Sunday, August 30, 2015

I want to ride my bicycle... (not)

I recently acquired this Nishiki fixed-gear bicycle (someone left it at work). It is super light, and rides really smooth. I've never been much into cycling because it always seemed to hurt my knees. Well, the other day Jane went out for a run before I got home from work. I decided to take the bike down on the rivergreenway when I got home, partly to make sure she was okay, but also as a chance to try it out.

I took out kind of slow, trying to get used to not having brakes and the pedals constantly turning. I went down the sidewalk along Lower Huntington, then made my way down the new ramp onto the trail. It went fairly well, and like I said, it pedaled very smooth and easy. At one point there was a young lad coming towards me on his bike and he was going all over the trail, so I just stopped because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to if he jutted in front of me. Other than that I didn't have any issues with the lack of brakes.

So I tooled along at a nice slow pace, and finally found Jane. I followed her as she returned home until I was about 2 1/2 miles into the ride when I heard something hit the ground. A nut holding on the left "thing" that the pedal bolts into came off. I may have lost some other parts too, I'm not sure, but at any rate I ended up just walking the bike the rest of the way home.

The worst part is... that night my knees were pretty sore, and even sorer the next day. I also couldn't figure out why my butt hurt the next day, until it finally dawned on me that it was from that stinking bicycle seat! So... I'm sure my body would get used to those things, but in addition to the fact that the bike now needs some repair, and that I would also kind of prefer it not be fixed-gear, I'm not sure if I'm going to do much cycling or not.