Tis the season...

...to get lip from co-workers for coming into the office in shorts.

I'm not a moron. I know I'm fugly. It's way too warm to be wearing jeans on the bike in the morning, though. Two separate people mentioned my attire (a black t-shirt and black loose-in-the-legs mountain bike shorts that look like swim trunks) this morning. I threatened to start coming in wearing a racing lycra get-up if they didn't back off. I'm so bad!

A mocha and a little bowl of Malt-O-Meal is fueling my morning, post-commute. I had a nice ride this morning, although my legs are a bit tired from all the riding yesterday. I beat the 6:15 bus to the bus stop but I left at 5:50. I wasn't blazingly fast, I just left early. The bus usually gets to my usual bus stop at about 6:07 or so. I could see it coming up the road south of the viaduct that I take. I could have just pulled over onto the sidewalk, waited, and flagged it down. There'd be no point in that, though. I like riding my bike!

I forgot to mention yesterday that I had another mechanical nuisance while riding the trail. My Outlook is a cheapish bike, a notch above the $150 bikes on the bottom rack at your favorite discount warehouse (Target, K-Mart, Wal*Mart, etc) not to mention that it's 9 years old (with under 1000 miles on it). Original retail price was somewhere in the $200-$250 range, placing it below "entry level" at most bike shops, which don't often sell a single new adult bike model under $300 or $350. That said, it's not exactly built like a tank. You can view the specs and components here and clearly see that it probably wasn't built for the daily (ab)use of a 200+ pound guy using it for commuter duty. I upgraded the brakes (Jagwire), Pedals (Shimano PD-M505), Bottom bracket (had my bike shop put stronger bearings in), Wheels (including a Freehub rear) and cassette (SRAM 8-Speed 11/30). For the most part, it's finally a sturdy ride.

So, back to last night's mechanical problem... I started to get another bizarre noise every pedal rotation. I look down and about 3 links of my chain are hopping up and off the chainring. I shift to the granny ring and it goes away. I shift to the big ring and it also goes away. Back to the middle ring and it starts acting wierd again. I figured I had a bent or broken tooth, so I pulled over.

One of the screws had come out of the cheapo plastic bash guard, and jammed in between my middle and outer chainrings. I tried to screw it back into place, but it wouldn't stay. I removed the faulty screw, and all was well again. I checked the other screws to make sure they were still snug.

This morning, another one started coming loose. I am going to super-glue them into their holes tonight. If it continues to happen, I'll probably have to remove the bash guard, which I only keep on because it also keeps my pant legs out of the chain.

So, that was my morning commute!