As a result of many factors (lack of money, no available workspace, academic responsibilities, etc), the bike project came to an early demise. It's not that I wouldn't still like to learn more about bicycles by taking one apart and it's not that I don't still need a faster method of personal transportation, but my interest will have to be limited to casual research for the time being.
While I worked at Agira Photonics from July to December 2018, I primarily biked to and from work. A preliminary look at my Apple Watch outdoor cycle workouts from the month of July only tells me that I biked 126 miles for almost 16 hours. Imagine if I had had an electric pedal-assisted bike! I could have avoided a lot of sweaty mornings in the summer heat. A one way trip to Greentown Labs from Northeastern's campus was about 3.75 miles for a time of about 30 minutes. I was lucky that the trip was relatively flat, too. Still, I would have loved to cut that commute time down to 20 minutes but that would have meant exhausting myself before I even started the workday. I learned some valuable lessons about in Boston over my 6-month career as a cyclist commuter. Most importantly, I'm grateful for the addition of bike lanes to many of the roads I frequently used. I felt safer that cars didn't feel the need to pass me and there was rarely "traffic" from other bikes. In contrast, on the occasion that I'd be running an errand through the Fenway-Longwood area, I felt too exposed to traffic. The roads themselves would be in bad enough condition that I'd have to swerve out of the shoulder to avoid potholes but there were multiple types of vehicles also using the roads. With all the Longwood medial buses, MBTA buses, ambulances, and regular cars in the area, I'm surprised that more hasn't been done to make traffic flow more smoothly. Biking in Boston is the bravest thing I do; it's not for the faint of heart. I plan to continue biking whenever possible, or until public transportation becomes more extensive. I hope to revisit taking apart and building back together a bicycle, but for now my attention is taken up by finishing my last semester of undergraduate education and finding post-graduation opportunities.
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