December begins on the Fixie

This Ride: 21.5 miles
Month: 21.5 miles
2011: 7,091 miles
Total since 1/1/2010: 13210.7 miles

The Bike Doctor had my fixie done a day early, so I swapped bikes with them, installed new rear brake pads, and reassembled all the hardware I removed before taking it to the Dr.  The bike was prepped and ready to go this morning, and it rode very smooth (except for the noise introduced when they tensioned the chain just a little too snug).

It was 36° with a brisk northerly breeze but that didn’t deter 8 riders this morning.  We broke into two riding groups on Old County hill and maintained that grouping most of the rest of the ride, even though we had a brief meet-up at the turn-around point.

I was also playing with my new Contour GPS camera this morning.  I have it mounted on my helmet for now.  I got some video early in the ride but for some reason it didn’t want to record on the way back.  I wanted to see how it handled the increasing light levels during sunrise and I’m still checking on the aiming and angles from the helmet.  I may buy/construct a bike mount after playing more with the helmet mount to see if that works better for me.  Watch for links to videos and a review in coming weeks.

My distance goal for December?  Originally it was a wimpy 400 miles in order to reach my 8,000 mile goal for the year.  After this morning’s ride, I’m 909 miles from the 8,000 mile mark.  Four hundred is looking easy.  Nine hundred looks nearly impossible in December.  I’m going to ride as many days as I can, with longer rides on Fridays and some longer rides near the end of the month … weather permitting.