Well it snowed heavily here yesterday as it did pretty much everywhere else which means it’s going to be pretty difficult to ride for awhile AND NO I’M NOT GETTING A GODDAMN FAT BIKE…as tempting as some of these cutting-edge new models may be:
Yes, I realize some of you tundra-dwellers love your fat bikes and get good use out of them, but I’m not getting one for the handful of days a year it’s too snowy to ride here in New York, and I’d rather have fourteen slightly different road bikes to choose from the rest of the year instead. (Fact: you can fit six (6) road bikes in the space it takes to store one (1) fat bike.)
And no, THE JONES IS NOT A FAT BIKE:
Technically, it’s a “plus” bike–though I did use its plus-size predecessor, the Marin Pine Mountain, in New York City’s first-ever fat bike race way back in 2016, in Cunningham Park, Queens:
Alas, I cannot find the related post in my archives, which is a shame because I have virtually no recollection of the race. I do seem to remember that the race had already been postponed once–due to a snowstorm, ironically–and that I was barely able to negotiate the course on the Pine Mountain. I also remember that they had some demo fat bikes at the race and that I tried one out, and even though it worked much better in the snow than the Pine Mountain I’M STILL NOT GETTING A FAT BIKE.
Also, I’m way too busy in my ongoing quest to discover The Spirit of Gravel:
In the days before this most recent snowstorm, while everyone else was running around doing stupid stuff like “buying groceries” and “other things you need to survive,” I was squeezing in some last-minute riding. In particular, having previously compared the PRJCT GRVL bike to the Jones, I now endeavored to juxtapose it with the Roadini:
As its name would suggest, the Roadini is a better road bike than the PRJCT GRVL bike, though having ridden in with gravel tires (or GRVL TRS in the proper Gravelese) I know that it is also Reasonably Gravelable:
However, I wouldn’t be tempted to detour onto the forbidding Trails Behind the Mall on it like I was on the PRJCT GRVL bike–which in turn is not nearly as off-roadable as the Jones–from which I conclude that I could easily make do with only the Roadini and the Jones for my graveling needs (GRVLNG NDS), though the PRJCT GRVL bike also occupies an appealing middle ground between the Roadini and the Jones, though that’s not even addressing the other bikes I own that can also effectively traverse that same middle ground, which should probably lead me to the ultimate conclusion that I have far more bikes than I need, though instead I choose to live in denial and instead pretend I’m exercising restraint by declaring that I’M NOT GETTING A FAT BIKE:
I’m not, either.
Speaking of the PRJCT GRVL bike, even though I wasn’t in the market for a broccoli bike in the first place, and even though I now have one anyway, I nevertheless find myself gravel bike window shopping:
And in the process of doing so I stumbled upon this:
I’ve never had a Lynskey, I have no relationship with Lynskey, and I’m not telling you buy a Lynskey. Still, holy crap. That’s only a little more than the PRJCT GRVL bike in the singlespeed trim:
Plus it has external cable routing!
What am I missing?