Thursday, June 27, 2013

To Work and Back

Sort of.
In a roundabout way.
I mean I didn't go like straight to work like I would if I was going to work for real, this was mostly a let's see what it would be like it I did go to work.
If you know what I mean.
Anyways, my new tires came in the other day.
I had to change out my old tires cause they looked like this:



















My best guess is that they got maybe 500 miles on them.
The Schwalbes cut easily as you can see and they also started to well, crackle.
Not the whole tire, just parts and only the front.
The rear looks okay, so I'll just save it as an emergency spare.
I replaced them with these:



















Well after putting them on, I was all hot to take them out for a spin.
So off I went!
Headed east today, towards work, just to see how hard it would be to actually commute by bicycle.
Prevaricating Garmin info here.
It's a difficult route.
Mostly because of the roads involved which are heavily used by really big trucks and the lack of a bicycle lane in some spots:



















Where there is a lane, it's a bit crazy with all sorts of big rigs passing right next to you.
The surface conditions vary from okay to bad to mountain bike only and you have to keep an eyeball on what's in front.
Doable though.
I was kinda going here and there so my best guess is that it's about six miles out.
I came back using a different route which was just as bad, though not used much by the heavy duty industrial stuff.
Aloha Tower is about where the bicycle lane ends:

























From there it's on the sidewalk for a quarter mile or so then into the park.
You could take the road, but it's like the main line into Waikiki so again, it's heavily used.
At the beach:

























Point Panics on a manageable day.
From here, I would say it's less than a mile from school.
I did detour through Ala Moana Beach Park since I never road on the path that goes around the park.
It's nice, but it's concrete so it's go those joints.
The Continental GP4000s tires are nice.
Seems a bit smoother and they handled the rough surfaces well.
A fast inspection revealed no bad cuts or anything even though I was riding in the gravel and broken glass on the side of the road.
I gotta say, I really really like the way the Deda is set up right now.
More on that later.
I almost forgot!
Yesterday I also got this:



















My new Road ID.
The old one had my previous address on it so it was basically out of date.
I took off the address line and added the "save my bicycle" on the bottom.
I hope I never have to use it.
So anyways, I've been trying to figure out a safe way to pack like four thousand dollars worth of camera crap on the bicycle.
Hell I don't know if it would even be safe or if the stuff would vibrate and rattle into small pieces.
Crashing would also be on the expensive side.
More on this later.

3 comments:

RANTWICK said...

Please save my bicycle! Awesome. You are a classic.

Steve A said...

Contis RULE!

limom said...

Rantwick, actually I got the idea from someplace else I forget where.
I'm still a classic.
I think.

Steve A, yes they do!
For now.
By the way, are you gonna change the name of yer blog?