Tag: bicycle

Evening Bicycle Rides

, , , , Cycling, Photo Life, Slice of LifeLeave a Comment on Evening Bicycle Rides
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/4.5, 1/100 sec, ISO250
 “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～

Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/100 sec, ISO400
 “Seat and Bags” Cedar Park, 2020
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/4, 1/680 sec, ISO200
 “Neighborhood Construction” Cedar Park, 2020

Snapshots From the Evening Ride

, , , Photo Life, Slice of LifeLeave a Comment on Snapshots From the Evening Ride
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/5, 1/100 sec, ISO1000
 “Reflection” Cedar Park, 2020
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/5, 1/1800 sec, ISO200
 “Hike & Bike” Cedar Park, 2020
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/5, 1/1400 sec, ISO200
 “Bicycle Silhouette” Cedar Park, 2020
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/5, 1/2200 sec, ISO200
 “Goodbye Sun” Cedar Park, 2020

Evening Bicycle Ride to the Little Free Library

, , Cycling, Slice of LifeLeave a Comment on Evening Bicycle Ride to the Little Free Library
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/5.6, 1/180 sec, ISO200
 “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!

Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/5.6, 1/100 sec, ISO500
 “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. 😀

Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/5.6, 1/100 sec, ISO1000
 “Ray” Cedar Park, 2020

I hope you had a nice day!

Bicycle Maintenance

, , Cycling, Slice of LifeLeave a Comment on Bicycle Maintenance
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.8, 1/125 sec, ISO1600
 “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

, , , , Cycling, Slice of LifeLeave a Comment on Evening Rides Around the Neighborhood
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/5.6, 1/100 sec, ISO250
 “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. 😁

Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/5.6, 1/500 sec, ISO200
 “Cirrocumulus” Cedar Park, 2020