Monday, February 26, 2007

Points in the Karma bank

Rode the single speed in today as an experiment: is it possible to do a dead flat 20km commute on a single speed bike? It turns out it is, how very surprising. I might flip the hub over tonight and ride home fixed. Fun, fun.

The other reason was to pick up a couple of geocaches which turn out to be not far from my route. My caching total now stands at 12. Early days yet - there's heaps more I can reach by bike on my way to or fro.

About halfway in I came across a bloke on a road bike with a flat tyre and stopped to help him. Patched his flat tube and had him on his way. He kept offering me money, but it wouldn't be a good deed if I took cash would it?

1,291km so far this year.

Photo by n8agrain on Flickr

5 comments:

shawnkielty said...

Turn your cub scout badge upside right.

David Killick said...

Yep, I'm a regular good Samaritan. That's my good deed for the decade.

Yokota Fritz said...

(found you via Spinopsys)

The dude offered cash for the help with the flat?

I make a point of asking all distressed cyclists I see if they need a hand. The last time was a couple of weeks ago -- a girl was messing with her crank. Turned out her bottom bracket was busted and there was nothing I could do for it.

I did a metric century last summer on my fixed gear. Started at 4th & King Caltrain Station in San Francisco, rode around the city, across the Golden Gate Bridge, to Sausalito, and rode back. 60 miles total. The hills in Marin County and on the San Francisco side of the GGB are killers.

Treadly and Me said...

A geocaching nerd who does good turns—you were a boy scout, weren't you?

But I'm as bewildered as Fritz: why would he be offering you cash?

David Killick said...

He was offering me cash after I'd fixed the flat, not at the beginning. He was very insistent, he kept offering me two $5 notes. I kept declining, very politely. It was a nice offer, but I really didn't want a reward, I just wanted to help him on his way - he was facing a long walk home otherwise.

A metric centrury on a singlespeed? I'm impressed. There is a here I'm keen to do on my single speed Fritz, it's pretty flat and largely on cyclepaths. I can feel myself getting fitter on the single speed: stronger from muscling up the hills and I seem to be losing weight from the insane spinning I do to make headway the rest of the time with a 42x18.

Geocaching nerd? Are all geocachers nerds? Oh dear. And here's me doing it to impress the chicks!