The bicycle is the most impractically practical vehicle ever devised.
Allow me to explain.
Yesterday I needed some food items and some household items. Living in an urban environment with ample retail, I could have procured every single one of these items using no other means of conveyance besides my own two feet. However, I am a cyclist, so instead I opted to go fetch them by bike:
And why go right down the street when you can ride to another county and a town that’s like 10 miles away instead?
I should add that it was cold, and as I mentioned yesterday, I’ve largely abandoned cycling-specific clothing for winter riding:
I guess the vest is technically cycling-specific (from the good people at Pearl Izumi, though sadly I don’t think they offer this fantastic vest anymore), and the pants are from Rivendell, which of course is a bike company, but generally speaking at this point in my life I’ve found the best way to approach riding in winter is to wear regular-ish clothes, use a fairly upright bike with reasonably voluminous tires, and ride in amongst the trees as much as possible (or, if it’s wet, stick to the road but ride a bike with fenders):
In warmer weather I don’t mind letting the bike dictate what I wear, since you don’t need to wear too much. So I’m fine putting on special clothes and shoes so I can splay myself out on top of a racing bike with clipless pedals. By the way, do you ever feel like a hide stretched out for tanning when you’re on a road racing bike? I do:
Even the Colnago Top Tube Guy kinda looks like one:
[Via here.]
You really couldn’t come up with a better apparatus for curing a hide than a road racing bicycle. What do you think happened to Assos guy?
But in the winter I’ve come to appreciate that it should be the other way around and the bike should accommodate your wardrobe instead. Getting dressed and undressed to ride a road bike in winter often takes longer than the ride itself. Therefore, an upright bike with flat pedals and tires that can roll over stuff indiscriminately is the way to go, Plus, if it’s cold enough you hardly break a sweat, meaning you don’t even have to change clothes afterwards.
Anyway, thusly attired, off I went:
The reason I chose this particular town for my shopping is that there’s a trail that connects me more or less directly to it, making it a perfect destination for a little dirt ride:
It also has stuff like a drug store where you don’t have to ask an employee to unlock the deodorant for you, as well as an old-fashioned hardware store that isn’t the size of an airport and doesn’t require a GPS to navigate. It was the latter establishment that was of particular interest to me on this occasion:
And yes, I can walk to stores like these from my own home as well–even a drug store where they don’t lock up the deodorant! (It may be the last one in New York City.) But what fun is that? This way, I could convince myself I was running important errands instead of just fucking off for a two-hour ride in the middle of the day.
Of course, strictly from a time management perspective, there’s really no difference between running some errands on foot and then fucking off for a ride, and fucking off for a ride and running some errands along the way. But if cycling is about anything it’s about deluding yourself. Also, it’s an opportunity to use your accessories!
It’s always handy to have a cable lock when you’re deep in suburban White Dudes for Harris country, since even the most law-abiding recently transplanted work-from-home Brooklyn dad is wont to lose control in the presence of copper-riveted saddles and cloth handlebar tape:
But the real hero when running long-distance errands on a minimally-luggaged (but fully lugged) bike is one of those string backpack things:
Guess where I got this one?
They’re compact enough to keep in the smallest saddlebag or even in a jersey pocket, yet easy to throw on your back when full for the ride home:
At this point the bag contains two air conditioner covers, a roll of window sealing tape, some household adhesive, and that package of Mortite you buy every year and then bring home only to find you already have a package of Mortite from last year. Subsequently, I added a 24oz container of cottage cheese, two bags of beef jerky, and an 8.5oz container of cashews. It all fit with room to spare (well, a little), and as soon as I threw it on my back I didn’t even know it was there.
Then again, I might have just felt lighter because of the reduced weight in my wallet, as all of the above items cost me roughly $3,500. (Also, I’m pretty sure buying all this stuff at the same time is enough to land you on the no-fly list.)
And that’s why the bicycle is the most impractically practical vehicle ever devised: it’s fast and convenient, but it’s so much fun you end up going two hours out of your way just to use it.
Speaking of efficiency, the new SRAM stuff is incredibly fast:
It took me three paragraphs to realize that none of this is actually about bikes at all:
I didn’t understand any of it either, but then again I’m not sure this guy understands bikes:
As the rider of a three-speed singlespeed I find the implication that it is somehow inferior to a 20-speed bicycle both deeply offensive and wildly inaccurate–and I’ve got a bag full of insulation and beef jerky to prove it!