One thing that really sucks about riding a bike everywhere is this: having to lubricate my chain at least once a week or so. And if I forget to do it, I will surely pay with a more difficult-riding bike and a noisy chain.
That happened to me today. The crazy winds from yesterday died down quite a bit, which was a big yay for me. I set off around 8:30 or so feeling confident that nothing out of the ordinary would happen to me today.
About a half-mile into my journey I heard it, the sound that almost sounded like a train moving on the tracks with the occasional bird chirping noise. And I felt it, too, as it was become difficult to pedal in my bike's 2nd and 5th gear. It dawned on me that I hadn't relubed it in about a week and half!
And so it was. I only got a 10.2 mph average because I really couldn't pedal any faster than 13 mph when I was at my best. That sucked, mainly because I was hyper and needed to get off some excess energy.
I guess the moral of today's post is this: make sure your bike chain is well-lubricated. The guy at the bike store told me that it should probably be lubed every 150 miles or so with the brand of lube that I use. If you don't lube your chain, you'll have noisy rides, it will be more difficult to shift, and you risk chain breakage in the most extreme cases.
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