Team Fernandez Bike Blog 2010

OK, so two items.  First, for some time now my bike seems to change gears depending on some cues (perhaps astrological, meteorological, pedological?) I am not aware of.  I click into different gears as needed, and then some time a bit later she decides to change; one gear at a time but frequently not.  This got to a point where I really gave my bike its own personality (thus, the “she” above) since my whims of clicking gears appeared to be incidental.  I discussed this with the family bike expert, my son Devon, who advised that there usually is a screw or something down by the derailluer.  Today, I saw a single nut holding the cable down there.  What I was not aware of was that this was under pressure, so releasing it completely springs everything into a new position.  I am happy to report that after some time, I was able to put it all back together and then left for a bike ride enjoying the same randomness in shifting that makes the experience so much fun. 

Speaking of fun, while zipping along a nice flat stretch flat out with crystal blue sky I caught a sign out of the corner of my eye and had to wheel back to see if it said what I thought it said.  Indeed, it did.  Clearly this was the road to my future retirement villa, so I snapped a shot for posterity.

OK, so last time I indicated that the next warm Saturday I would be out on the road for real.  Didn’t happen.  Its more than a month later and I decided that timing and weather was not going to cooperate so I went out for the first road tour of the season for me.  I very much enjoyed the ride as I have been looking forward to it for a long time.  That said, it was definitely just a beginning.  First, it was overcast, cold and windy enough that we should have already met the Obama administration renewable energy goals.  Tree pollen was in full force which made leaning over a hydrologic event.  Nevertheless, it was great to be out there.  I did a whopping 17 miles (yes, for those quantitatively gifted that is similar to Debbie’s 57 miles but with a slight modification of the first Arabic numeral) and when I got back I thought (a lot!) about the small white clam, small mozzarella, large chicken and garlic pizzas, and two house salads but decided to stick with a yogurt and some oatmeal.  I am sure my next entry will be much more impressive!

This is a relatively enlightened but marginally qualified post to this blog.  Yesterday, March 20, 2010, the day before someone turned 29 BTW, it was incredibly warm here in northern New England (upper 60’s F) and absolutely gorgeous.  Given this was the first day since last summer that felt this way and there were no other crises, it was a perfect opportunity to deal with some broken trees and items around the yard, which Mary and I did for the day.  Why does this relate to a bike blog, you ask?  Well, we started with outside stuff, then swept and organized the garage a bit, and the finale for this annual tradition is always blowing up the tires on the bikes.  Usually this entails a quick flirtation with a compressor and then replacing the dusty bikes in the corner.  However, since there is new inspiration for biking, this was a major and culminating event in the day.  The grandchildren seem to have newer and cleaner bikes (go figure), and their tire pressure was good.  There was more dust and grime on Mary’s and mine, but with a wipe down and some air, they are good to go.   Those new, obscenely priced puncture resistant tires I put on my bike last year held up well over the winter.  I did a liberating 0.05 miles in the driveway without a helmet and in boots, and then carefully put the bikes away.  The NEXT uncommitted Saturday that breaks 60 F will definitely be a day for the road!