{"id":2258,"date":"2016-02-15T10:00:09","date_gmt":"2016-02-15T16:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.foell.org\/justin\/?p=2258"},"modified":"2016-10-21T22:29:54","modified_gmt":"2016-10-22T03:29:54","slug":"new-job-biking-to-work-i-didnt-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.foell.org\/justin\/new-job-biking-to-work-i-didnt-die\/","title":{"rendered":"New Job, biking to work, I didn’t die"},"content":{"rendered":"

I like to tell the joke on bike to work day<\/a>, “I’d ride my bike to work, but my wife doesn’t like it when I ride in the house.” I have worked remotely (at home) for several companies for the better part of 7 years. I consider myself an adept remote worker. When a friend of mine offered me to work with him, you’d think I’d think twice about the set-up.<\/p>\n

Go into the office? Why?!? Well, first of all, going into the office is optional, I can still work from home. But I can also get away from any home distractions, which are surprisingly few as I’ve managed them over the years. However, I like the in-person conversations I’ve missed over the last 7 years.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t
Working from Home via The Oatmeal<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t<\/figure>\n

<\/p>\n

The monitor on my desk at the office is 27″, so I’ve got that goin for me. But I think the primary consideration for me was the location. The office is exactly 1 mile from my house<\/a>. It is also entirely downhill \ud83d\ude0e I now have the opportunity to become a full-time bike commuter as there are literally zero excuses. Some people think I’m crazy because I have a perfectly good car. But riding to work really hasn’t been bad even on the shortest and coldest Minnesota days.<\/p>\n

I specifically recall riding home on December 21st, the shortest day of the year. I left at 5PM and while the sun was already down, the twilight of dusk was nice enough to provide me with a pleasant ride home. I did have to ride with lights<\/a>, it just didn’t seem like the middle of the night .<\/p>\n

My first ride in 2016<\/h2>\n

To clarify, I don’t ride into work every day. I enjoy biking and I’m an evangelist but not a hard-liner. If I’ve got to go somewhere far right after work, I’m going to drive in.<\/p>\n

I procrastinated riding in during my first full week at work in 2016. We finally got some big snowfalls over the holidays. I was driving in because I hadn’t yet switched over to studded tires on my bike<\/a>. I finally mounted the tires so I could ride in by Friday. I got up early to make sure I had enough air in the freshly swapped tires, fastened on my pannier and rode off. The ride in was great, a little snowy but the cloud cover meant it was comparatively warm.<\/p>\n

At work a couple of coworkers admired my bike and were astonished I’d ridden in on a snowy day. It took one co-worker over an hour to drive in to the office – bleh!<\/p>\n

Later that morning, there was a loud bang that came from near the front door that sounded like a gunshot. A woman from the neighboring company that sits closest to our entrance door screamed. I (and several co-workers) wondered aloud what it was. One of the concerns was that there was a shooter in the building. My friend Tom, who’s dad owned a gun range, remarked that it sounded like “AD” – accidental discharge<\/a>. One of our coworkers apparently conceals and carries, and while he was on vacation Tom wondered if he had come back a day early.<\/p>\n

I certainly did not rush to the entrance since there was a possibility of firearms involved. I was actually concerned about those who were getting up to investigate. Then someone reported back that it was my bike tire that exploded!<\/p>\n

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You can just patch that up<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t<\/figure>\n

We all had theories about the expansion of gases since my bike was pumped up outside and was now being stored inside, but I don’t think that is entirely to blame since it wasn’t really that cold – \u224824\u00b0F. Luckily I came prepared with an extra tube and a C02 cartridge. I installed the new tube at lunch and filled it up so I could ride home alive and not shot dead. But when I left that afternoon my spare had gone flat as well. I hitched a ride with a coworker who was also still alive and not shot dead.<\/p>\n

My suspicion is that it was a combination of things that caused the explosion. First there was obviously something sharp touching the tube (because of the 2nd flat). Over the weekend I checked the pressure of the rear tire with a gauge separate from the one on the bike pump, it was over-inflated. I think the 2nd factor was that the bike pump gauge was somewhat frozen, not fully reading however much I actually pumped into the tire. I purchased two new tubes and some new rim tape since the 2nd (patch-able) puncture on my spare tube was near the valve stem.<\/p>\n

Live and learn. I’m just glad I’m still around to tell about it.<\/p>\n

Send to Kindle<\/span><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I like to tell the joke on bike to work day, “I’d ride my bike to work, but my wife doesn’t like it when I ride in the house.” I have worked remotely (at home) for several companies for the better part of 7 years. I consider myself an adept remote worker. When a friend… Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"I biked to work in the snow and didn't get shot *or* run over!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,1,3,19],"tags":[153,132,63,133,136],"class_list":["post-2258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bikes","category-business","category-casual","category-working-from-home","tag-29er","tag-carrying-stuff-by-bike","tag-friendly-fridley","tag-topeak","tag-winter"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t