Ride into work for Thursday, 10 November

Rode into Bedford for a chiropractor's appointment. According to the weather forecast there is a heavy rainfall warning in effect, with winds of up to 80km/hr. The weather forecast was, to understate the case quite heavily, completely correct. I rode down Hammonds Plains Road into Bedford (a fairly steep downhill) and had to pedal hard to get above 20km/hr. The flipside was cycling back, I was able to ride uphill at 25km/hr with no real effort, which was quite enjoyable. I stopped off at home to change my boots (my summer boots, as I found out the hard way, are not entirely waterproof) and got a call from a client to fix up a system, so I ended up working from home for the day - not something I had a problem with in this weather!

On the way home I spotted a bike left out for the garbage down the street from our house. I went down to look at it after dropping my bike off, I now have a Nishiki Olympic pretty much identical to this one here, except my one has a mouldy(!) rear tyre. I'm also going to replace the grips on the handlebar (the neoprene is decomposing into little pieces), and I suspect replace the cables and maybe the chain. Apart from that it looks in really good condition, and it's also the right size for me - quite an achievement since it's difficult to find a manufacturer that sells frames big enough for me, so finding one in the garbage is a real bonus! It also looks like it has horizontal dropouts, so in theory I could even convert this into a single speed or fixed gear bike. In practice, I'll probably do it on the day when all the hills in Nova Scotia are finally flattened out...

Distance logged: 30.238km
Time: 85:21
Average speed: 21.3km/hr
Max speed: 60.0 km/hr
Temperature: 7C-11C, high winds, heavy rain
Cumulative distance: 6204.908km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.22
Monthly distance: 211.799km
Monthly cost per km: $0.12