This looks AMAZING!
Tag: bicycle
Running Slowly
“Lawn Sign” Cedar Park, 2020
While I was out running, I was thinking of the different modes of travel and how you see different things with each.
For instance, in a car, your vision is framed by the glass viewport, and are very disconnected from where you are at (especially if you are listening to music).
On a motorcycle, the glass viewport is essentially removed, the music is gone (unless you use earbuds), and now you are exposed to smells and temperature, the noise of the engine, and also the vibrations and leaning angles.
On a bicycle, you add the audio of the environment you are in, but more importantly, traveling at the slow speed, you can look in all directions and observe things more closely without fear of crashing. And stopping quickly to take a photo is now an option.
Lastly, walking/running allows a extra bit of mobility in that it is easy to stop instantly, or hop on the sidewalk. On a bike, you may have to turn around and backtrack a few yards, or dismount to get a better viewing angle. This is actually significant to me. For instance, I’ve seen the sign in the photo above while riding my bike, and thought that I wanted to take a photo, but then I am already past it and would have to turn around. Add to that my laziness, and I pass on it. But while running, I will just stop for a few seconds, snap a photo with my phone, and then be on my way.
But even not taking photos, while biking or running, it’s fun to wave at other people, stop and watch the birds when you hear them chirping, or admire a bunch of wildflowers. I guess this is the appeal of the “slow life”. 🙂
Speaking of the photo, I am encouraged by the sign in front of the house. I’ve seen several other signs, some homemade, which have similar messages of support. It’s wonderful.
Evening Bicycle Rides
“Uphill” Cedar Park, 2020
こんばんは。How’s it going?
Many of you know, but I have been doing a 365 project for a while now, and it kind of connects to this blog in that my daily photo becomes the subject matter. Sometimes, it’s the reverse, where I make a daily blog post and then take a photo. But usually the photos will just be the literal snapshot of something that happened that day, and I’ll add a few words.
Because of this process, my posts tend to follow whatever hobbies I am into at the time and right now, going out for bicycle rides around the neighborhood is something I have more of an interest now since we all are staying at home almost all the time.
It got me thinking of a bicycle ride I went on in 1982 with a group from the YMCA. Two friends and I joined a 9-day bicycle tour that started in San Francisco, and ended at the YMCA in our hometown of Torrance. It was really fun, but surprisingly I hadn’t thought about it too much since then. Maybe I’ll write about my memories of that in another post, as I managed to find some old photos of the trip when I visited my parents last Christmas.
But for now, I’ll just continue with some photos I took on tonight’s ride. 🚲
I hope you had a nice day! またね～
“Seat and Bags” Cedar Park, 2020
“Neighborhood Construction” Cedar Park, 2020
Snapshots From the Evening Ride
“Reflection” Cedar Park, 2020
“Hike & Bike” Cedar Park, 2020
“Bicycle Silhouette” Cedar Park, 2020
“Goodbye Sun” Cedar Park, 2020
Evening Bicycle Ride to the Little Free Library
“Sunset” Cedar Park, 2020
Tonight’s bike ride took me to the elementary school on the other side of the neighborhood. While riding around the front of the school, I noticed that they have a Little Free Library there. That makes three of these libraries that I know of in our neighborhood. I love them!
“Little Library” Cedar Park, 2020
I didn’t see any interesting books, but I did notice the cool handle on the door. It’s appropriate since the school mascot is a ray. 😀
“Ray” Cedar Park, 2020
I hope you had a nice day!
Bicycle Maintenance
“Cleaned Up” Cedar Park, 2020
During my lunch break I cleaned the drive train on my bicycle. My Kona Blast is 20 years young and this is the first time I’ve actually cleaned the chain, cassette, and crankset so I was looking forward giving the bike a little love. I used a degreaser and stiff brush to work all the grime loose, then rinsed it all off with the hose. I don’t have any proper bicycle lube, so I used transmission fluid, which is a popular lubricant for motorcycle chains. It’s also a good cleaner, which I found out because after wiping the excess fluid, the cassette was shiny! I forgot what it looked like new. 😆
By the way, I removed the “dork disk”, which is the plastic piece attached to the spokes by the cassette. It serves little purpose, and it was yellow with age and cracked off dramatically when I tried to remove it. 😊
Time to ride!
Evening Rides Around the Neighborhood
“Evening Ride” Cedar Park, 2020
Lately I’ve been going on evening bicycle rides around the neighborhood. They are so relaxing since I take it pretty easy. And I love the granny gears on my bike. It’s like magic powering up those hills. 😊
I spent a little more time removing one last sticker from the frame and now it’s nice and clean-looking. There’s still some gummy residue which is really hard to remove completely, even using Goo-gone and my motorcycle degreaser. But it’s looking good! I just left one Kona sticker on the seat tube, and an International Space Station sticker on the fork. I’d love to find some new Kona stickers for the down tube, but want to keep it simple, such as plain black lettering.
Since we don’t drive much during the COVID-19 lock-down, I use the bicycle to collect the mail from our neighborhood mailbox. The panniers can hold a lot, which was fortunate today since a big yearbook-sized package arrived for Koa. But no problem! I loaded it into the pannier and then went on the rest of my ride.
It’s nice to ride at sunset (I try to be back before dark) since I often get to see the clouds lit up nicely. I also get to see lots of birds, but I don’t have my binoculars. I want to get a handlebar bag or basket so I can have them ready to use without having to get off the bike. I can’t simply reach back to the panniers for the quick grab, which is needed for birding. The problem is, fitting a bag on the butterfly/trekking bars is a little more complicated than on drop bars or a straight bar. Oh well, maybe I can find a bag laying around the house that I can modify to fit the butterfly bars.
In the meantime, I’ll just bring my camera for cloud photos. The clouds don’t fly away nearly as fast as birds do. 😁
“Cirrocumulus” Cedar Park, 2020
