Check the tire pressure. Duh.

The other day I took my bike on centennial Way in South City, and even on the flats it was challenging to ride.  I thought it was me.  Geez, just how out of shape have I gotten?  Today I got the air pump out and found out that the air pressure in the tires was a little bit shy of 30 psi.  Well no wonder riding the bike felt like slogging through molasses!  And that is not good for those fabulous white wall tires!  The suggested tire pressure is 55 to 85 psi.  I took it to 70 psi and it was a much smoother ride.

Here is a useful article on tire pressure, and considerations about how much to fill your tires:

Bicycling.com talks about determining the right tire pressure

It's a start.......

Getting the bike on a bike rack and to a trail and riding somehow has been a very long project.  It seems like such a simple thing to do, but there were complications.  In 2009 I bought a Honda Fit after I saw a photograph of a bike in the car with the back seats up.  It must have been a child's bike, because an adult bike won't fit that way.

I bought three bikes before I was really happy with my ride, which is the most recent bike I bought, a Public C7.

I found out that a standard bike rack does not fit on the back of a Honda Fit because of the stupid little spoiler on the back above the hatch.  I had a trailer hitch installed that would accept a bike rack. Then I had a bike rack installed and found out because I have a girl's bike that it won't fit on a bike rack and I had to get a tube tension bar so I could get the bike on the rack.

So although to many people these would be small obstacles, they seemed huge to me, and I am glad that today I could finally get the bike on the bike rack and ride.

Onward to discover new trails!

Centennial Way in South San Francisco

Centennial Way in South San Francisco runs from the South San Francisco BART to San Bruno Bart.  I parked on the access road to the Safeway shopping center along Chestnut.  I didn't park in the parking lot because there are signs up that the parking spaces are for shoppers only.

I went in the direction of Orange Park, which the trail passes, and toward San Bruno.  The first person I ran across was a man playing with a remote control car.  Luckily I didn't hit it with my bike.  Then I came across a muttering homeless woman who looked to be about 75 years old, and was crouched alongside the bushes surrounded by big black plastic bags.  Then I rode by some parents with very young children on bikes.  They were all over the trail and I couldn't predict where they were going to go next, so I nearly had to stop to get past them.

Next up was the dog park.  It is fun to see people walking their dogs in the dog park.  The dogs are happy, and the people seem to be in a good mood walking their dogs and chatting with each other.  On the way back going past the dog park some people were leaving with really big dogs.  I am glad their people held their leashes tight, because they barked and lunged and acted like they wanted to give chase.

As I crossed Orange Avenue heading south there was a rumpled guy sleeping on a bench.  I rode past him and headed toward San Bruno Bart.  I entered a fairly isolated area and I was alone there, so when I saw a man down the trail a way down from me who seemed to have unfriendly energy.... I turned around and went back the way I had come.

I would have felt a lot more comfortable on this trail if I wasn't there by myself.  I think I will try the bayside trail in Burlingame next.

How not to load a bike

Well, today I got the tension bar on the bike and got the bike on the bike rack.  I did a much better job of it on the way home from the trail.  This was the first time I have put a bike on a bike rack.  Next time I will use an extra tie to secure the front wheel so it stays straight, and I will get the bike on the rack more evenly.

Fitness to ride

The tension bar (to be used so I can put my girl bike on a bike rack) came yesterday.   I will try it out on Saturday.  The instructions do mention that if you don't install the tension bar correctly, or put the bike incorrectly on the bike rack that you can drop the bike in the street.  I have had that thought.  I will be really careful.

During the first part of 2012 I was in pretty decent shape- I was walking two miles a day.  That may not seem like a lot, and yet the difference between two miles a day and not walking or exercising at all is huge.

Things got stressful at work and I had months of just coming home and vegging on the sofa after getting home.  I understand the urge to want to just sit on the sofa and veg.... life, and work, can be hard.  The result now is that I am really out of shape.  My asthma was under control and had all but disappeared when I was exercising.  It has reasserted itself and serves as a daily reminder that I have made some bad choices about how to handle stress.

It is going to take awhile to get back into decent shape so I can really enjoy riding.  Just the difference in asthma symptoms alone should serve as sufficient motivation.

I went up to Milagra Ridge in Pacifica.  It seemed like more of a hiking area than a bicycling area. I have a Honda Fit with a bike rack on it, and no matter how careful I was I scraped the bottom of the hitch entering and leaving the access road.

Tension crossbar needed for bike rack

Today I decided to try out the new bike rack and things didn't go like they did at Summit Bicycles when I practiced putting a bike on the bike rack.  The bike I practiced with had a cross bar and mine does not.  A quick search of Amazon.com informed me that what I needed was a tension cross bar to mount on the bike so the bike could be secured on the bike rack.  Summit was going to have to special order it, so I just went with the one on Amazon, that had over 200 very positive reviews, and had a video on their Amazon page about how to install it:

Allen Tension Bar Bicycle Cross-Bar Adaptor

So I should be able to solve that problem for under $20 bucks and within a few days.

I think I should have named this blog:  Clueless and trying to ride a bicycle!  :-)

Pink bike site!

Here is a site that lists pictures of pink bikes!  If you are riding a pink bike, you might want to send them a picture! :

Pink bike site