Simply Cycle: Bike Week

In these parts we celebrate national bike-to-work day by building a whole week of activity around it.
Last Saturday, the 14th kicked it all off with more events than anybody could attend. Many of us started a few days early by helping the Michigan Blind Athletic Association by piloting a group of young athletes on a time trial course.

The bike club had their first day of annual Bike Camp with 35 neophyte riders and plenty of volunteers. Across town the Mayor's ride and the annual Fundraiser for the Kal-Haven trail were being held in different locations all accompanied by freezing windchill. It's May for Crissake. Even I, with my smug reputation for braving bad weather, was whining.

There are enough daily events planned that we couldn't work them all in to our schedules. I went to a public discussion of the scheduled and proposed infrastructure being developed. Literally several hundred miles of routes and lanes have been designated for development in the county.

Later that evening was the annual Ride of Silence which drew an impressive collection of about 70 people. It made a significant visual effect in a single file with a police escort. The rest of the festivities were lost to me since I had volunteered the following Saturday to help promote cycling at a local library. It was a bust, and I missed the Bell's to Bell's ride from the storefront cafe to the brewing facility of our internationally famous boutique microbrewery.

On the mechanical front, I finally got around to replacing the draw bolt on my Pletscher rack, It had fallen out during my spring ride and replacements are not to be found. I used a Nitto bolt, but it's a male fitting rather than the original female fitting. I had to improvise and use a left over Sheldon's Fender Nut to make it work (Thanks once again to the late great Sheldon Brown!). This time I thought ahead and used a generous amount of Loctite.