Scandal! Fleet Shakeup At The Cycle World Headquarters!

I recently let on (in an actual quasi-public forum, i.e. one that -- unlike this one -- has more than four regular readers) that I was selling a bike. And not just any bike: My beloved, much-raved-about Bruce Gordon, which has graced the test fleet here at The Cycle for a solid decade.

The response was a strange mix of endearing and disturbing. It was like I'd started giving away all my worldly possessions. So, for the dear friends who now have me on Cyclist Suicide Watch, I thought it best to lay out the what-and-why of that decision here.

First, the what: The Bruce has moved on to a new and (I hope) happy home, and has been replaced by a 2011 Raleigh Clubman that looks a little something like this here:

(Thanks to the guys at Skunk River Cycles for hooking me up -- and no, they didn't give me a deal in exchange for the plug. They just earned it by doing a good job. But that's another post.)

So why, given my incessant, lovestruck ramblings about ol' Bruce, did I cast it out into the cold and take in this shiny green interloper? Well, first, I was just flat-out smitten with the thing. Classic British Racing Green? Check. All silver parts? Check. Painted-to-match fenders? Check. Swanky leather (and faux leather) accents? Check. Weird (some would say discordant, but po-tay-to/po-tah-to) mix of classic aesthetic touches with modernity (sloping top tube, threadless steerer) that for inexplicable reasons appeals to me in a big, bad way? Check. Oh, and did I mention my obsession with sidepull brakes and their lack of sticking-out bits and cable hanger doo-dads? (some would call it a fetish, but let's not go there...)

So okay, the not-entirely-rational part of the new bike bug bit hard. But did it make sense? Well, in the last decade or so of my adult cycling life, my non-tandem riding has broken down into two simple categories: Pootling around town and going on long pavement-only country jaunts. The Gordon was meant to be the One Bike to Rule Them All, filling both duties, and it did so admirably. But c'mon... me? One bike? So along comes a motley cast of who-knows-how-many, all vying for some other niche of do-it-all-ness, all overlapping in one way or another. At night, I could hear them out there, arguing in the garage over who got to go to work with me the next day. It was sad.

My answer (at least for now -- with apologies to my wife, who probably just did a spit take) was to pick two very distinct specialists. Not specialized to the point of being utterly useless outside one very distinct discipline. Just two bikes tailored specifically to the two types of riding I do 99.9999% of the time. 'Round town riding in normal shoes? Grab the folding bike. Pretending to be fast? Strap on the shiny silver click-in shoes and grab the green machine. Now if I happen to get a wild hair to head off down the road after work, the folder will do that just fine. Or if I see an interesting stretch of gravel while I'm pretend-pacelining the Raleigh, I can swing it (carefully) on 700x28s and still have fender clearance to keep the sandstone schmutz off my bum.

Okay, my navel feels sufficiently gazed, and my concerned friends are (I hope) satisfied. I'll probably spend my off-season blogspace cataloging the bike from stem to stern and waxing poetic on each component. You've been warned.

Balancing The Screed

After yesterday's post, I'm feeling kind of worried that I may come off as one of THOSE bike bloggers, the shrill, 100%-anti-car type. Not that there's anything WRONG with being anti-car, of course. Heck, good blog pal Kent P. is like the David Byrne of the Pacific Northwest, insofar as he doesn't own a car (and if reports are to be believed, when you ride with him, you may find yourself in another part of the world... and you may ask yourself, "how did I get here?")

But, for me, everything in moderation. So, to moderate myself, let me say that -- whether or not it kills my credibility as a bike blogger -- I happen to like my car. A lot. In fact, like a proud poppa, let me share a photo:

This was the day we brought him home from the pound... er, dealership. Isn't he the cutest little thing? Don'tchya just want to walk right up and hug him?

That happens to be a late-model Honda Fit with about 65k on the ticker (though 65k Honda miles is like 35k on just about anything else). I confess, when Honda brought these little buggers to the U.S. (it was sold overseas as the Jazz for years), they had me at hello. Advertising with a bike in the backseat and faux IKEA boxes in the hatch? Crap, you just drew a humiliatingly effective bullseye on my demo.

