Tune UP

I had the guys at Austin Bikes tune up my handy commuter last week. In less than month I will have had that bike for two years. I don't want to exaggerate (too much), but I've put somewhere around 20,000miles on this awesome machine. machine. When I first got the bike I wanted to maintain an accurate mileage count, but with computer problems I lost track of some miles and gave up on the idea of exactness. But here's another way to look at it. I bought that bike solely for commuting and traveling/touring. But wait let me backtrack. I had a comfort bike before that as my commuter bike. It couldn't hold up to the demands of the road and I knew I was going to travel across the state one day and I know that I want to travel more in the future. So to get back on track, I live 10.1 miles from where I work, therefore I ride 20 miles a day in commuting and I won't count the other rides like to the store and an occasional recreation ride. If I were to ride 20 miles a day 4 days a week and ride at least 45 weeks in the year (4X4X45=14,400). That's over 14 thousand miles a year. I actually work about 50 weeks a year. After looking at it this way, I think my estimate of 20,000 miles is low. I could very well have over 28,000 miles tallied.

Thanks to Sol's keen eye, it has been discovered that the rear rim had developed cracks around the spoke holes. So we ordered up new wheel parts for them to rebuild hopefully by next week. This is a very small replacement for how much service I've received from this awesome green machine.

My other bike, my El Paso bike, my road racing bike is calling for attention too. While cleaning it up Saturday I found that the bottom bracket cable guide cratered. A very small thing indeed as long as it gets fixed before any more riding. Trans Mountain Pass is calling me, so getting it fixed is a priority this coming weekend.

The weather in Austin is warm and humid, riding in it is a gift.