Maintenance Day

A few days ago, I noticed someone had replaced a gate pole along the North Side trail. Previously, there had only been a hazardous remnant of a previous pole.
The new pole was nicely marked with reflective strips.

 I returned a few days later to see a second coat of paint had been applied OVER the reflective strips.

Why?

Bad planning or sabotage?

Cyclists might be colliding with the pole as evidenced by this tire mark. The tire mark was in the original photo I took when the strips were present.... so, they didn't paint the whole pole? Just the reflective strips?

Nice action shot!

 I rode back to the office and rooted through my arsenal of reflective odds and ends and returned to zip-tie them to the pole. I'm going to consider that someone is sabotaging the reflectiveness of the pole if they take the time to slice through the zip-ties to remove these. Someone who doesn't want cyclists using the trail at night might be inclined to remove reflective safety measures. Hmmm.

___________________________________________________________________

I'd been having some difficulties with my u-lock lately and nearly found myself needing a power tool to free my bike last Sunday. That was a panicked 5 minutes of fiddling with the lock! I set it aside and used a backup u-lock in the meantime. I wasn't fond of the backup u-lock because it makes a lot of noise in the holder when the bike is in motion. Today was the day I was going to try the suggested remedy of a squirt or two of WD40. Worked like a charm.

 I also was in desperate need of a brake cleaning an adjustment to the rear brakes: the lever was almost touching the bars!

The front brakes were fine.

I also lubed the chain for good measure.

Random observation of some awesome cyclists

At the South Side Aldi, I noticed a couple cramming a whole cart of goods into 4 panniers and a backpack. YES!