True Blue

As I left the house yesterday morning, I could feel my front tire was low on air even before I got on The Bike With No Name. Since I've logged over 3,500 miles with him, I should know these things by feel. It's kinda good to know, even if it means bad news.

Rather than going back into the house and risking being late to work, I trudged through the morning commute knowing that if the leak was that slow, I would make it to the office where a pump awaited. It was kinda fun actually, other than the fear of running over another piece of debris that would certainly spell the doom of any delusions of a normal schedule yesterday.

Long story short, I made it, worked an almost full day, refilled, and rode home in the afternoon. My plans that evening included attending yet another clean-up set up by United by Blue. I originally planned to go straight there from work, but instead chose to go home to take care of my bike. I still left myself plenty of time to fix a flat.

Except, when I flipped the bike over to fix said flat, I noticed my rear rim was also rubbing the brake, meaning my rear tire was yet again out of true. It was windy yesterday, so I just assumed that's why my ride home was so tough... It was doubly perplexing because I had just trued this wheel no more than a week ago. Riding on this for more than a spin around the block just wouldn't cut it:

IDK looks like he's telling as much truth as any other inanimate object...

So, I half-assedly fixed that (more on that later) before replacing the tube in the front tire, which has a pinhole leak that easily could have been patched if I had more time. All told, I did this in less than 30 minutes, which is pretty friggin' awesome considering I'm not really a bike mechanic. I'm getting better at this every day.

I made it safely to the clean-up, which was held at Penn Treaty Park in Fishtown:

ALL THE BIKES

You may remember from my previous two experiences at clean-ups that I was surprised how few bikes appeared on-site those days. As you can see above, that wasn't the case yesterday. We also had about 200 people show up, by far the most I've seen thus far at a clean-up I've attended. You'd almost think that the weather was nice, or something...

As for the clean-up itself, there seemed to be a distinctive focus on plastics this time around, which do actually make up the bulk of the trash we pick up. Cue the facts, courtesy of the Philadelphia Water Department and UBB:

All told, we collected more than 1,000 pounds of trash (final totals still pending) and it was a pretty fun experience as always. I made a few new work and personal connections, not to mention how much trash we picked up! Picking up garbage can actually make you feel good.

My bike, on the other hand, was still giving me issues today, so I gave it another look. Turns out, one of my brake pads had been moved out of place and/or knocked loose, most likely by some careless individual locking to the same rack and moving them without knowing it. No matter how true I would have made the wheel, it would have rubbed on the tire just a touch until I fixed the brake pad, something I surely would have noticed if I had more time yesterday. Live and learn, right? That's part of what makes this so fun...