Grease Rag Ride & Wrench

I originally posted about the Summer Games 2 contest on the Grease Rag blog here. I am going to be blogging about my participation in Let's Go Ride a Bike's Summer Games 2. Check out my first post on "Social Cycling," and get inspired to try something new!

The second set of challenges involve "Learning Experiences." From June 7- June 27 the challenges were to:

• Perform a maintenance task- big or small!
• Decorate your bike
• Read a book about cycling
• Carry a load on your bike- Groceries, etc.
• Test ride a different type of bike than you normally ride

Perform a maintenance task- big or small!

This has been the hardest challenge to remember to take a photo of.  In the past week I have tightened chain ring bolts, cleaned my drive train, lubed my freewheel, worked on my rear derailleur (can't tell you how proud I am of that little achievement!) and tweaked various barrel adjusters.  Either these are things I just "do" without thinking, or by the time I think, "I need a photo for the blog!" I'm already up to my pits in grease.

Enter: Rainy Sunday afternoon.

I'm not made out of sugar (more like salt) so I don't melt when I get wet, but sometimes I do not feel like getting rained on.  Instead of riding, I decided to spend Sunday afternoon cleaning my roommate's bike- an old blue Schwinn Varsity.  This bike is great and has a ton of life left in it but it suffers from neglect.  The drive train was absolutely encased in dirty, gunky, old grease.  I could hear the grit in the derailleur spindles, the front tire was flat, rust spots covered the wheels and it was generally just looking sad.

Grease rags, all-purpose degreaser, latex gloves, some tinfoil, a tube patch, lube, grease, a couple of beers and a touch of baking soda later... A gloriously clean machine that's lubed and ready to roll.

In exchange for the bike-detailing, the roommate took some photos.  Awesome.

Biking in a Box is HERE!

This Friday is going to be a great time to hang out in Uptown. The Bryant Lake Bowl's annual Uptown Pride Block Party is going down, and Grease Rag is having a party at the Biking in a Box space at 2441 Lyndale Ave.!

Pre-party at the BLB and then come on over, or vice versa! It looks like there's going to be some precipitation: we have a roof. =]

This is going to be fun! Grease Rag is going to have baked goods for $donations$, music, dancing... BYOB! We can't legally sell alcohol in the space, but if you forget your B and you're really nice to me I might share.  ;]

Please help us have a successful event:  Tell your friends, pass the flyer around, tweet, facebook, get the word out!

We'll see you there- I'll be wearing a red bandanna and cupcake frosting on the front of my dress.

Women on Bicycles --- Image by © John Springer Collection/CORBIS

Get excited!  Biking in a Box is HERE!

WTF is Biking in a Box?  Well, WTFs, let me tell you...

Conversation #2:

Hey.

Hi Sioux.

Where are we?

On our way to Edina.

To WHERE?  Why the fuck we goin out there?

It’s Father’s Day.  It’s where my Father lives.

Geez.  This is ridiculous.

Hm?

Where are all the bikes?

What do you mean? There were bikes.

Yeah, but they were all going in the OPPOSITE direction.

Ha. Ha.

Seriously, I haven’t seen a bike since we got off the Greenway.

That’s because people are afraid to bike on the streets here.

Blasphemy!

Shhh…. Not so loud.  The suburbs will hear you.

What’s that over there?

What’s what, ADD Sally?

That box thing.

The strip mall?

Hmph.  Weird.

Don’t make this a longer ride than it already is.  Just have fun.  Enjoy the scenery.

What scenery?  The vast expanses of concrete that lay before me?  How lovely!

It’s only for the day.  We’ll be home tonight.

One day… yeah, right.  Feels like foreeeeevvvvveeeeerrrrr.

Stop griping.  We’re almost there.

Next time let’s go to the bakery.

Via:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/greaseragmpls/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

These are the faces of Grease Rag- If it looks like we're having fun, it is because we are!

If you have Flickr, check out our Flickr group pool where you can add your own Flickr photos of you wrenching on your bike  or photos from Grease Rag events.

If you do not have Flickr, feel free to email us and we can post them to the pool for you.

Thank you for letting me snap your photos and share them here!