2007.04.15
First cycling trip of the season, sorta
Today I took my bicycle out for the first time this season. This wasn’t a pleasure ride, though. I had things to do. Or rather, I had things that I needed to do with the bike.
First stop was the gas station to put air in the tires. After sitting for the winter, they certainly needed it.
Next stop was the car wash. A winter of being locked up in the underground parking of my condo building caused a rather thick layer of dust / dirt / crud to accumulate on every exposed surface of the bike. It’s dusty enough down there in the winter that I have to wash the car every few weeks even if I don’t drive it anywhere, and the bike has been sitting for about 5 months, so you can imagine how disgusting it was.
Cleaning the bike cost me exactly $1.00 at Penguin car wash, a great little pressure-wand style car wash just outside of downtown. I’ve never much liked the automatic car washes where I pay exorbitant prices for the ‘convenience’ of not having to get my fat lazy ass out of the car to wash it, and for washing my bike, it’s obviously not an option anyway. I can usually wash my car for $5.00 at Penguin, which is cheaper than any automatic car wash I’ve seen in the city.
After spraying the bike with my $1.00 worth of water, I discovered that it’s green, not brown. Who knew?
Anyways, now that my bike was clean and I was no longer embarrassed to be seen riding it, it was off to Sport Swap to have the bike tuned-up. It’s booked in on Tuesday, but I decided to drop it off today so I don’t have to head there Monday after work. I get the bike back on Wednesday, and then I’ll be cycling to work most days instead of walking.
On a related note, I hereby declare it to be spring in Calgary, which means the next snowfall won’t happen until October. Mother nature, are you listening?
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