Michael P. O'Connor

I went on for a long bike ride today. I did about 6 hours on the bike. I got some pictures from the fireworks at the North shore. I had a better place to site this year. On the ride back home after the fireworks I hooked up with a group that was going my way. We went over Polish hill. Tomorrow my legs will get the day off, since I will be heading back to work.
I biked up from CMU to Squirrel hill on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Today I did Polish hill, I hope that by the end of the summer that I can do the clime from CMU (Oakland) to Squirrel hill with out having to drop down to the first gear on the bike.

Today I got a new bike today it is a “messenger bag” it is much larger then the bag that I had on the back of my bike. The new bag I got today is much larger. I can now carry more groceries in the new bag. I took the old bag off of the back of the bike. This should make going shopping easier, I do not have to worry taking it off of my bike when I get to the store, nor do I have to take the extra time to put it back on the bike. It also has a waterproof liner so that I don’t have to worry about my stuff getting wet if it starts to rain on me.

Well I went up to Squirrel Hill to get the new cassette for my bike. It turns out the cassette I already on the bike is a “Mega Range” one, and I would like to keep the same range that I already had, and the bike shops I stopped at did not have a 8 gear “Mega Range” cassette in so I had to order it special. I also got some additions to the handle bars, I am still working on getting them in a good position so that they can be there for when I want to use them, but are not in the way when I don’t need them. I want them there for when I get on the long bike paths, and just want to move my hands around and not just keep them in the same position all the time.

I biked up to Squirrel Hill to see how much a new rear wheel gear cassette for my bike would be, I got up there just a few minutes before the store closed, I was told that the cassette would be about $35 for a new cassette, I have been told by some people over at free ride that when you replace a bike cassette you also need to replace the chain of the bike, and also my chain is warn a bit and does need to be replaced soon anyways. I need the new cassette because the 4th and 6th gears are jumping. The person at the shop said that they can work on adjusting the deraler. I am still thinking I want to get a new cassette because I want to keep the same gears for 3 to 6, but for gear 1 and 2 I would like them to be smaller and for gear 7 and 8 I would like them to be bigger. When I asked if that was possible the guy did say anything is possible, I will be going back on Saturday to see what they have. I will probably just buy the stuff and go down to free ride and learn how to put it on myself to save a few dollars on the labor. Maybe I will work on some of their bent wheels too.

A friend of mine was in town this weekend, and I did get to meet up with him today, since I did come over a bit early from the ham radio field day. He and I talked about doing a bike ride when he comes back for school in the fall. I found a new bike path today and I know a few other bike paths I would like to show him.

I went down to free ride today to see if I could learn how to re-tension a wheel. They explained it to me. Also we took my wheel of my bike and round that it was already straight. There was some one else that needed his back wheel needed to be re-tension, so he let me re-tensioned. It was a win on both sides, he got his wheel re-tensioned, and I got the practice on re-tensioning. I want to get some more practice, the people said that they have a bunch of wheels that needs to be straiten, I figure maybe I can go down and practice on them, they benefited since I will be re-tensioning some wheels that they can then resale and I get the benefited that I should get reasonable good at re-tensioning wheels, so that when I need it done to my own bike I will save the $15 that most bike shops charge for it, and since I got the bike last year I needed the wheels re-tensioned 4 times since then. Plus I might get a member ship with bike-pgh I saw a sign where there were so many hours for membership levels.