title: Oct 10, 2020
date: 2020-10-10
category: Journal
Rachael’s Rad Mini arrived yesterday. So now we have two Rad Power Bikes. The Rad Runner is a bit too big for Rachael, especially with the center console blocking the “step through”.
It was raining, so other than up and down the street a little, we didn’t use it much.
Today we got her out on the bike and she got used to riding it around the park, and then went off to go up and down some hills. She hasn’t been a regular bike user for quite some time. We both had free / trashy bikes that got stolen from our building at some point, and never really replaced them. I’ve been thinking about writing about what it means to be a ‘biker’, both in the context of that being an identity, and different kinds of bike usage. I think Rachael and I partially identify as “non car users” — we don’t have a car, and walk or take transit most places, plus some car share usage. Anyway, I’ll leave that line of thinking for a future post.
I went to Dream Cycle on Commercial Drive to ask about a patch kit. Bought a handful of “regular” and a couple of pre-glued, since they’re cheap and I have had multiple flats on the Runner already. Why? I’m not sure. Both other times I had them fixed by Rad Mobile Service. I have put a lot of kilometers on the bike so far!
So in the afternoon I took the Rad Mini and biked it over to Main Street where I had ditched my bike at last week. Rad has Youtube videos for pretty much all of their bikes and different things that need doing, so I just watched the RadRunner Rear Wheel Removal. The little toolkit that comes with the Rad has all the pieces that are needed, which was great.
The tricky part was the way the chain has to be manuevered around to get it off, but I got it done. Yes, this is the first time I have removed the wheel of a bike.
With the bike wheel off, now I couldn’t get the actual tire off! Watching other videos, they pretty much say “don’t use a butter knife” — that you should use a bike tire lever. Dear reader, I tried to use the handle end of a butter knife. The Rad Runner has really thick, wide tires, and I couldn’t get them off.
Luckily, there is Ride On Bike Shop on Main, around the corner from the office. I took the tire over there. They told me that they didn’t have any patch kits so I gave them the one I had and asked them to take care of it.
In 30min, I went back and had a fixed tire, and also bought some bike tire levers.
Rachael had met me there at this point, and got her hands dirty (literally) helping put the chain back on. My first tire change!
Then we did our first joint ride. East on 6th, down to Great Northern Way, left on Clark and then back on the Woodland bike path north. Right on Adanac heading east to Lakewood, turning left to go north until Wall Street. East along Wall until New Brighton Park, then south along the paths by the PNE until East Hastings / in front of Playland. South until Adanac, and back home west along Adanac.
More biking to come!
