Foggy Fixie Commute

Alarm went off at 5am, out of bed at 5:45. Morning ritual: head over to the living room window and check the weather. No wind, huge fog. Nasty wind might have stopped me, fog had me second guessing. I ride. After a few miles, was rewarded with the feeling that I did the right thing and enjoyed the morning. I can’t help but think that I am having so much more fun and enjoying my day more than all those people cooped up in their cages. Even when I’m cooped up in a cage, I know that I could be have much more fun. Glad I did today.

The night before I’m planning on riding to work, I am always totally stoked. I lay out all my gear, have my riding clothes set out, my change for at work and everything dialed. I try to leave only pumping up the tires and loading the packs for the morning. If I don’t I’ll take at least ½ hour longer than it does at night when my protons are already firing. The thing in the morning is, I have no motivation. I’m tired. That changes when I start sweating. Too many a nice days have I wasted in the past because I let my lazy old mind get the best of me. I’m trying to change that.
Rode the fixie again and tested out the rear rack I built. Worked well. I figured I only needed one pannier today, and figured that would be a good test for its strength. When you’ve got a pannier on each side, there is even pull on the rack. With just one, there is more weight pulling to one side, and in theory, add a bit more stress to the rack. That’s my theory anyway. It’s not a vertical load that would stress this rack, it’s the torsional stress that might cause one of my welds (brazed joints) to break.
Everything work well. Of course it’ll take miles and miles and even years to tell if this is well built, but so far it’s there. The old twist it with your hands test has to be worth something too right?
1 ½ ride to work. I took a route that I hadn’t taken since last year, because I was chased twice by a big nasty dog. No sign of the dog today. This route has more gradual hills too, which is nice on a fixie. While the hills are longer, at least there are no moments of standing, hammering pedals just to keep forward motion.

Based on this route, the fixie is actually a really good candidate for commuting. I held a nice average speed of 28kph (17.4mph) for the 26 miles. Certainly not much slower than my average on a geared bike.

Love that bike.

And this is for good man Roman Holiday who was kind enough to send me some of his bitchen stickers he did up. I finally found them again (stuff gets so shuffled during home renovations) and graced my top tube with it. This bike is special to me, and this is the one and only sticker on it. Roman did a great job, and I love that phrase “straight chain love”. Thanks again Roman.
Peace.