So, this last week was the very first week of commuting to work via bicycle. Sadly, this is something I’ve always dreamed of doing because it’s completely free, it’s pretty decent exercise, and it is actually quicker than taking the bus – or it least it can be. Predictably things got off to a very rocky start though.

In order to get to work and back with all of my things I realized that I’d need some sort of bike cart so on Monday I stopped at the local bike store and dropped $120 on a rear wheel mount and two saddle bags for the bike. That pretty much negated the “free” factor of bike commuting, though this purchase will have paid for itself within two months as two month’s bus fare is $128. Despite appearing to be a simple installation process, I spend a few hours on both Tuesday and Wednesday night floundering and failing at installing the damn thing. One lost bolt and a couple of hacks later I finally got the thing on in preparation for Thursday.

Thursday started off great until I realized I was going very slow and was getting ridiculously tired. At this point I noticed that the rear brake was clamped down and not releasing at all. It appears my wonderful installation of the rack and saddle bags messed the brake up. Huzzah. I was able to release the brake and just had to avoid using the rear brakes for the rest of the day. When I got home I tried to fix the brakes with the only tool I had, a monkey wrench, but after 30 minutes of getting nowhere I walked over to the hardware store for some real wrenches. That made turning the bolts that much easier but then I was faced with the realization that I had no clue what I actually needed to do to make the brakes work better. Nearly two hours after I started the brakes were finally operating almost normally and Friday’s commute went pretty smoothly.

Well, except of course for the super loud honking that the rear brakes now make. I suck at mechanical things, I sure do.