I hate it when that happens!

I'll try to get to the point this time without rambling on and on and only mentioning that which pertains to the title at the very end, and instead try to let you know how the title relates right off.

What I hate is when I have loosened one end of the bungee cord I keep on my bike and then I forget to reattach it and I mount up and begin riding away and the cord's hooked end becomes entangled in the spokes. It becomes wrapped around the rear axle and is difficult to extricate. Plus it generally close to ruins the bungee cord and deforms the shape of the hook. I don't know what effect it has upon the spokes it encounters. So far, none of them has broken, but I can't imagine it would be doing them any good.

I am in the habit of keeping a bungee cord on my bike at just about all times, because I never know when I'm going to need one. I like to keep the opposing ends hooked to the opposite sides of the rear rack. To keep it taut, I feed it around the seat post, the handlebar side of the seat post.Not only do I keep it there, at the ready, so that I might use it for securing anything which is in need of securing, but I also have come to depend upon it for keeping my rear flashing light in place.

My rear flashing red light is a Bell product from my LBS (Local Bike Shop- around here our LBS is Wal-Mart). It's an LED light and I'm pretty well pleased with it with one exception. It's designed to clamp around the seat post. This has proven problematic for a couple reasons: for one, it is partially hidden from view being mounted below the saddle; secondly, anytime I have something I need to transport which requires I use the top of the rear rack means it blocks the view of the light completely. My rear rack came with a place to mount a light to it which would place it on the rearmost portion of the rack. I think this would be an ideal location to place it, but I will have to devise some way of mounting it. The light I have does not "jive" with the mounting system in place on the rack.

Another thing I've come to dislike about the light is the clamp. It's made for a seat post which is bigger in diameter than my own seat post, so I must make use of the rubber spacers they've provided. To further complicate matters, the spacers aren't sufficient enough to clamp the light tightly and I had to improvise with my own spacers as well. As you might predict, the spacers eventually wiggled loose and the light is free to spin freely. That's the reason I have the bungee cord going around the seat post, to help hold the light I have still.

That's my blog entry for the day: don't forget to reattach the bungee cord on your bike, and get a good rear flashing light and attach it to the rear rack.

Keep on commuting by bike.
-MWBC