point I bought another Trek 520 which was stolen last week on June 20th. So now I bought a Surley Disc Trucker in 2013. So 1989 was the very last time I bought a bicycle just to buy a bicycle. Every Time since then my bicycle was stolen or destroyed in an accident.
Here are some pics of the new ride. It is not complete yet I am still waiting on the headlights and taillights to come from Amazon.
So the first ride is tomorrow. I have been lazy about locking the bike up at home. That will now end. Being as it is near impossible to secure it properly I will be using the small room outside that we have a freezer in. I'll be hanging it on the wall and keeping that door locked. It is amazing how much more money the bicycle cost after 11 years. Granted this is not the Trek 520 but the Trek 520 price was the same as this one. So the bicycle cost 50% more than what I paid for it in 2002. With basically no changes. Looking forward to the next 100,000 miles on this bike I only had 64,192 on the previous Trek 520 I plan on making 100,000 on this Surley.
Well since my steed was stolen I have begun the search for a new bike. It is down to three models. The Surley Disc Trucker, Charge Filter Hi Cyclocross Bike, and the GT Wheels4Life Peace Tour Commuter.
These are in order of what I want and also in price range. Sad to say but the Trek 520 lost out. Not only is the thing more expensive then all these bikes it lacks something I decided I needed on the new bicycle. that is Disc brakes.
I really like the Surley here is a picture of it.
What is shocking is that on a casual look it looks so much like the Trek 520 I had. It's color is very similar. Here is a picture of my stolen ride
So it will be hard for the casual user to that sees me to even realize I have a different bike. Of course once I get my new panniers they will not be the same. Nothing about panniers remains the same after 11 years.
As far as I am concerned once I have made my decision and I hope I get enough from the insurance company to buy the Surley!
Well my bicycle was stolen last night sometime between the hours of Midnight and 7am.
Above is my stolen bicycle. It had 64,193 miles and I spent about 4,100 hours riding it over the last 11 years. It was a good bike and it will be missed. Needless to say until I get a replacement I will not be posting to this blog for a while.
Well it happened again where I had to deal with a driver that felt they just had to pass me. Pass me in a way the broke the law. Then once in front they slow down. So I sped up and caught this person and passed them back. I was just 1 MPH over the speed limit after getting around them. I never saw them again.
One thing that really irks me is when cyclist breaks the law. I hear every cyclist complain how cars don't respect us. Cars yell at me. Cars tell me I don't belong. Well if you want respect you need to go above and beyond to earn that respect. Ask any car driver about a cyclist and this is what they will say.
They run red lights.
They run stop signs.
They pass at lights.
They don't obey any laws.
Why do they say these things?? Well lets start with the cyclist in this video. He blows off the red light. I mean When I get there it takes about 8 seconds for the light to sense me and turn green so why did he have to run the light??
Maybe he just doesn't understand how light signals work and how to trip them. After all most people think the sensors sense weight. Well they don't sense weight the most common technique is the inductive loop. An inductive loop is simply a coil of wire embedded in the road's surface. To install the loop, they lay the asphalt and then come back and cut a groove in the asphalt with a saw. The wire is placed in the groove and sealed with a rubbery compound. You can often see these big rectangular loops cut in the pavement because the compound is obvious.
Inductive loops work by detecting a change of inductance.
So... Let's say you take a coil of wire perhaps 5 feet in diameter, containing five or six loops of wire. You cut some grooves in a road and place the coil in the grooves. You attach an inductance meter to the coil and see what the inductance of the coil is. Now you park a car over the coil and check the inductance again. The inductance will be much larger because of the large steel object positioned in the loop's magnetic field. The car parked over the coil is acting like the core of the inductor, and its presence changes the inductance of the coil.
A traffic light sensor uses the loop in that same way. It constantly tests the inductance of the loop in the road, and when the inductance rises, it knows there is a something waiting! The best type is the double loop two circles that overlap in the middle. If you put your bike right over the center it has an easier time sensing you. Oh no I said get in the middle of the road!
Coming home from the dentist this morning I was able to hit 38MPH on the small down hill after I leave there. The rocking you seeing the video is not because I can't ride straight. I was pedaling trying to get the speed up high. Once I say that's good enough is smooths right out while I am coasting.
But right after that light some bozo decided he was going to lay on the horn to let me know something. I have no clue what the issue was. I am legally entitled to the road your not even in my lane so why?????
In my 30+ years of riding this is the first time I have seen this move. A car passing the cars that are passing me on a two lane road with a short left turn lane. As you can see in this video the guy is going around the people going around me.
What is not visible in this video is the havoc that is caused when he needs to merge back in to lane of traffic. It looked from my point of view that he was going to cause and accident. Since the video does not pick that up you can't enjoy what was going on.
All this to save??? Maybe 10 seconds?? Yes people are willing to cause an accident and maybe die over 10 seconds savings???
