A nice ride along the Dayton bike path system from Eastwood metropark to just north of the (former) Cooper Tire plant---A smidge over 20 miles. It was a really interesting bike ride through some very nice areas and some that were a little sketchy, but having worked in Dayton for about 22 years, I'm amazed I've never been on the downtown bike path. I've been from UD south, and from Eastwood east toward Xenia. I'm kinda mad Cincinnati doesn't have bike paths like this. Obviously we're hillier, but come on. We've got so many unused linear abandoned railroads, canals, and power line right-of-ways. We need to start using them.
My third meaningful ride with the folding bike. I managed to adjust the 3-speed hub and get 1 gear lower than before, so that's good.
As I was riding I stopped over and over to check out little items. I noticed a one-noise-per-crank-revolution sound and noticed the main frame hinge was opening slightly on each crank revolution. It didn't look too bad, but it didn't look too good, either. I was thinking, "But that latch has no adjustment, so there is no way to tighten it." And then I thought, "But have I really looked at that latch?" So I stopped and looked, and sure enough, there was an adjustment. It had a hole in which to stick a screwdriver to turn it, but I didn't have a screwdriver. Crap. Luckily, though, it turned with finger pressure and after ten minutes and at least 20 tries, I got it just right. The sound went away and the bike is a lot less flexible.
It's not as fast as a bike with bigger tires, but it really does work.
Most of the bicyclists gave it a little glance, but as I was riding along Patterson near UD on the way back, I was hammering in 3rd with a little tailwind, and the cars going by were like, "WTF is that?!?", because it does look like a clown bike.
At the south end of the ride, I saw a group of people working on one of these:
A SonTek RiverSurveyor, which looks like a little surfboard---it's as thick as a sailboard, but has the plan size of a boogie board. It has a sonar device that measures water flow rate using Acoustic Doppler Velocimetry. The company's devices have been used on the
Mississippi River during flooding.
Finally, this morning I got passed by a Matrix/Vibe type vehicle with an Apple sticker, a BSKEPTCL license plate and a FSM badge, the first ever that I have seen "in the wild."