Living like a Bachelor

Pumpkin and wifey are in Taiwan. Okay, now what? It was too quiet but there were plenty of things to do, such as paint the pumpkin’s room pink, seal the grout, get high speed internet access up and running, weeding, daily watering, switch to Vonage and keep the place clean. No slobbing or slobbering allowed.

Meals tended to be simple, heat up a can of frijoles and slop on a tortilla with tomato and lettuce and salsa. I got to like raw cabbage in my quest for expedient food. Most meals were in front of TV on a TV table.

Got my bike set up. Ordered a pair of airfree tires from the only place on the web that sells them - airfreetires.com. I just don’t want to be one of those people on the side of the road trying to fix a flat tire. They are heavier but are designed to last forever. Took my bike to City Bicycles on Greenback and Sunrise and had a tuneup which cost me $100. I expected the bike to work and it did but only for a week. I started riding to work via the American River bike trail. It is about a 7 mile scenic ride that follows the river as it winds its way down thru Sacramento. Exit is Hagan Park to Dawes, to Malaga and left on Paseo which hooks into Mather Field. Thought I was riding at a pretty good clip towards the end of the week but still had not managed to pass even one person. Everyone, and I mean everyone was whizzing past me. Young, old, fat, thin, fancy bicycles, not so fancy bicycles, tight bicycle shorts with bright tee shirts with Italian sounding names, serious riders and not so serious riders. Yep, I was the slow poker and I was pushing as hard as I can. Part of the reason is that my bike is a mountain bike style bike and the ones that were passing me were mostly light street bikes but they all looked like they were not exerting any effort to go 20 MPH and I was huffing to get to 12 or 13. Such is life.

You have to understand that airfree tires look different that regular tires. They look flat but they’re not. One rider passing me said, "Hey, your back tire looks flat."  Okay, I know. By the time I wanted to say my tires were special he had already disappeared into the horizon.
After a week, the back 2 spokes broke. I immediately took the bike back to the bike shop and the mechanic said maybe the problem is the tires. I called up the guy who mfrs the tires and he said no way. In any case, City Bicycles fixed it for free and it worked for another week then broke down again. This time I took it to Bob’s Cycles on Fair Oaks. They had the bike for nearly 3 weeks and I just took it home a few days ago. So far so good but I haven’t really put the bike thru its paces yet.