Day 3 of 30: Improvements

 It finally felt like Spring again today, and I made sure to take advantage:

I made some time this morning to ride out to Fryer Park here in Grove City, which is a park I have not visited before today. I have a goal to see at least one new park per week during 30 Days of Biking, so, mission accomplished for now...

The park is about 4 miles from our house, and with a detour through downtown Grove City, the ride ended up being a nice round 10 mile trek. A bit windy, but I won't complain about sunshine and 50 degrees:

I even had some pseudo wildlife encounters:

Most of the park isn't unique. It has your typical walking trails, bike paths, play areas and ballfields, but there's an area of olde homestead to the northwest known as Century Park that surprised me:

We used to take field trips to a living historical farm when I was in grade school. Century isn't open currently, but I imagine it's a lot like that when it is open. Maybe a return is in order some day.

I headed home and then out to run some errands, including picking up some new tires and tubes for The Bike With No Name, which I installed this afternoon:

It was a nice day to have the garage open and listen to baseball on the radio. Spring is TRULY in the air. Anywho, here are the old tires I was replacing:

From that view, they don't look too shabby other than regular wear, but they are approaching 5 years of age and have nearly 8,500 miles on them, plus several large gashes that survived the mean streets of Philadelphia several years ago:

Incredibly, I never had a flat with this set of tires. However, living in the suburbs I find myself not encountering nearly as much debris as I used to, so I'm feeling like they're excessive. These thicker tires weigh considerably more than the stock tires that came with the bike as well, which makes any sort of distanced ride a bit more challenging. I opted for some slightly narrower/thinner tires, and even though we're talking about a few millimeters, you can notice the difference when compared side-by-side:

You can also see the difference in tread thickness, with the old tires on the left showing the thickness of the extra reinforcement:

The install took a little longer than I initially expected because I decided to give the drivetrain and other components a good cleaning in the process. I figured if I was removing the rear wheel anyway, I might as well try to clean up the rest of the bike while I had the chance. I took a couple quick test rides this evening, and can confirm that he rides like a whole new bike now:

I am going to have to adjust those fenders eventually. They look kind of ridiculous with the slightly smaller tires. But anyway, last but certainly not least, I finally installed a bell on My Therapist after 3.5 years:

Needless to say, Saturday (day 3) was a much better day than Friday (day 2). Happy weekend indeed!