Adventures in Panniers
Jul. 31st, 2010 11:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aSo, I got panniers for my bicycle on Friday. At Missing Link, of course. They were very good about showing me a variety of options and I decided on some very sturdy pannier bags when come off your bike, so you don't have to haul all the extra weight around all the time (which was definitely one of my concerns).
I needed a bike rack for the back of my bike too, so I asked how easy that was to install, and they said easy. I said, "Easy, easy?" And they said, "Yeah, just four bolts." So I opted to bring it all home ... except the bike rack didn't fit in my backpack. So instead I tried something new, which was to use their in-store fix-it place to put it together.
(Good thing.)
First up, big thumbs up for having a way to hang your bike up on the wall while doing repair. Second, big thumbs up for having a little wire cutter to cut off all the plastic ties on things nowadays. Third up, "easy, easy" wasn't. I couldn't get the rack to plug into any of the places it needed to, and I could see that things were heading to the "grease and blood" stage which most bike repairs seem to move to. So instead I paid Missing Link $15 to do the install for me. Well worthwhile, because among other things I now know it's installed right.
(I dropped my bike by in the afternoon, just in case I opted not to do the install myself, so I was able to pick it up at dinner time.)
First test of my panniers was a trip to Endgame today. It was boardgame day and also the release party for Eric V.'s Armorica. As I packed up stuff to go I absolutely marveled at the actual size of the panniers. I could fit six square-box games between the two of them which is a huge amount. I decided to pack somewhat less than that for my first trip out, but it was still double what I usually carry to Endgame in my backpack.
When I got my bike out it really felt like it was handling like a beast. Very back-heavy and bottom-heavy. I took my first turns very gingerly, though I was much more comfortable by the time I was coming home.
The other time that I really noticed the panniers was whenever there was a slope. It took some more energy to go across level ground and a lot more energy to go up a hill. Not that I'll complain too much about extra exercise. I'll just need to build up some new muscles.
My biggest concern with the panniers is their stability. I managed to knock a bag half of the rack twice today and one other time one of the bags ejected itself, flying through the air and bouncing a few times. I was very not happy about that (though everything was OK). Though I learned how to better use the bungee to stabilize the pannier, I think my biggest problem is knocking the panniers with the back of my foot. So, I'm trying to make sure I'm setting them back far enough and I'm also trying to make sure my foot's not way back when I'm peddling. (I wonder what proper peddling position actually is.) Hopefully I'll start trusting them after continued use, but not so much at the moment.
My second biggest concern with the panniers is that they'll look like a target to the criminal youth of Oakland. I need to get some new pepper spray. (My old velcroed pepper spray fell off my bike last year and was crushed. Apparently velcro-easy-access isn't the way to go as my access is very poor right now.)
Actual play at Endgame was good. Eric got a very nice crowd out for Armorica. I got to teach a game shortly after I arrived. I think we were the third table playing the game at the time. Overall I played it twice (and managed to win neither).
I also got to play a few other games. It was the first time I'd got to a Saturday Endgame board game day in, I think, all year. Usually I manage to do spectacularly bad about managing to sync the empty spaces in my RP schedule with the Endgame boardgame Saturdays, though I think I missed one earlier this year because I was too desperate for the Saturday off to do anything. It's been a busy year. (Also, for a while their Saturday turnout was poor; these last two months have instead been filled to bursting, leaving me more interested in attending.)
I headed out pretty early. A bit after 5, I think.
So the real purpose of the panniers was so that Kimberly and I could transport groceries. For a decade we've just gone to the close, overpriced grocery stores in Berkeley. Today we went out to Safeway in Oakland instead. It's just under two miles southeast of us, but that's really more than you want to walk groceries home.
The prices were not generally as low as Target, which we visited a few weeks ago, but it's 3 miles closer (if less scenic). And its prices were at the worst the same as Andronico's, and on lucky ("Club Price") items, they were considerably cheaper than Andronico's best sales. I'm a bit sad that their cheapest foods are mostly junk food (cookies, sodas ... I dunno about the alcohol as I didn't even bother looking at that), but there were other things we got that were nicely cheap (and some of the aforementioned junk food too). Also, there was much better selection in most things as the store is considerably larger.
The panniers worked very well on the way home. We got more groceries than we do on average and my panniers were still only half full. (We had backpacks too.) I think we might move over to Safeway as our general grocery store. I suspect it adds no more than 15 or 20 minutes to our evening overall, since we've biking further instead of walking less far. Still, it'd be nice to go to the Target once in a while on Saturdays when we're not already tired (which probably means Saturdays where I haven't just biked 5 miles up from Oakland). Of course Target is down by the Bay, so it'll be uphill with full panniers, for which see my earlier notes.
So that's the very exciting shopping and biking news for the weekend.
And now I'm about ready to collapse as I've been going full steam since yesterday evening. Tomorrow I should edit at least a short piece for the history book, but other than that I plan to do only non-workful, non-peopleful stuff (e.g., things that don't tire me, even if it's energetic stuff that doesn't tire me like biking).
I needed a bike rack for the back of my bike too, so I asked how easy that was to install, and they said easy. I said, "Easy, easy?" And they said, "Yeah, just four bolts." So I opted to bring it all home ... except the bike rack didn't fit in my backpack. So instead I tried something new, which was to use their in-store fix-it place to put it together.
