Now that summer is here and Juliette is out of school, I can take up bike commuting to work again. This year, I toyed with the idea of getting a bike dedicated to commuting, possibly picking up a used bike to fix up. But turns out, Elijah had converted my very first mountain bike, which I had purchased from Performance over 20 years ago! He made it into a nice commuting bike with racks and slick tires. Everything has been replaced except for the frame, which he had painted a dark green. So I have come full circle returning to my first bike, now re-tasked as a commuter.

Of course, I couldn’t not get some new gear. So this time, I decided to try out using a pannier, and ended up splitting a pair of Ortlieb Packer Plus Panniers from REIs with Elijah. The irony is that when the panniers were delivered to the Santa Ana REI, we didn’t have a car to go pick them up. Anyways, Elijah ended up borrowing our dad’s car to go get them. Elijah configured them on my bike and got them dialed in just right. Thanks bro.

It takes a little bit to get used to riding with the pannier, especially just one-side, since the weight is unbalanced and makes the bike wobble. My first ride with them, I was following Elijah too close when a car turned right into a driveway in front of us, I hit the brakes too late and ended up jumping off my bike so that I wouldn’t crash into Elijah. So I technically didn’t crash .

It’s only been my first week back to bike commuting but so far it’s been great. I definitely enjoy the riding time, rather than sitting in traffic on the freeway and saving a bit of money on crazy gas prices is a good thing too. Hopefully, I’ll be able to make this a regular part of my week over the course of the summer.