Little leak, Big problem.

I started the winter season with a slow leak on my rear tire, it was slow enough that I could top up before riding and have no problems.

This however did not last. This morning while inflating I heard the sound I feared most, a hiss as all my air exited my tire. I bought tubes in preparation for this moment but I was not ready to loose the tube this morning. My bike has been disabled due to my negligence.

Allow this to be a cautionary tale, address your leaks before it's 8am on a work day a month later.

Big Boy Pants.

Every morning I awaken, I feel a youthful spark in my eyes, I dream of a thick white powder covering the land as far as the eye can see.

Sadly the snow we receive is quickly dissolved in the mid afternoon sun. Still pockets of resistance remain, on shaded lawns or near the roads edge. But these do not satisfy the cravings. When my tires sink into the soft snow and grip tight the feeling is amazing.

I've begun to realize I now hope for blizzards, I want unimaginable levels of snow to really push my tires to their limits. Where the people around me wish for me to "put on big boy pants and learn to drive". In my twenty seven years I have found many situations that would be eased by the use of a car very few have actually required one.

The hippy in me fears the carbon emissions, if I know I can bike 100km why should I feel a need to drive there?

The part of me that wants to remain healthy fears a weight gain, if I learn to drive the convenience may out way my force of will. Resulting in lost muscles and an increase of weight.

This may be the first winter I ride my bike and that may be influenced by my work being outside of the range of the city buses. But it is also the first season I have learned you could enjoy riding through the white powder I used to dread. I cannot bend now, I cannot allow the little voice in my head to tell me the others are correct. For they are wrong.

I have too many plans that involve my bike to quit while I am behind. I want to bike to so far I have to camp over night. I want my steed and I to visit another province, hell maybe all the provinces one day.

All these reasons are why I cannot put on my "big boy pants" nor learn to drive yet. I am simply too far behind on what I want to do I cannot waste the time on what they think I need to do.

Stay Frosty friends.

Holy shift!

As the weather continues to pile snow, then melt it all I decided now was the opportunity to seek aide. Clearly my limited knowledge of bicycles had reached the limit. I took her to the closest bicycle shop to find the problem. It didn't take long to learn to scary truth, my gears and chain were toasted. Today is the day I learned that you should change your chain twice a year with heavy use, and your rear gears once every year or two. In the four years of riding this bike, I had done neither. It is something I will have to keep in mind going forward, and when I begin building a road bike in the spring. For now however I needed my bike functional and chose to instead pay for the maintenance, which only sets me back $90. A safer ride for a few bucks is an arguably good deal in my mind. With my new gears equipped I found my bike sparkling in all the right places. Her gears now bright as the day I first laid eyes upon her. And our daily battle against hills became more of a breeze. The moral of the story seems to be, change your cassette and chain more frequently than once in four years. Stay frosty friends.