Easter Sunday came along so I loaded up the 2-4 with:
- beers & limes
- steaks
- ice to keep everything cold
- flowers for our lovely hostess
- extra clothes for the ride back at night when it would be chilly
- spare shoes so I didn’t have to tap dance on her hardwood floors with my road shoes
The Old Man Mountain Sherpa rack happily accepted some full size panniers and I only really noticed the weight when climbing out of the saddle. It was a lot easier to sit and spin than handle all that weight at the back rather than standing up and hammering.
23mm tires are not ideal for carrying a bunch of cargo since they don’t have a lot of volume to absorb shock from the road. It worked fine though and I made it to the BBQ without drama.
However, coming home I sliced open the rear Schwalbe Ultremo on some glass I couldn’t see riding along the dark bike path…=-( It’s a bit tragic to kill an $80 tire in less than 300kms, but you can’t expect a racing tire to be bulletproof.
There were some kids getting drunk hanging around a fire at Sandy Beach Park near where I got the flat. Top 10 dumb things to say to me while I fix the flat:
- Drunk Kid: “…holy crap!…is that an electric bike…”
- Vik: “…no…”
- DK: “…then why is it all lit up?…”
- Vik: “…’cause I have lights on it so I can ride in the dark…”
- DK: “…oh…so why are you stopped?…”
- Vik: “… flat tire…”
- DK: “…so what are you gonna do?…”
- Vik: “….fix it…”
- DK: “…oh…and then what?…”
- Vik: “…then I’m going to keep riding and head home..”
- DK: “…wow…yeah…cool…”
I hope everyone has an enjoyable and safe Easter weekend that features some bike riding. My goal is to get two long highway rides in on the new BBC 2-4 and at least get out for an hour or two of rambling downtown on the other days. In between it will be the usual holiday weekend eating, drinking and merry-making.
I’m soooooo glad winter is finally over…=-)
I’m going to be testing this lovely red Bowness Bicycle Company 2-4 cyclocross bike for a while this season putting it through its paces. I’m excited because I sold my Cannondale R800 road bike a few years ago and haven’t had a fast bike for road rides since. I love my fleet of mountain bikes, folders and touring rigs, but they don’t accelerate or corner like a road bike.
Okay so this is actually not a road bike either, but I’m not letting that stop me from pretending I’m about to win a field sprint at the TdeF or crush Lance on top of Alp d’Huez. Actually if you look closely at what I’ve done to this bike its real purpose is a bit tough to figure out.
I know there are a few people out there shocked that I put fenders and a rack on a nice bike like this - lights even….*GASP*! Yup it’s horrible and it has added 2.5lbs to the 2-4, but now I have a bike I can ride in any weather, at any time of the day and I can carry stuff on it. Since the bike is named the 2-4 I’m going to be carrying 24 bottles of Corona on the rear rack to an Easter BBQ Sunday - it seems only fitting.
There is another even more cunning benefit to all these accessories. I’m old and slow and have a bad habit of racing people on the highway. So now if I lose I can point to my grey hair, fenders, rack and lights as the excuse for my poor performance. On the other hand if I crush someone on a light road bike 10 years younger than me with my cross bike sporting all this dead weight they gotta feel totally schooled by the geezer…=-)
Since my days in the pro peleton are over I won’t be using this bike to race professionally. I’ve never even seen a cross race on TV to be honest. I’ll be taking this bad boy out on the highway for fitness rides and I’ll be using it in town as a fast light utility bike to visit my friends and pick up light loads. If my commute didn’t involve walking 10′ from the bedroom to my office in the next room I’d definitely ride this bike to work.
I just got it built and decked out so with only 25kms on the odo I won’t try and get into too many details about this bike, but I will say it’s very fast on 23mm tires, surprisingly comfortable for a stiff aluminum frame and handles beautifully. With spring here I’ll be putting lots of kms on this bike and I’ll report back.
