I am a frantic accumulator of gear, tools, and philosophies too numerous to mention. I commit overwhelmingly to a specific visual and kinetic interpretation of some idea and next thing you know, I'm talking about it every day for a year and trying to accumulate a volume of information and miscellaneous equipment is associated with my "fringy" new passion...
Right now, it's a really simple question. What do I want out of a bike? Possible answers:
1. A utilitarian commuter- Outfitted to go from point A (twenty or so miles away) to point B carrying picnic wares and a lightweight-but-substantial tool kit capable of tackling any weather or cycling scenario. And when does the author ever partake of such adventures? NEVER! There goes any justification for accumlating all of the crap it takes to support such a hobby. Well, the problem is I ALREADY HAVE ALL THE STUFF half-lifing in my garage...
2. A racing bike- Centuries, duathlons, triathlons, hell even the tour de france... Strip away all of the lights and baskets. Cast off all of the ballast that makes the road hog to substantial in weight to maintain <20mph.>
3. A trail bike- I fell in love with the mountain bike experience in college. I had a 21speed rigid fork hardtail Cannondale M300 with the basic bar-top shifters and boom-stem. It was SO FUN to ride and I frequently took it on midnight trips downtown (parking garages and aero hill bombing) and occasional solo-jaunts through the foothills and fire-trails of Spartanburg, SC. I like riding lightly forested and muddy/sandy/loamy ground and hilly terrain. FFWD to now, I have a cyclocross bike that has less than 20MPY (miles per year) since getting to VA and a Specialized Rock Hopper Comp (Atlantis/XO1 setup) that I have yet to exceed 50 miles on. They are both fun to ride, but again, riding them through the busy streets of VA Bch doesn't really fulfill the wildman hiding inside. There are no real hills for about 100 miles.
4. A retro Rivendell/ANT style bike with leather and canvas, twill and twine, shellac and amber, nontraditional handlebars and spring loaded seats... Maybe a ten-speed, twelve-speed, maybe a one-speed with no hand brakes. Anyway the chrome will blind you in the sunshine and the thin steel tubes will withstand heat, cold and falling over a dozen times in the garage. No fear of performance limiting quirks like weight, tire-width or aerodynamics can bother me I am living modern testimony that noone in the 1970s bitched and whined their way up the Pyranees just because their bike ONLY had TEN SPEEDS and wasn't carbon fiber.
The problem is this. I want them all (and probably more).
Out.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
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