(no subject)

[camwyn]

Hnh. Shimano Hub Dynamo Kit option for the new bike would be kinda cool, but it adds a heck of a lot to the bike's pricing, plus I can deal with having to change batteries now and again as long as I get a decent headlamp from the bike shop. The disc brakes are more important anyway. And I can use half the price of the dynamo kit to buy the first of two Kryptonite New York locks.

The idea of pedaling my own electrical power is very cool, but I don't know that I need it. Front and rear disc brakes with a Shimano Alfine gear box, which is supposed to be one of the best internal hubs out there (not the best, but the reviews I've read speak very highly of it), would be muy helpful. So would a carrier (I'd get saddlebags later) and puncture resistant tires (this hasn't happened to me yet but WHY TAKE A CHANCE) and a grease gun and a hand pump mounted to the frame (I have another pump but it's a floor mount, not really very practical for distance trips).

Hnh.

Comments

[vadrice.livejournal.com]

I have a fear and aversion to bike people. In this city (and others, I'm told) they are constantly a hairsbredth from a very gooey end. Granted most of them can judge that miniscule distance far better than I, which is why it is MY heart in my throat and not theirs, but yeah.
I FEAR THEM.

[camwyn]

Back when I was in college, my friends once gave me a book called Taxi Driver Wisdom for a Christmas present. It was quotes on different areas of life from taxi drivers all over the US. I only remember one of them, from New York City:

"Bicycle messengers- they search for death!"

I do my best to keep to streets with bike lanes, or to use the greenways where possible to get uptown or downtown before cutting across town to wherever I have to go. I have this thing with not dying. After you've seen one ghost bike (in NYC, it's not uncommon for some of the bicycle safety organizations to erect a white-painted bicycle as a memorial at a site where a cyclist was killed), you start wanting to be very very careful very very fast.