I bought a new bicycle on Saturday. I haven’t owned a bike in about 14 years. The last one I owned was stolen from the campus at University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. I lived there for a brief period of time and didn’t lock up my bike when I went into the college to borrow a computer. A friend allowed me to use her login to use the computers in the lab, and the university allowed anyone to walk in and use the lab 24 hours a day - no monitoring. Security issue there aside, I should have locked the bike but I’d lost my lock chain somewhere in my travels.
Anyway, back on track. I went to Newington Bicycle and found a decent hybrid bike on sale. I spoke to Jeff Boneham and was treated very well. He didn’t assume I knew anything, but was okay when I told him I knew a little bit about bikes and didn’t belabor any points with me. He was very easy to talk to and allowed me to test the bike I was interested in behind the shop. If you get an opportunity to go there, see if you can find Jeff. As you can see on his bio, he’s been into it for a long time. I had a great experience there. I even bought a saddlebag so I could do minor grocery shopping.
So I convinced my friend Abe to come over and ride with me the same day I bought the bike. I’m going to be planning many weekend trips through the summer and fall (I’ll post the link to the Google Calendar after I set it up) and wanted to get started right away. We had a great time. I rode very fast. I lost my saddlebag once. We rode somewhere between 14-18 miles. The last mile to my place has this huge incline (I live on a minor mountain in CT). I’m 32 years old and haven’t ridden in 14 years: I walked the bike up the incline. haha! But hey, the pitch is nuts. Cars blow through half a tank of gas getting up this thing.
I’m considering looking into short range radios with headsets or boom microphones or something so that we can talk while we ride without having to shout. That’d be keen. I definitely want some audio to listen to - music or podcasts or something. So I have to consider a good way to get that audio, either through headset or a speaker. I’m not keen on a headset while riding, I would prefer to listen to ambient noise so I don’t get hit by a car for the 6th time in my life (more on that later).
