September 2, 2007
-
In West Philadelphia….
Today, my very good friend and I decided to finally take our bikes out for a test run. Our weekend have been filled with either work, or rainy weather…and today was the perfect day. So, we live near a really large park system…and normally, people drive there, park, then ride. We decided to ride to the park instead. We’d have to ride on some local streets (which totally freaked me out, since I’ve never riden amongst cars before)…but it would only be a 15-20 minute ride. And we rode on the sidewalks the whole way.
So we get to the park…and ride around. But somewhere along the way, we kind of got lost. We decided to turn back….but forgot how we got there. So we just rode towards the nearest public roads. We reach one…and then, we were like, oh crap. We realize we had ridden all the way almost to where work is. And in order to get back, we would have to ride though West Philly. Like through the streets. We’ve driven past quite of number of times before…but in a car…with the windows rolled up.
We had gotten out of the park around 30th street….and the suburbs start around 63rd street….and it is, um, not very safe the ENTIRE 33 blocks there. OH…and the sun was starting to set. I guess if i were a guy, I wouldn’t care as much. But I’m not. I’m a girl….a very small, asian girl. So we rode through West Philly….like REALLY fast…and non stop mostly on the sidewalks (which made for almost mountain bike terrain type riding since the sidewalks were totally busted up). What sucked more was that there was a lot of uphill riding. So, I set my gears to the lowest level and I’m pedalling like a mad woman…with my thighs burning like crazy. But i was like MUST…NOT…STOP.
But, finally…..30+ long blocks later, we made it home…safe and sound….in the dark. Actually, there were a lot of people out, sitting on their stoops and stuff…but it seemed like they could care less that these two asian kids were booking it through their hood on their bikes. No one bothered us. WHEW!
Anyhow, my Target bike sucks. The gears don’t shift very smoothly AT ALL. There’s a big clunking noise…then it takes several seconds for the chain to catch the next gear…so for a few seconds, I’m pedalling with a loose chain. It’s less noticeable when I shift with the smaller gears…but when I’m changing with the big gears, I really feel it. (and when you’re riding uphill in West philly as fast as you can and you end up with the loose chain feeling after shifting down…it really brings a moment of panic). And then sometimes, there’s this ticking noise from the gears that don’t go away until I shift up and then back down again. And I switch gears a lot, so there was a lot of clunks. My very good friend’s Diamondback (from sports authority) didn’t have any problems.
But I’m glad I splurged and bought a big, squishy comfort set…because at least my behind feels okay after riding for hours on broken up concrete.
Note to self for next time: bring a map!
