Brakes

Still having issues with the back brakes. About once a week I needed to restring the brake caliper so that the brakes would engage. Today I decided to take a more detailed look to see if I could figure out the cause. When I removed the right brake pad I noticed the problem: the pad only covered half the rim (I should have noticed this right away as the inner half the rim was "clean" while the outer had buildup of road gunk). Only half of the pad was getting any work, and it was grinding down faster because of it.

I fiddled with the pad and got it set where it should be, rewired the caliper and all is well for the moment. Since now the bottom half of the pad that wasn't getting used is now the primary contact with the hub I expect to continue to have this issue until its ground down to the level of the top half.

I'm also going to look at replacing the back caliper brakes with a disk brake. The Path+ I rented over the summer had them, as do some of the more recent Capital Bike Share bikes.

The weather has been fantastic the last couple of days. Hopefully spring is here to stay.

First couple of weeks with the bike

So I've owned and ridden the Neo Prox for a couple of weeks now (save a couple of weather days) and here's my initial impressions:

The Bike:

• Overall great, but there's a lot to get used to. My muscle memory is based on the Capital Bike Share bikes, which are frickin' tanks (as they should be).  While the Prox is nicely built its just not the same as the rental bike build wise. Those things can take a lot of punishment. Since I just plunked down a wad of money for this bike and am responsible for its care and maintenance I'm not so cavalier when riding it as I could have been on the rental bike.
• The smaller wheels and slightly smaller handlebars means it feels a little more like turning a razor scooter than a bike at times.
• I miss the cruise control on the Path+ (more on that below).
• Because of the design (lower frame, longer handlebar stem that breaks into two) I can feel more flex in the handlebars. Its still pretty solid, and I'm not really worried that I'll do any damage, but what little flex there is takes a little getting used to.
• Brakes are a little mushy.
• Can get too and from work on a single charge.

A little more about this last point. For the first couple of days I was using standard pedal assist as I rode through town on the way to work, and then switching to full throttle control while on the Capital Crescent Trail, much like I did during last summer's test.  On the way home I use standard pedal assist all the way back. In this configuration I get the blinking battery symbol about a half a mile from home, indicating that I'm about out of power. So the battery has been just covering the round trip.

Unfortunately, unlike the Path+ I was using last summer the Prox doesn't have cruise control, which means I have to hold the throttle open the entire half an hour or so that I'm riding. Well, the weather has been especially cold lately andI'm cutting down on the blood circulation to my thumb and index finger when holding throttle open. Even though I have gloves on these fingers go numb in this weather pretty quickly. So lately I've switched from going full throttle to using a higher level of pedal assist on the Capital Crescent Trail; I no longer am holding the throttle, plus the constant pedaling keeps the blood flowing and the body warm & I still get to work without being a sweaty mess. In this configuration I've been doing the round trip and still have a bar or two left on the battery meter.

The Commute:

• The weather's been cold as hell, but the nice thing about biking is I really don't notice it. As long as its not raining cold really isn't that bad.
• I'm consistently hitting just over an hour for the commute. Maybe 5 minutes longer on average than the walk/metro method.

As for the weather my gear is nothing really fancy. My helmet seems to keep my head warm enough, and as for clothes I basically layer up: T-shirt, shirt/sweater, fleece (I have a couple of Old Navy fleeces that were cheap and warm), this cycling jacket in yellow (nowhere near as fancy as the cycling jackets you find in stores, basically a thin wind breaker with some pockets; from China; cheap and effective when worn over the fleece) and these gloves (also from China, also cheap and effective). 

First time on the metro in a while...

Even when I was using the rental bike I rarely missed a bike home due to weather. Cold I can deal with; rain I can deal with; cold + rain I can sort of deal with (a couple of times I was foolish enough to think I could beat the imminent rain only to get caught on the trail in a cold-ass downpour. Would rather have not been there but it wasn't the end of the world). Snow and ice, however, I'll skip. 

