Here is the bike that I ride most days. In this image, you can see my Tempo all loaded up for the weekend, waiting for Train 536 on Amtrak's Capitol Corridor. In the photo is the California Zephyr at the Emeryville Train Station.
Working in Sacramento and living in Oakland, I spend a lot of time either on my bike or on the train. I'm no stranger to the inside of BART, Amtrak, or Sacrameto's Regional Transit. The image above is of my bike ready to help me do what I do. Panniers are full of the week's laundry. The OnGuard U-lock is always onboard--truely indispensible and most useful used with the Zefal locking wheel skewers. My bike uses Shimano 105 components--all original from the 80's. In this picture, the front wheel is the original Rigida rim with a no-name hub. Rear wheel is a Mavic Open rim with a Shimano 600 hub--off of one of my other bikes. The original wheel just won't hold a true anymore--I'm in the process of replacing it so that I can put the 600 rear wheel back on the bike it came off of.
I got this bike about a year-and-a-half ago, when I started really looking for a job in the Bay Area. At the time I was working in Humboldt County and the four-hour drive twice a week was getting to be a little much.
Now here I am in Sacramento--not quite Oakland but much closer than Humboldt--and this bike is doing what I intended for it to do when I bought it. It is my primary mode of transportation.
We go nearly everywhere together. To work, to the grocery store, to the lumber yard (often with a trailer), and on recreational outings. This past weekend, I was up in the mountains for a couple of days--my mountain bike went with me. When I got back to my apartment and saw the Tempo waiting for me... I couldn't help but feel glad to see it after two whole days!
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