Skip to main content

A Love-Hate Relationship with my Bike

I purchased the SC 700C Solaris Hybrid bicycle over 3 months ago at a discount and was super excited to start getting fit. It helped with my daily dose of exercise, clocking in at 22 km per day on my bike commute. I have been riding to/from skytrain station from Monday to Friday for the past 3 months and love it.

Just like wearing my Fitbit Flex consistently, I have gotten used to this routine and love my bike that way. I hate my bike when it affects my routine and takes me off-kilter. I have already had numerous issues with the front and rear derailers so I had tons of practice adjusting it so that it's perfect. The bike also does not go as fast as other bikes because I see riders easily pass me on similar routes using other hybrids. It just seems to lack efficiency which is actually better for me because I end up exerting more effort on a 40 minute bike route. Using Endmondo on my phone, I average around 17 km/hr using this bike and that's on a good day when all my muscles are at peak performance.



The other day, the rear tires were deflated so I had to miss 2 days of bike commute until I was able to get to patching the hole. It was the same hole as before so I knew exactly where to look but still it was a nuisance. Last week, the right pedals wore out because they were made of plastic but I didn't expect 3 months. So I went back to the store and requested for a warranty replacement of the right pedal which I easily got. A few days later however, the left pedal also started to break apart so I again went back to claim another parts replacement which was a little more difficult. I had to explain to the sales person that I could put on the pedal myself without having to wait on Thursdays for the technician to do it for me. Regardless, I now have replacement pedals which should last me until end of September.


It is a love-hate relationship I have with my bike. I hope this bike holds for at least a year until I buy a more efficient road bike.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Success Story Renewing my Okta Maintenance Certification thru Examity

 The Okta Certified Professional certification had to be renewed every 2 years and my maintenance exam was due on July 30, 2023. I was confident about passing the exam because I had just completed an HRIS mastering project and Okta. However, the exam format was unnatural using DOMC (discreet option multiple choice), so I had to study and review a fair bit of material to prepare.  After studying a decent amount, I scheduled my exam for Tuesday, June 27, 2023. After hitting the next page, there was an error so I hit the back button and tried again. I was able to get it scheduled but didn't know that the exam date was actually scheduled for Sunday, June 25, 2023, for some reason. There was a confirmation email stating that but of course, I did not read it because I was focused on the Tuesday, June 27th date. I continued cramming until Tuesday but realized in horror that I was a no-show when I logged in 30 minutes before the exam at 10:30pm. If you have ever done offsite exams, yo...

Student Story: A Bertelsmann Technology Scholarship in Artificial Intelligence

As part of the Udacity Bertelsmann Technology scholarship, I was asked to write a student story to provide feedback on the overall experience. There were 3 questions on a Google form and these were my answers to those questions below.   Fast forward to July 2021, I was selected into phase 2 scholarship and have submitted all 3 projects for grading. I even submitted all the career services projects including Resume review, LinkedIn review, Cover-letter review, and GitHub review.  Make sure you don't click "Graduate" yet until you are ready because you will be kicked out of classroom chats so make sure you have said your farewells in advance.  What do you want the world to know about you?   Loving husband and father to two wonderful kids. My passion is academia and enjoy the journey of learning. I have accumulated many certificates, diplomas, and degrees over the years. Some from self-study, some from traditional brick-and-mortar schools, and more recently from on...

How to Fix your Car A/C on a Budget?

I didn’t want to fix my car’s air condition system since it stopped blowing cold air close to 2 years ago now. I was delaying it because the initial quote I received was for $1200 after having spent about $200 for a failed compressor recharge at Vancouver Transmission Ltd. The pressure was not stable, so they said there was a leak and after running a diagnostic, they concluded it was compressor itself. They quoted about $1200 for the repair and that’s where I left it at because I couldn’t justify spending that much on a 2006 Accord with over 400K mileage. I realized how important air condition system was these past summer seasons when we were stuck in traffic headed to Seattle/Portland in 30 C heat. My family suffered through that trip and wife almost had a heat stroke. I decided to call my mobile mechanic to quote on the compressor replacement and recharge. It was much better at $550 and $175 to get it recharged at VAP Auto. Total would have been cheaper than taking it back to Vancouv...