Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Bike back from the shop

Well, bike is back!  The 3.5” lift on the handle bars made a big difference!  I think I am also learning more on how to and when to shift - both up and down.

Average speed:  10.8
Max Speed:  22.7
Time ride:  30:24
Trip distance:  5.48 miles

So, max speed down slightly (was 24.6), but average speed up slightly (was 9.5) so I can live with that. 

Sunday, June 08, 2008

Bike to the shop

Well, I took my bike to the shop today.  We had raised the seat by about 4-5 inches when we purchased it.  But we didn’t raise the handle bars.  So those are getting raised to their maximum height.  Also, my front derailer needs adjustment.  Also, adding a side mirror to the left side so I can potentially see behind me.

Overall, so far, I am happy with my bike.  My hope is that with the adjustments I am even happier.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

A Moose on a bike - take two

Sunny and 70 degrees.  First day riding to work.  31 minutes to get there and 33:34 minutes to get back.  Not bad considering it is more up hill coming home.

Stats: (one way coming home)
Distance:  5.35 miles
Ave Speed:  9.5 mph (9.7 this morning)
Max Speed:  24.6 (topped 25 this morning)
Ave Speed including lights and two stops:  6.27 mph

Had to stop 2x coming home - first, my derailing didnt switch from 2 to 1 on the front gears when I was trying to go up the hill behind Lexington Mall.  I’ll have to go to Pedal the World and get them to adjust.  So, I stopped, walked to the top, drank some water and waited on the light to cross New Circle.  I could have made that one otherwise.  Not much fruther down the road though, I turned behind Regency center.  That’s a long hill that gets a bit steeper at the top.  Also there is a lot of pot holes and broken beer bottles, so I got off, walked up on the side walk, got water, and walked about 50’ to the top of the hill.

I need to get the handle bars raised about 3-4 inches as well.

I guess I have a base line.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

A moose on a bike

If you had been driving along man-o-war around 2:00 to 2:30 today you would have seen a Moose on a bicycle.  I finally got my bike today.  First time I have been on a bike since I was 17 and got hit by a car.

I bought a Globe City 7.

(zoom courtesy of georgegarnercyclery.com)

That’s what it looks like (click on the image to zoom, if you are so inclined).  I added a water bottle holder (silver) and a water bottle (blue).  I also added a wireless speed-o-meter that keeps track of the time of day, speed, average speed, maximum speed, individual trip distance, etc.

I rode the bike home from the shop.  It was 2.24 miles.  I averaged 7.9 mph, maxed out at 19.1.  I am NOT 17 any more! 

I think I need to get the handles raised about 3-4 inches. 

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Compression never ceases to amaze me

I have a bziped file…

168403791 something_log.bz2

That’s right as a bz file it is 168,403,791.  Divide that by 1024 and you get 164,456.824 K, divide it again, and you get 160.6 M.  So, I have a 160 Meg file.  Now, personally I think that a file that gets shrunk by 90% is freakin’ impressive.  So, for it to be freakin’ impressive the unzipped file would be 1600 Meg.  But, what if it compressed 95% - that would make the original twice as big so 3.2 Gb.  Now, that would just be peachy-keen-rockin’ cool!  Well, I would like to say it got that small, but I can’t.

It ended up
6,211,364,237 something_log

That would be 2.7% of the original size!

I did another file…
bz2 file is 42 meg
un bz’ed and it is 1.8Gig
2.27%

I have to come up with new words… I don’t know what is beyond peachy-keen-rockin’ cool!