We’ve Already Got One

We’ve been working to bring our bicycle capability from development to fully operational. That means we should be able to deploy to distant locations with only minor preparation time. We now have the bikes, helmets and locks. We need a bike rack.

We’ve been scouring the Internet and visiting bike stores (and sports stores which landed us a kayak) but in the back of my mind I knew I bought a rack from Goodwill a long time ago. I bought the rack for about $10, thinking at the time that I would use parts of it to make a kayak carrier for the roof rack on the CRV. That was more than a year ago and the bike rack has bounced around from shed to garage to—well I hadn’t seen it in a while and searches of the shed and garage didn’t turn it up.

That meant it must be in the old shed—the recently reorganized for easy finding old shed. Here was a test of whether my storage job a while back was effective. I grabbed my 10,000 candlepower macho-flashlight and ventured into the shed. There in the 3rd row leaning against the shelf was the rack. I hadn’t remembered whether the rack was complete and I didn’t know if it fit my trailer hitch receiver. As I dragged it out into the daylight I was very pleased. It is an older design Yakima 2-bike rack—and it was all there and it was the right size to fit my hitch.

The only problem is when I attempted to mount the rack; the CRV’s rear mounted spare tire interferes with it. I need the hitch receiver to be about 6-inches longer. No problem, I figured. I headed out to the trailer hitch place to get an extender. The guy there said they didn’t have any. My hitch is 1-¼ inches. He said they have never carried extenders for that size receiver. It was back to the Internet. Penny and I played dueling computers each trying to find the best deal. We found the item at 3 sites and 2 of them were only a couple dollars apart in price. So I ordered one. Now we have to wait for it to arrive to go fully operational.

I took the first long ride on my bike this morning. I went around the neighborhood and then around the big block down Racetrack Road to the hospital and back home again. I figure it was only about 4 miles. It was enough to find out that the bike is comfortable and very easy to ride. The only issue is the narrow seat gives me a wedgie. I felt good after the ride and this evening nothing is sore. It looks like the bike will work OK. A few years ago with my back issues the doctor thought I should stay off bikes. Fortunately my issue was not disk related and riding doesn’t hurt the back.

I’m losing tomatoes in the garden as soon as they begin to ripen. I think it is insects so I whipped up a batch of natural insecticide and sprayed the garden. I’ll find out in about a week if that worked. I’ve lost 8 tomatoes so far and there are a couple dozen coming along.

The blackberries I picked are almost all eaten. They won’t last much longer in the fridge so today I bought a can of whipped cream and sat down to a nice bowl of blackberries and cream. It was real good.