Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Beyond Chilly

Last night, I took apart my Ghetto Studded front wheel to use on The Goat. I moved the rest of the rolling stock from the taco wheel to this reasonably true wheel and got it put back on The Goat. This morning, I had to do a lot of tweaking to my brakes before I left. The wheel is in round, and it's true, but it's OFF CENTER (haha, dished?) by about 3/8".

9°F on my way to the bus, 7°F downtown. That's brisk, baby! I was pretty cold right out of the door, which meant I needed to pick up the pace to get warm. My gear worked well, but only because of the hammerfest on Quivira. I kept a sustained 25 MPH on The Goat for about a mile south of the viaduct; Here, I really wished I'd worn some goggles or glasses. All in all, though, it was a comfortable ride, but my usual lethargic pace would have probably resulted in a cold, cold ride. The cold temperatures did a number on my brake pads, too. They hardened up and started grinding as they picked up bits of rim material. Have I mentioned that I'm sick of the amount of extra work I have to put into my bike this time of year?

For those who want to know my gear choice:

Thermal pants under jeans, one layer of cotton socks (I should have worn wool) inside some nice, loose-fitting shoes, a tee shirt up top with my heavy ski coat. Heavy full-finger ski gloves kept my digits from freezing (I won't say kept them warm), and my thermax balaclava did the trick for my face and ears while allowing me to re-breathe some of my breath's natural moisture and warmth.

Ugh. Where's my coffee?

Random Tunage:
The Pharcyde - Passing Me By
Roni Size - Sorry For You

1 comment:

Apertome said...

That sure is cold. My 20s commute this morning felt great, although I was a little overdressed. We haven't had single-digits for a while and I'm hoping we're done with that for the winter. It's hard to say, things have gotten pretty unpredictable lately.

Maybe you should take this as a sign it's time to upgrade the wheels on the Goat?

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