(Good thing.)
First up, big thumbs up for having a way to hang your bike up on the wall while doing repair. Second, big thumbs up for having a little wire cutter to cut off all the plastic ties on things nowadays. Third up, "easy, easy" wasn't. I couldn't get the rack to plug into any of the places it needed to, and I could see that things were heading to the "grease and blood" stage which most bike repairs seem to move to. So instead I paid Missing Link $15 to do the install for me. Well worthwhile, because among other things I now know it's installed right.
(I dropped my bike by in the afternoon, just in case I opted not to do the install myself, so I was able to pick it up at dinner time.)
First test of my panniers was a trip to Endgame today. It was boardgame day and also the release party for Eric V.'s Armorica. As I packed up stuff to go I absolutely marveled at the actual size of the panniers. I could fit six square-box games between the two of them which is a huge amount. I decided to pack somewhat less than that for my first trip out, but it was still double what I usually carry to Endgame in my backpack.
When I got my bike out it really felt like it was handling like a beast. Very back-heavy and bottom-heavy. I took my first turns very gingerly, though I was much more comfortable by the time I was coming home.
The other time that I really noticed the panniers was whenever there was a slope. It took some more energy to go across level ground and a lot more energy to go up a hill. Not that I'll complain too much about extra exercise. I'll just need to build up some new muscles.
My biggest concern with the panniers is their stability. I managed to knock a bag half of the rack twice today and one other time one of the bags ejected itself, flying through the air and bouncing a few times. I was very not happy about that (though everything was OK). Though I learned how to better use the bungee to stabilize the pannier, I think my biggest problem is knocking the panniers with the back of my foot. So, I'm trying to make sure I'm setting them back far enough and I'm also trying to make sure my foot's not way back when I'm peddling. (I wonder what proper peddling position actually is.) Hopefully I'll start trusting them after continued use, but not so much at the moment.
My second biggest concern with the panniers is that they'll look like a target to the criminal youth of Oakland. I need to get some new pepper spray. (My old velcroed pepper spray fell off my bike last year and was crushed. Apparently velcro-easy-access isn't the way to go as my access is very poor right now.)
Actual play at Endgame was good. Eric got a very nice crowd out for Armorica. I got to teach a game shortly after I arrived. I think we were the third table playing the game at the time. Overall I played it twice (and managed to win neither).
I also got to play a few other games. It was the first time I'd got to a Saturday Endgame board game day in, I think, all year. Usually I manage to do spectacularly bad about managing to sync the empty spaces in my RP schedule with the Endgame boardgame Saturdays, though I think I missed one earlier this year because I was too desperate for the Saturday off to do anything. It's been a busy year. (Also, for a while their Saturday turnout was poor; these last two months have instead been filled to bursting, leaving me more interested in attending.)
I headed out pretty early. A bit after 5, I think.
So the real purpose of the panniers was so that Kimberly and I could transport groceries. For a decade we've just gone to the close, overpriced grocery stores in Berkeley. Today we went out to Safeway in Oakland instead. It's just under two miles southeast of us, but that's really more than you want to walk groceries home.
The prices were not generally as low as Target, which we visited a few weeks ago, but it's 3 miles closer (if less scenic). And its prices were at the worst the same as Andronico's, and on lucky ("Club Price") items, they were considerably cheaper than Andronico's best sales. I'm a bit sad that their cheapest foods are mostly junk food (cookies, sodas ... I dunno about the alcohol as I didn't even bother looking at that), but there were other things we got that were nicely cheap (and some of the aforementioned junk food too). Also, there was much better selection in most things as the store is considerably larger.
The panniers worked very well on the way home. We got more groceries than we do on average and my panniers were still only half full. (We had backpacks too.) I think we might move over to Safeway as our general grocery store. I suspect it adds no more than 15 or 20 minutes to our evening overall, since we've biking further instead of walking less far. Still, it'd be nice to go to the Target once in a while on Saturdays when we're not already tired (which probably means Saturdays where I haven't just biked 5 miles up from Oakland). Of course Target is down by the Bay, so it'll be uphill with full panniers, for which see my earlier notes.
So that's the very exciting shopping and biking news for the weekend.
And now I'm about ready to collapse as I've been going full steam since yesterday evening. Tomorrow I should edit at least a short piece for the history book, but other than that I plan to do only non-workful, non-peopleful stuff (e.g., things that don't tire me, even if it's energetic stuff that doesn't tire me like biking).
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no subject
Date: 2010-08-01 08:12 am (UTC)(Katie and I are living in walking distance of a really great grocery store called Central Market, but we still miss Trader Joe's a bit.)
How is board gaming doing at Endgame? A fellow I know here in Houston said that he was in Oakland and went to a Wednesday night session and there was nobody there. That made me sad.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-01 05:15 pm (UTC)Wednesday board gaming at Endgame has been very good. There'd been a dip last summer and fall. But we've gotten a whole slew of new people this spring, and it's doing as good as ever at the moment. I can't imagine what your Houston fellow is talking about. There's never been nobody there, unless he was here before 6pm or something.