Category: Cycling

Small Accident

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Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.8, 1/100 sec, ISO800
 “Tacoed” Cedar Park, 2020

A bit of bad news today: my bike is out of action for a few weeks.

I usually keep my bike in the garage, in front of my car. We have a 2-by-4 on the ground to keep the car going too far and hitting the bike, but a normally-careful teen driver in our household came in too fast and went over the wood and plowed into my bike, pinning the wheel against the small curb in our garage. I was in my home office when I heard the crash, and I initially thought he just knocked the bike over, but upon closer inspection, I noticed that the wheel was “tacoed”, which means bent in the shape of a taco.

I took the wheel to the bicycle shop and they said it was beyond repair and unfortunately they wouldn’t have any replacement wheels for two months. 😮 If you didn’t know, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a huge demand for bicycles and subsequent shortage available bikes. And that shortage also extends to bicycle parts. Luckily I was able to find a rim on Ebay that appears to have the same dimensions as my damaged one, so I am hoping it will be any easy swap. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it won’t arrive for another week-and-a-half, which means no evening bicycle rides for a while. 😞

Still, in the grand scheme of things, it’s not a huge (nor expensive) deal. And it’s the first damage that my 20-year-old bicycle has suffered, so I should consider myself fortunate!

Cycling POV

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“Cycling POV” Cedar Park, 2020

I was inspired by Two Wheel Cruise and Vietnamese Girl Wandering the World and wore my Victure action camera while I went on my evening bicycle ride. My camera doesn’t have stabilization, so it’s pretty shaky. If you are prone to motion-sickness like I am, I don’t think you should watch. 🤢 But it was fun to make and edit. Maybe sometime in the future I will get a GoPro like the youtubers and can make better videos. Until then, I’ll stick with still images.

Evening Bicycle Rides

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Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/4.5, 1/100 sec, ISO250
 “Uphill” Cedar Park, 2020

こんばんは。How’s it going?

Many of you know, but I have been doing a 365 project for a while now, and it kind of connects to this blog in that my daily photo becomes the subject matter. Sometimes, it’s the reverse, where I make a daily blog post and then take a photo. But usually the photos will just be the literal snapshot of something that happened that day, and I’ll add a few words.

Because of this process, my posts tend to follow whatever hobbies I am into at the time and right now, going out for bicycle rides around the neighborhood is something I have more of an interest now since we all are staying at home almost all the time.

It got me thinking of a bicycle ride I went on in 1982 with a group from the YMCA. Two friends and I joined a 9-day bicycle tour that started in San Francisco, and ended at the YMCA in our hometown of Torrance. It was really fun, but surprisingly I hadn’t thought about it too much since then. Maybe I’ll write about my memories of that in another post, as I managed to find some old photos of the trip when I visited my parents last Christmas.

But for now, I’ll just continue with some photos I took on tonight’s ride. 🚲

I hope you had a nice day! またね～

Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/100 sec, ISO400
 “Seat and Bags” Cedar Park, 2020
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/4, 1/680 sec, ISO200
 “Neighborhood Construction” Cedar Park, 2020

Evening Bicycle Ride to the Little Free Library

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Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/5.6, 1/180 sec, ISO200
 “Sunset” Cedar Park, 2020

Tonight’s bike ride took me to the elementary school on the other side of the neighborhood. While riding around the front of the school, I noticed that they have a Little Free Library there. That makes three of these libraries that I know of in our neighborhood. I love them!

Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/5.6, 1/100 sec, ISO500
 “Little Library” Cedar Park, 2020

I didn’t see any interesting books, but I did notice the cool handle on the door. It’s appropriate since the school mascot is a ray. 😀

Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/5.6, 1/100 sec, ISO1000
 “Ray” Cedar Park, 2020

I hope you had a nice day!

Bicycle Maintenance

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Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.8, 1/125 sec, ISO1600
 “Cleaned Up” Cedar Park, 2020

During my lunch break I cleaned the drive train on my bicycle. My Kona Blast is 20 years young and this is the first time I’ve actually cleaned the chain, cassette, and crankset so I was looking forward giving the bike a little love. I used a degreaser and stiff brush to work all the grime loose, then rinsed it all off with the hose. I don’t have any proper bicycle lube, so I used transmission fluid, which is a popular lubricant for motorcycle chains. It’s also a good cleaner, which I found out because after wiping the excess fluid, the cassette was shiny! I forgot what it looked like new. 😆

By the way, I removed the “dork disk”, which is the plastic piece attached to the spokes by the cassette. It serves little purpose, and it was yellow with age and cracked off dramatically when I tried to remove it. 😊

Time to ride!