My Bianchi San Jose has finally been fixed. Yes, this one:

After a few weeks of enjoying the simplicity of the singlespeed, I finally went and bought a track cog that works with my existing chain. I swapped it at the bike shop half way from home, and enjoyed my first full fixed-gear commute this morning. It’s easy to keep pedaling when you don’t have a choice. I went with a 15T cog, and I think the 42/15 ratio is perfect, especially with the slicks (rather than the slow, loud, knobby cross tires that came on the bike). Fun, fast, and easy to ride. I wore my HR monitor on the ride in, and came up with 677 calories burned on the ride. When I add in whatever the afternoon number is, I’ll have to eat over 3700 calories a day just to maintain my weight – and that’s on days I don’t run.

As of yesterday afternoon, my commute has more than doubled for the summer (from 4.75 to 11.25 miles each way). The route is the same as I took last summer, except it’s 5 miles shorter. Unfortunately I’m forced off the ideal, fastest route (bike paths through a park for a couple miles) and on to a road with lots of low-visibility intersections thanks to FasTracks construction that ‘s been dragging for the past year.

My current bike to work percentage is 92.39%, as I’m still recovering from driving during some of those big storms. Hopefully that won’t be necessary this fall. On the upside, I’ve already biked to work 84 times this year (and ran once), whereas my total last year was a mere 80 days. Of course I didn’t start until bike to work day last year, but by the time bike to work day rolls around this year (Wednesday, June 24) I’ll already be past 100 days. If I can keep from driving to work 5 or more times for the rest of the year, I’ll be able to hit 95%.