Six months

If Hub were a baby, she would be rolling over and able to sit in a high chair.

It's been busy here. There's been a nice variety of bikes- from a couple of high performance full carbon TT bikes to hi-ten steel "I found this bike in the basement of my building" bikes.



I like fixing them all. Every bike presents a problem solving challenge that keeps my brain happily occupied. I've also really enjoyed talking with all of those various bikes' owners. Good people ride bikes. (I'm sure good people drive and take the T, too, but I don't talk to them while I'm working...) I'm very grateful to be doing the work I'm doing. So if you've brought your bike in, Thank You! for a great first 6 months. And if you haven't yet there's still time- maybe by the time you bring it in Hub will be crawling and eating Cheerios.

Mind over matter

Portland, ME is one of my favorite spots on the planet (so far). At 115-120ish miles from Cambridge/Somerville, it seemed doable in a day by bicycle. The thing is with how much time I've been putting in at the shop I haven't had much time for riding/training. I usually get in at least 50 miles a week commuting, so there's that, but as far as actually blocking out time to get in shape, I've got nothin. In fact, the longest ride I'd done in 2010 was 32 miles (Tour de Cure! Check back next week for more about bikes and diabetes...). Details, details. Plus this was kind of an impulsive idea, so I didn't have weeks to prepare. This is where mind over matter comes in. I figured if I got on my bike and kept pedaling eventually I would get there. And to be fair, I do commute by bicycle, and it's not like I sit in a cube all day, so I'm probably more active than the average American-Canadian. So that was the plan: 1) Get on bike. 2) Pedal. 3) Don't worry about it.

I packed up the ol' cross bike with the one pannier I have. I can now say with confidence two would be much better for balance, but you gotta do what you gotta do.


I fueled up for/ on the trip with a highly effective cocktail of fruit snacks, peanut butter M&Ms and mate. Pretty much the food of the gods. I had a full set of travel tools, but no mechanicals (natch). Although I did get to help a guy with a flat in Ogunquit. One thing I forgot was sunscreen. I'm pretty sure the burn on my shoulders goes down to the muscle. I printed out directions from Google, but I scrapped them right away. The directions were pretty easy- get to 1A, take 1A to 1, arrive in the Greater Portland Area.

A few highlights:

-I saw a squirrel eating/smoking a cigarette. Stay classy, Medford.

-Speaking of smoking, I totally smoked this lady:

But I think it was the flag in her jersey pocket that was holding her back. Patriotism is not good for aerodynamics. (She caught back up with me during a re-fueling stop.)

-New Hampshire is very serious about their state motto.



-I talked to a couple of motorcyclists at stop lights on Route 1. Super friendly. Much more friendly than the drivers in Ipswich.

-Based on my field observations, the only vehicle available in Quebec is the Dodge Minivan. One such minivan pulled over to ask me directions to Old Orchard Beach. Way to play into the stereotype, lady.

11 hours and 123.4 miles after leaving my front door I arrived at my final destination. Not bad, I think. Another nice thing about traveling to Portland is taking the train back into Boston. Other than the sunburn and a couple of detours (why is it so hard to leave the Greater Boston Area by bicycle?), it was a (relatively) easy and wicked fun trip.

July July

Despite the fact that July is not a fall month, it happens to be one of my favorites.

This July I'm going to be closing up the shop for a couple of weekends to take care of some bikey stuff. For example:

Hub will be closed July 3, 4 and 5. I will be celebrating the birth of this nation by riding my bike to Portland ME. I'm going to shoot for getting there in one day. I'll let you know how that goes...

Hub will be closed at 5pm on Friday July 9, and closed on July 10. I'm going to go lend a wrench to the New England Classic. Super epic.

Independence

My first memory of feeling truly independent came courtesy of a bicycle. I was sent out to pick up some lunch while hanging out at my dad's office for the day (i.e.- get out of his hair so he could get some work done...). I was probably 10, and while I was cruising the mean streets (or, sidewalks) of Pinardville, NH it occurred to me that 'I don't need anybody to go get lunch'. I DON'T NEED ANYBODY! I'M GETTING MY OWN LUNCH! I CAN GO ANYWHERE! A very cool realization to have. I rode my bike a bunch as a kid, mostly for fun, but when I lived close enough I'd ride it to school. There was always something extra awesome about biking with a purpose- getting lunch, going to school or the post office- it made me aware of my status as an independent human being exercising her freewill (or at least as much freewill as you can exercise as a kid).

So fast forward to last weekend. I had a few bike parts to bring from home to the shop, and a quick stop at the farmer's market. As I was carting parts and groceries on my bike I thought I DON'T NEED ANYBODY! I'M RIDING MY BIKE TO WORK! I CAN GO ANYWHERE! I'm legitimately an adult so, I really can go anywhere. I even have a motor vehicle that I could drive to work or the farmer's market or any number of places. But I never feel like an independent human being when I do that- I just feel like an adult running errands.

