On March 17th I came home to pick up something for Chiara. I put the bicycle outside for less than 2 minutes and when I came out the bike was gone. Just like that. I was in a bit of shock since it had just happened. I looked for it on my lunch hour and the search turned fruitless. The great irony of this is that I had just bought a lock from Amazon to keep my bike safe since the last one was stolen too. I had a laugh about it and I did what I needed to do; Flourish and Prosper.

So now I wanted to buy a bicycle again since I really like to ride it to work and anywhere in downtown since I'm so close. I did my research and I decided to buy a Windsor "The Hour" from bikesdirect.com. It's a great bicycle for the price and I really like the bike. I had fun putting it together and learning more and more about bicycles.

By this time I had learned a lot more about gearing and the geometry of bicycles. I bought a smaller chain ring (44 toothed) and a 17t cog wheel and a new lock ring. This has made the bike much easier, and fun, to ride since it's a track bicycle and it had a super-duper gearing of 48-15 which would get me to super speeds but would make it very difficult for stop and go traffic.

As a side note I've been buying some tools and I can tell you that it makes a world of difference to work on your bicycle, or anything for that matter, with the right tools. Of course if you don't have the tools and you have to jury-rig it to get going it's fine but nothing works better to tighten a lock ring with a lock ring wrench as opposed to banging it with a screw and hammer. A world of difference and you have the peace of mind that what you did it correctly as opposed to having a thought in the back of your mind that you'll have to retighten.

I found a great bicycle mechanic near my house. He owns Hands on Bicycles and it's a great place to go and fix up your bike. He basically has a couple of stations there so you can work on your bicycle and use his tools. The price is quite reasonable to use the tools, $5, and you learn about your bicycle. I'm really enjoying the learning process and have tons of fun riding it.

Look out for further updates on the Windsor. Until then ride on amigos! 
:{D