The real nail in my car-buying coffin, however, was our trip to Israel this year. There, I saw a whole world of what I like to call "shuttlecraft cars" (hey, I was a Star Trek nerd before I was a Waterloo, Wisconsin Trek nerd): baby-sized hatchbacks that sip petrol yet can swallow a payload like nobody's business. Seemed like that was the de facto auto style in Israel (from about a jillion different brands, some of which I'd never heard of), and nobody seemed to be suffering for their lack of Hummers/Escalades/Canyoneros. The bug bit hard, and the lease on our mini-Canyonero just happened to be expiring, so the next thing you know, that bundle of cuteness above was in our garage.

So, since I'm shilling (free) for Honda today, just what is it about this evil, carbon-footprinting beast that I find so appealing?

• It is dang small, which (obviously) means more space in the garage for bicycles.
• Fold the back seats up and my folding bike can fit like it was made to go there.
• Fold the back seats down and my 59cm big-boy bike with fenders fits inside with room to spare.
• The internets rumor mill says you can even get a tandem inside as long as your stoker doesn't mind sitting behind you during the car ride. Haven't tested that yet, but I plan to.
• In terms of normal cargo, it holds as much as either of our last two mini-SUVs while absolutely DESTROYING them on gas mileage.
• Did I mention mileage? 35mpg isn't going to win me any smugness points at a Prius convention, but it's nothing to sneeze at. I did see a handful of Jazz hybrids in Israel, so I'm crossing my fingers that a 50-plus mpg Fit could show up here someday.
• It's stupid-reliable. I know how to fix bikes... cars, not so much.
• Did I mention how freakin' cute it is?

Just to earn back a shred of cred, I will remind you, dear reader, that the ENTIRE staff here at The Cycle (all two of us, which -- coincidentally -- matches our readership most days) shares this one little car. So that's 0.5 cars per person (or more like 0.33, since this thing barely adds up to a whole car), which still makes us slightly suspect anti-car zealot freaks to most of the United States population.

Albatross Versus Elephant

One of the arguments against bike commuting that never quite makes sense to me is, "But you have all that extra stuff to deal with!" Have you heard that one? The helmet, the jacket, the lock, blah blah blah blah. And it's actually true -- bike commuting has its accessories. Here's my usual load for quasi-coldish weather:

Helmet (no pro- or anti-flame wars, please), a reflective band to keep my pants out of the chain, hat, gloves, light jacket, and a medium-sized man purse (er, messenger bag) that usually houses a few tools, my lunch, some coffee, and my glasses. The lock stays on the bike rack (per the advice of the late, great Sheldon Brown). Sometimes I'll have a water bottle too. If I'm feeling like a neatnik, I'll wad all the clothes up into the bag when I get off the bike and clip the helmet to a bag strap. If I'm feeling late and/or messy (which is most of the time), I just shove the wad of clothes into the helmet and carry it separately. The Great Corporate Overlord provides me with a narrow little locker where this all gets shoved during the day, until it's time to suit up again for the ride home.

Kind of a nuisance, no? Lots of junk to deal with? Lots of space taken up in a tiny cubicle cell? But the thing is, most of the people who tell me they'd hate to have to figure out what to do with all that stuff bring one of these to work instead:

By my rough calculations, that's about a zillion times more stuff (by weight or volume, take your pick) than what I carry. And those same people who tsk-tsk at the poor bastard on the bike who has to figure out what to do with his two cubic feet of bag usually do so as they're circling the block, looking (in vain) for a place to store their half ton of steel for the day.

Now if I could just get the Great Corporate Overlord to convert that parking space I'm not using into secured bike parking, I'd be in business...



 

Bring It On

It's snowing tonight in Des Moines. But I'm ready:

 

 Yup, those are studded tires. In 406mm bead-seat diameter, a.k.a. BMX 20". You think studded bicycle tires are weird/obscure/rare? Try finding a set for your small-wheeled folding bike. But I got 'em.

I will rest easy and ride safe having read this:

Now I don't know the first thing about snow tire design. But I'm guessing that a guy named Jurgen must, right? I mean, the internets tell me he's probably of Scandinavian origin, and who knows more about snow than Scandinavians? (hush up, you Minnesotans, the Scandinavians of North America).

I am less enthused about this model name, though:

Granted, I know about as much about volcanoes as I do about snow tire design or Scandinavians, but as my almost-five-year-old nephew tells me, volcanoes are full of hot lava, and thus (one must assume) wholly incompatible with snow.

Tonight's snow is pretty wussy, nothing that inspires me to wrestle Jurgen's inappropriately named handiwork onto my rims for tomorrow's commute. But by golly, when the big one hits, I'll be ready.