What Hub is doing to not hate on Mother Nature

Green is the new black. It's pretty trendy right now, right? Unlike other trends, not burning up the planet is actually important. Bicycles have always been ahead of the curve on this trend. I mean, it's the most efficient way to get around! And as we all know 'efficient' means, "adj. 1. performing or functioning in the best possible manner with the least waste" So there you go- a bicycle shop is inherently more ecologically responsible than, say oil drilling or drag car racing, but there's always room for improvement. Maybe you're sick of hearing about what companies are doing (or at least what they say they're doing...) to improve their greeny-ness, but I want to tell you about some stuff going on here at the shop.

Recycling (obvi)

Paper. plastic, your totally hosed chain and cassette (and other metal parts), tubes!, tires all get recycled here, natch.

Reducing

I'll admit, I'm very excited and this news was the motivation for this post- Hub now has tubes in bulk! Flat tires are one of the most common bike problems, so at the end of the day the ol' recycling bin looks like this:

And while recycling is great- not creating the waste in the first place is even better. You can now get tubes they way hippies get their granola and nutritional yeast. They're the very same tubes you know and love, but without the packaging. The most common road and mountain sizes are available in bulk, and if you want your tube to come in a package you still can. I won't judge.


Cleaners/solvents/grease/etc.

There's a bunch of this stuff that goes into tuning a bicycle. It gets a little tricky here, because it's hard to find straight forward information about all of this stuff, as most of what I can find comes from the companies themselves. I'm not a chemist, so I have to take the company's word for it. So far, I've been pretty happy with Pedro's and Finishline. They seem to have a good balance of effectiveness and biodegradability. If any one has suggestions on how I can find more (objective) information on this, I'm all ears.

Other little things

Compact fluorescent bulbs. Check. Choosing 'Ground' for shipping product. Check. Choosing products packaged in paper/cardboard over PVC clamshell packaging. Check (that was the deciding factor between two great options for bike multi-tools). Fans over A/C. Check. Printing work orders on scrap paper before recycling. Check.

Thanks for reading. If you have any suggestions or recommendations on how Hub can be even eco-friendlier drop a note to: info@hubbicycle.com (I promise I won't print out the email...)

Bay State Bike Week!

Happy bike week. Check out all of the happenings here. The calendar is packed, and I'm pretty sure if you were willing to travel around the Greater Boston Area a bit you could get free breakfast all week...

Also don't forget to register for the Mass Commuter Challenge. We (that's the corporate 'we') will be out and about celebrating and supporting various events, so the shop hours will be a little wonky. The shop will open at 2pm on Weds May 19, and will be closing early on Weds May 26 for the Bike Bash. Annnnndddd.... the shop will also be closed on Saturday May 22 to lend a mechanic hand to the North Shore Tour de Cure. If you ride your bike, they will cure diabetes.

Oh man, fun events (all month... and this, too), safety summits, bike traffic (see fig. 1), new bike lanes, nice weather, same roads same rules... now is a wicked good time to be riding bikes!

fig. 1- bikepool!


To summarize: ride your bike, get free breakfast, the shop is opening late Weds, and closed Sat.

Frankenbike

In addition to cranking out pro-style tune ups for the good people of the Greater Boston Area, I occasionally like to work on a bike or two for myself. I've just put the finishing touches on a commuter/off road/fire road ripper/monster cross trainer/ninja rider/etc. bike. It might be ugly, but maybe in an adorable way (uglorable?)? You know, for a bike made up of parts from other bikes:

Ta Da!
The details, in case you're into that kinda thing: Unit 2-9 frame, disc brakes, 32/13 fixed gear (shh... don't tell anybody) *cough*, ahem- single speed, 700 x 42 tires, 40 degree sweep handle bars!, because I've never said, "wow, I wish these bars had less sweep"

Comfy for your hands
It took a little tweaking to get this baby ready for bombing around town, mainly in the stem/handle bar zone, I mean it is a 29er mountain bike frame and therefore a little upright and mountain-bikey. So, why wouldn't I just get an appropriate townie bike? Well, I don't need to see the ocean everyday, but I need to know that if I did need to see the ocean I could. Which is why I can't live in the midwest. Similarly, I don't necessarily need to ride this bike off road everyday, but I need to know that I can when the mood strikes me. That's why all of the bikes I'm fortunate to own can be trail ride ready in 15min or less. Sorry road bikes, we just aren't meant to be.

Plus, with this frame there's no chance of a slow-motion-toe-overlap-in-traffic-while-I'm-trying-to-track-stand crash. There's metric tons of clearance. See:

There's still plenty of room with shoes on, too.
It's super fun. I don't ride fast (and I have no plans to start, it takes sooo much effort...) so, the fixed gear adds a little challenge to my favorite not-so-technical trails/fire roads. And riding bikes with one gear always makes me feel like a kid. True story.

Thanks for letting me geek out a little bit here.