Side Story: Believe it or not Montgomery County does a good job of cleaning the Capital Crescent Trail of snow. Considering the roadways should be their major focus the fact they get to it at all is kind of amazing. I discovered this in December when we got the first snowfall of the season. It was a Friday and the office was closed early to give everyone a fighting chance to get home at a reasonable hour. The roads didn't look too bad, so I hopped on the rental bike and told myself that if the trail looked bad I'd turn around and take the Metro. Low and behold the trail looked to be in pretty good shape, good enough to ride on gingerly. So I pressed on, completely forgetting that the trail leaves Montgomery County and enters the District at some point. Well, that point is where the clean trail stopped and the cross-country-skiing-perfect trail began. Again, I really can't complain. Considering the District has a hard enough time to plow the roads most of the time the Capital Crescent Trail should be very low on their "to clean" list. I had to push the bike the last couple of miles until I hit Georgetown. Not fun.

Anyway, due to the weather the last two days have put me back on the Metro.

So why the eBike? Pedaling too good for you?

So why am I riding an eBike in the first place? In a word: laziness.. and cheapness. Wait, that's at least two words. Let me explain...

I hate exercising.  Well, that's technically not true. What I hate is exercising for the sake of exercising. I cannot go for a run, ride a bike, take a swim or lift any weights simply for the need to getting fit. I find it all terribly boring, thus something I don't continue doing on any regular basis.

On the other hand I don't want to die of a heart attack or diabetes any time soon either. So my solution has always been to make exercise part of something else. For instance when I was single the grocery store was about half a mile away from my apartment so instead of driving to the store I would walk. Always take the stairs over an elevator. Ride a bike when appropriate. My current house is about a half a mile from a metro stop and my work sits on top of the Bethesda metro station, so I walk roughly a mile a day during my daily commute.

This is all well and good, but anyone who rides the Metro knows its not exactly cheap. $3.80 during rush hour each way to be precise, and this is where my cheapness comes in. While $7.60 a day is cheaper than owning and maintaining a second car its still adds up to a nice chunk of change over time.  A few years ago when the Capital Bike Share came to town I grabbed an annual membership for half price via a living social deal (about $40 for a year). Since there were about 4 bike docks within a five minute walk from my house it seemed like something worth trying at that price. I found it to be very handy service and have renewed my membership. During the summer months I experimented with using the bike shares to ride home. Unfortunately the closest bike racks were located at the UDC metro station which required me to still use the metro (thus spend $$$) and the commute would take me down Connecticut Ave during rush hour, which isn't exactly the safest thing to do. You're either on the road pissing off drivers or on the sidewalk pissing off pedestrians.

Thankfully some time in 2014 two things happened: 1) Capital Bike Share expanded into Bethesda and put two bike racks within spitting distance of my office and 2) something bad happened one afternoon in the Bethesda metro. Bad enough that the metro station was closed *and* the fire and rescue trucks completely blocked the bus terminal so all public transportation was hosed, and I had tickets to a Nats game that night so hanging around until all was well wasn't a great option.

"Okay, I have a bike rental membership, I should be able to get to the next stop at Friendship Heights." This is what led me to discover the Capital Crescent Trail. It crosses Woodmont Ave about 3 blocks from my office. Perfect. It got me to Friendship Heights and home in time to catch the first pitch.

This got me to thinking: can I realistically ride home via the trail? The map showed that I could take the trail for roughly 7 mile, at which point I'd be dumped onto K St. in Georgetown. From there it appeared to be only a couple extra miles via bike friendly roads. So, one summer Friday I bailed out of work early and attempted it.

The commute

Needless to say, since I hadn't used the rental bikes to go more than 2 or 3 miles at a clip, let alone 11; that first trip home was brutal. But it did prove it was possible, and cheaper than using the metro.

Capital Bike Share pricing is that any trip less than half an hour is "free." If you have an annual plan ($75) then any trip between 31 and 60 minutes costs $1.50. There are a couple of bike docks right where the trail ends on K street, which is about the halfway point time-wise for the entire commute. During the first few weeks of riding I was clocking about 30 - 40 minutes per leg, so at worst I was paying $3.00 per trip home: a savings of $0.80 a day. This, however, improved pretty quickly as I got used to riding the bike. After about a month I could do Bethesda to K street under half and hour about half the time, and consistently beat half an hour on the K street to home leg. This made my commute home roughly $0.75 a day; a savings of $2.95 a day. Saving money and 11 miles of bike riding exercise a day. Not too shabby...