Road to RAGBRAI: Errands

Distance: 22.2 mi / 35.7 km
Time: 1 hour 32 min / 40 min (total) 
Route Taken: Wal-Mart/College Square Mall

Today was meant to be a much shorter ride, maximum 25 miles. I didn't quite hit that mark but I think I did pretty good.

Karie and I went to Wal-Mart today to look at bike stuff. Yes, I realize that Wal-Mart doesn't scream "High quality goods" when it comes to bikes, but they sometimes have some good accessories. I was looking to see if they had bar ends, and she was looking for a computer, a tube bag like I have, and a lock. At least, that's what she bought.

The ride there was pretty decent. The wind wasn't nearly as bad as yesterday, thankfully. I had some residual soreness in my legs, a bit more in my butt. Not enough to prevent me from riding, thankfully. It wasn't too warm out, either, but it wasn't unpleasant at all.

I didn't find bar ends at Wal-Mart, so I convinced Karie to ride with me to Scheels at the mall. We had to take some actual roads for this trip, which is always a thrill ride. We didn't do too badly though, but people need to learn how to behave around bikes. Or more bike riders need to learn how to behave around cars so the people driving don't get all nervous around us. Well anyway, I guess paying attention is the most important part. We made it fine, although we had to circle the whole mall just to find the bike racks.

Scheels has a bike rack out front, but for some reason they seem to have decided to use it as advertising space. They had a bunch of used bikes all locked out front. There were only a couple of open spots, on the back of the rack, and that sort of annoyed me. At least they didn't take up the entire space.

Anyway, I found my bar ends, bought them, and we went back to Karie's house. I hung out for a bit, helped her install her new bike computer, and then I took off for home.

My second ride of the day was over to my best friend Dave's house to do laundry, and to make him install my new bar ends. We went and ate Hy-vee Chinese food in the meantime. After we got back, he installed them. He had to cut off the ends of my original grips, and bolt the new bars on the ends. It only took about 15 minutes to install both of them. I took them for a short test ride, and they were solid and felt pretty comfortable.

I left after finishing laundry and watching a couple episodes of River Monsters (one of my favorite shows!). On the ride home, I of course tested my new handlebars. The verdict? I love them. I feel like I have much more control than I did before. They especially help on hills. Switching hand positions to brake and shift will take a bit of getting used to, but I was already instinctively using them. The only downside I noticed was that the bare metal got a bit cold in the cooler air of the night, but I plan on buying some handlebar wrap tomorrow, so that will be taken care of soon.

I posted a picture of my new water bottle setup, too. Enjoy!