Pedal Power

In the latter half of 2007, a co-worker gave me his old Trek 400, made in 1985-86. It has the old-style friction shifters and it's only a 12 speed (2x6) but it works flawlessly. That's the great quality of Trek's technology. I recently upgraded it by replacing the 27x1 tires with 27x1&1/4 (the local bike shop didn't have any 27x1s), replaced the original pedals with Shimano's RD-540 road pedals.

I've been riding with another co-worker every Friday evening (ok, we haven't rode the last two Fridays due to really bad weather) on the Friendship Trail (parallel to Gandy Bridge) and the East-West Trail from Safety Harbor to Clearwater. Each trail is different: Friendship is completely flat with a hump offset from the center and it's 5.2 miles roundtrip; East-West is 8.8 miles round trip but you can do an extension into Safety Harbor upto the spa.

It's quite funny to see motorists stuck in traffic on the Gandy bridge while you cycle parallel to them. What a waste sitting in traffic and doing nothing productive. Which is why I go to work late (relative to others) and come home late. I tell everyone that traffic conditions determine my working hours. Fortunately my boss is cool about it.

Before I forget, here's a photo of the bike taken before I installed the new pedals.

















Happy cycling!