day 28: zen and the art of [bi]cycle maintenance

craig, co → steamboat springs, co

it’s no secret that, out of the seven of us, my bike causes the most problems. i’ve had four flats, one tire replacement, and pretty much every moving part on the bike has failed or broken.

timothy likes to joke that, every morning, my bike spins a wheel (it’s cursed back wheel, perhaps) to randomly determine which part will break that day. it’s gotten so bad that joel even asked me, “at what point would you consider just buying a new bike?”

my blue bike sitting on a pole at a rest stop

the thing is, i love my 2015 blue Specialized aluminum bike [side note: english adjective order is complicated] — i’ve learned so much about bike repair and maintenance from having to fix it on the side of the road. i know that if your deraileur isn’t indexing properly, it’s probably an issue with the cable tension; or, if your wheel is shaking back and forth, the hub might be loose (fixing that involves removing the cassette and carefully tightening a big screw in the middle of the back wheel — i royally screwed it up [no pun intended], resulting in a trip to the bike shop).

so today, when i got my fourth flat, joel and i removed the wheel in two minutes, inspected and replaced the wheel in five, and simultaneously re-inflated the tire and adjusted the brake alignment in eight minutes — a 15 minute pit stop that would have taken me more than 30 minutes at the beginning of the trip (and a considerable amount of youtube-ing).


we’ve gotten better at a lot of things since the beginning of this trip: today started with a fairly swift pack-up operation at the church we were staying at in craig. joel stretched, giving his knee some much-needed tlc. timothy was riding in the car, so his day began with some carefree dancing.

joel stretches his knee in the garden outside the church
timothy dancing outside the church

vincent hopped in the car for the first leg too. the rest of us did a random assortment of things: sophia stretched, aja moved boxes into the car, katherine downloaded maps and prepared for the drive, and i inflated everyone’s tires.

today was a 43-mile day, which many of us now consider to be fairly light (another sign of progress, i think).

first, we stopped in a playground, where a group of kids were playing. we grabbed some tables on the side and prepared lunch for ourselves. in a surprising twist, sophia managed to crack an egg without utterly demolishing it (remember the last time she tried?).

sophia cracks an egg and peels away the shell

sophia’s concentrating face

aja cradles a piece of lettuce in their elbow and one hand covers their mouth

aja cradles a head of lettuce (for some strange reason)

at the rate we were biking, we were going to make it to our destination before our hosts got off work so, sitting in the park, we looked through a bunch of activities that we could do in steamboat springs.

in the end, we visited a pharmacy, candy store, and bookstore before finishing the bike ride to our host’s house. during that time, vincent visited the library and the botanical gardens — both of which he later described as so amazing that he wants to go back.

katherine, aja, and timothy stand in front of several racks of candy and soft drinks

six spokes in a candy store (only three pictured here)

a sign outside of a bookstore that says "to love a place is not enough. we must find ways to heal it" – Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

a quote from one of my favorite authors, outside the bookstore

we ended the day at our host’s house — they have a flock of chickens and a dog! as timothy and joel walked closer to the chicken pen, they noticed one of the chickens lying in an “unnatural” position that “no chicken should be in.” sadly, one of the chickens had died :( but it remains unclear how that happened. (murder mystery?)

a chicken pen
sophia petting a dog

ps: the namesake of this post is a book called zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, which i’ve never read. but, from skimming the wikipedia page, it seems like the book recounts a motorcycle trip while musing on philosophy, the nature of truth, and human relationships.

so, i suppose i owe you a few philosophical musings. i don’t have much profound to say, but here’s what i was thinking about on the ride today:

  • the relationship between american christianity and white supremacy, as described in this book, which was recommended by the pastor at the church we stayed at last night

  • is it cheating to make art by taking pictures and tracing them? i don’t think so; photography was once considered ‘cheating’ by artists, but now it’s widely accepted as its own art form

  • a bunch of people are showing up to the minions movie wearing (formal) suits; separately, where can i acquire a minion suit?

  • in a field of wind turbines, how come some of them don’t move and others do? (answer: it’s hard to store energy so companies will sometimes turn turbines off during low demand rather than run them and store the energy they generate)

  • why does white move before black in chess? is that related to race? (answer: unclear; i was only able to find unverified blog posts)

  • having more time to think while biking is another sign of improvement — early on, i couldn’t focus on anything other than biking

43.28mi, 2:55:04 moving time

—parth