Big girl ride

Today, I am going for a big girl ride! We are going to the bookstore and then for ice cream. Weee! That means we have to ride on REAL roads, IN TRAFFIC. Aaahhh! Look out!

The coolest

My hair now officially matches my bike. See for yourself. You didn't believe me, did you? Thought so.You should tell me I'm the coolest.

Damn.

Just found my key. It was wedged into the top of my pocket. Damn. Oh well. Isn't that how it always is? Then again, I needed spares, and they would have had to take out the ignition anyway to do that. Now I have three keys, which is good. But damn. 

Success!

Yay! New keys! Two of them. Tied a giant turquoise bow around my spare (yes, it matches the bike) so I won't lose it. I highly recommend Jones Locksmiths on Madison Ave. Hooray!

Bummed

As with everything else, I managed to lose my only key to the ignition of my bike. Sigh. If you know me, you definitely know that this is my MO. And I was so careful too. Jones Locksmiths are coming today at 3 to see what they can do. Sad Lina.

Juicy juice

I finally got the battery charger I bought to work. I tried to follow the directions and connect one end to the metal frame, but wa-wa, nothing. So I just went ahead and hooked up both ends of the battery, and voila, battery is now fully charged. Yay!

Pretty baby!

Blurry but tough

Juice

Over the weekend and late last week, both Ben and I had problems starting our bikes. We quickly figured out that both our bikes have somewhat of an issue charging their batteries, but that is probably from us just riding around town and never really getting the rpms high enough to charge the battery. With freshly charged batteries, both bikes fire right up with the buttons. I do have some "battle-bruises" from kick-starting my bike, but I think maybe that makes me a little cooler. I'll just own it.

Polluting

One more thing this morning (and yes, I will try to get some new pics posted over the weekend). My bike leaks a little gas on the left side. I can't remember exactly what Will said it was, but he said it's either a gasket (and I can point to where it is, but I can't remember what it's called, hehe) or the leak is from further up. I am not sure why he wouldn't have checked if it is indeed that gasket, doesn't seem like a huge job to me, but maybe this is something I am supposed to figure out myself. On another note, I also remember several people telling me that it seems this is a common issue on 1970s Hondas. I think maybe both Ben's and Jarrod's bikes do the same thing, and maybe I heard either Jason or Josh say something about that too. Then again, Jason doesn't have a 70s Honda, but I guess he could have been talking about Josh's bike, or just from experience. Or, then again, I could be crazy, which is always an option. So I think that might be the first thing I try to figure out myself. I'm gonna count that more as a "real" issue than replacing the battery, although I am still pretty proud of that. Next couple of major things I need fixed (probably sometime this summer still) include replacing both tires (they are between $60 and $70 a piece or so, plus the labor, so that will cost me somewhere around $200 or maybe more), and I also need new rear brakes. Will said my brake pads are at their limit, but I am still not sure if I have brake pads. Maybe you always do? I may just be crazy for thinking that there are no brake pads on these types of brakes. So there we go with the crazy again. Later taters.

Commuter

I totally rode my bike to work this morning. And, except that I was 15 minutes late because I had troubles starting it, things went smoothly. The roads are wet because of all the rain we have had, but we had no problems going in. I go pretty slowly though. Good thing there isn't much traffic at 7am in Muncie. I was a little unhappy about it not starting well though. Last night I had no problems because Will rode it over to my house from the shop, so it started right up with the button. This morning however, it almost turned over, but not quite, about 2 or 3 times, then nothing. So I tried to kick it (and of course ended up hurting myself over and over again), but I got it started after a few tries. In all honesty, I probably should have gotten up sooner and anticipated some of these issues, but I am pretty lazy so I walked out to the garage at about 10 till and tried to start it. It's weird to me that the bike eventually started, but then as soon as I throttled it, it died. I think I need to get better at adjusting the choke when it's cold. I remember that about my old bike. You just have to figure out how it wants to be started. We'll get there. Watch out for bikes!

Waking up the neighborhood

It's official. My neighbors hate me. Once I finally got Pete back last night, I rode him around for about 2 hours, up and down the streets of our neighborhood, back and forth, and around the block. So fun. We still obviously have to get used to one another, but we are working things out. Wish for good weather for us!