Stan Olson’s Blog

Well due to inclement weather and faulty pedals, I haven’t been on the bike in a little while now. I took the bike into the shop on Wednesday and had them install fenders as well as replace the pedals. Now the funny part of this is that the guy who worked on my bike is a customer where I work. Due to computer problems, he was behind on his payment so I had shut his service off on Tuesday! So he recognized me when I brought the bike in and I thought ‘oh boy, my bike will be destroyed now!) ;) I dropped it off on a shortened lunch hour and went back to work. After work, I went over and picked the bike up. The fenders look amazing, they’re black instead of the boring silver ones you see on most bikes. The pedals are all metal instead of those crappy ones with rubber grips that came with the bike. The only thing they charged me for was the fenders, installation and swapping of the pedals was free! The fun part was actually paying. I have this nifty Trek credit card I’m using so that I can ride my bike before it gets too cold, yet pay for it a little later down the road. Well apparently this is something new for the bike shop as it took probably 10 minutes to checkout. (I guess most folks pay with cash, check, or regular credit card??) Anywho, the guy who worked on my bike is in need of computer help so I may be working on his computer in my free time. So that will work out great! :)

The hard part was getting the bike in the car as I didn’t anticipate the fenders being on there. I had to be careful not to bend/break them when putting the bike back in the car. I managed to do ok, though I had to do a small adjustment on the front fender as it was rubbing against the tire. After I got that done, it was time to install the goodies that I’ve drooled over. :) I purchased a nifty Garmin GPS 60CSx unit that will ensure that I don’t get lost and let me map out a route should I need to deviate from my normal trip to work. It came with a 64 meg card which was perfect for not only the entire county but the entire state of Illinois including Chicago! I had considered using my PDA and my bluetooth GPS unit on the bike, but the battery life of the PDA is horrible compared to a standalone unit. I also purchased a dual band ham radio HT (Kenwood D7A) for the bike because lets face it, Stan without some sort of radio on his vehicle is just boring! As with my car, this will allow me to utilize the APRS network and plot my position on the internet! (once I get the cable to hook up the radio to the GPS!) I will post more on this aspect later. I have ordered a better HT antenna for the radio to hopefully be enough to hit the digipeater, but eventually I will probably need to come up with a real external antenna mounted on the back of the bike. (people will think I’m a cop or security guard!)

So this morning I rode to work for the first time in several weeks and it was tough on the old body to get back into the groove. One of the main reasons of getting the GPS was to track not only my location, but to map the elevation between my house and work. There’s a great website called MotionBased that allows you to export your data from the GPS into their site and then they map out all sorts of graphs and data from your GPS log. I’m anxious to try this out and see just how much of an elevation rise/drop on the route I take. I will update this at a later date as well.

With gas prices skyrocketing to all time highs, I started to consider alternative means of transportation. I’d been considering buying a bicycle for awhile, but didn’t really know what kind to get. Many people I talked to online told me to steer clear of the ‘toy-store’ bicycles from your big stores like Wal-Mart, Target, Toys-R-Us. While they are cheap in price, they’re also subject to poor assembly. A ham friend of mine in South Dakota recently participated in a bikeathon for MS research, so I consulted with him on bikes. I browsed around online and narrowed my choices down to Giant, Schwinn, and Trek. I really liked the Trek models, especially the comfort and hybrid line. The only way I could afford one is to open an account and pay it back later. Luckily Trek has a ‘buy it now, pay for it in 6 months interest free’ plan. I filled out the application online, printed out the account information, and headed out to the bike shop.

When I got there, I asked the sales guy if they had the Trek 7200 in stock. He showed them to me, but they didn’t have it in my size. Being the typical guy, I wasn’t going to drop to the 7100 model so I checked out the 7300. They had a pretty blue/white bike that I just had to test ride. So I got on the bike and rode up and down the sidewalk. It seemed really comfortable and I enjoyed the suspension on the front wheel and the seat. I told him I’d take it and this is where the fun began. (aka accessory time!) I added a water bottle, rack, storage bag, headlight, tail light, helmet, lock, and spedometer computer thingy. It’s nice of them to install all the accessories that you buy with the bike. The price was a tad more than I was looking at, but I have 6 months to pay it off.

I strolled out and proceeded to fit the bike into my car. I had a feeling I wouldn’t be able to get the whole thing in there, but I got most of it inside the trunk/backseat. Luckily I had a few bungee cords with me, so I was able to secure the trunk and the bike. (in hindsight I could have easily removed the wheels with quick release levers, but oh well!) I got it home and took it out of the trunk. I waited for it to cool off a bit and then I took it for a short 1 mile spin around the neighborhood. The little kid inside of me decided to see how fast I could go. I got it up to 17mph, so I didn’t think that was too bad. That of course really made the legs burn since I haven’t ridden a bike in ages. (oops!)

So I’m planning on riding it to work everyday that it’s decent outside. I only live 1.5 miles from work, so it shouldn’t be too shabby at all. I’m very excited to have a nice bike to ride around on. It will save me in gas money and give me some needed exercise. I will report back later on my biking adventures around town. The only thing it’s missing is a radio and antenna, but I’m working on that!! LOL…