Sunday, March 1, 2009

You Gotta Get Up Close and Personal With Your Bike

Rick and I aren't super friendly with our bikes like some folks we know. We ride, we lube the chain, and change a flat when it needs it. Every now and then we'll jiggle things to see if they are still intact or might need a little tightening. Rick's not to keen on squeeks, so he'll jiggle a little more than me. But other than that, there's no bike porn going on at our place. Even dirt sometimes cakes up a little more than it should. Yesterday though, after getting home from ride in Meeshow, I noticed the sidewalls on my tires were sorta scraped and I told Rick I think I'm going to put those new tires on I had sitting in a box for about 3 years. He says "what for?... you should run these until you have a problem with them Mrs. I-wanna-be-green. How green is it to get rid of a perfectly good pair of tires?" He's probably right. So off I went to get my bucket of warm, soapy water to clean off some Michaux mud. Well, I was doing the cleaning mainly so I didn't have to hear Rick bitch when we went to change the cog that should be here on Monday, and he's faced with a muddy bike. When I got up-close-and-personal with my tires as I was cleaning off the mud (I can't see anymore 'cause I'm old, so I HAVE to get up close and personal), low and behold there's a bulge on one of those sidewalls. Shit... there's one on the front too! So NOW I have a real reason to change the tires -- both front and rear sidewalls are torn through. Yeh! Rick didn't win this one. So Mr. Dean now has new tread to go with his new cog, and soon to get new grips. I'm like Donna, I love my singlespeed! This will be the bike of choice this summer -- no matter the turf we're on.