A man, a touring bike, and a deadline.
Have you ever noticed that whenever it’s a beautiful day, you have chores that need doing?
Happily, a fair amount of my chores today involved being outside with someone else’s bicycle.
I was dicking around with a video project yesterday, and it was not going at all well, when it struck me that I hadn’t nailed down a video review of the Jamis Aurora Elite for Adventure Cyclist. The print review will be in April’s edition.
Oopsie.
So out I went, me and my GoPro, and you would not believe how long it takes some people to come up with two minutes of footage. I certainly didn’t believe it. Jaysis. The Universe and everything in it were in cahoots against me. Allergies certainly didn’t help. They had me by the brain stem with a downhill pull.
Still, I was riding a bike in the sunshine for a couple hours, kinda, sorta, so I have nothing to complain about. Hah. As if that ever stopped me.
Mad Blog Media 
March 5, 2019 at 8:03 pm |
Somehow “ride someone else’s bike” never shows up on my to do list.
March 5, 2019 at 8:09 pm |
Oops! Proved myself wrong!! Tomorrow I have to go pick up my boss’s new ride and make sure it gets home in one piece. Hard to beat “free” when it comes to new bikes. One of the perks of working for New Belgium: all employees get a cruiser on their 365 day anniversary. This year it’s something from Brooklyn Bikes, painted up in Fat Tire colors. Not going to win any races, but, again, can’t beat “free” when it comes to two wheeled self-propelled locomotion.
March 5, 2019 at 8:22 pm |
Ah, New Belgium. Right up there with Clif Bars on a dream place to work. I hope my dream is your reality.
Patrick, your video reviews are beauties! And, I renewed my ACA membership today for the 7th time. More members.
March 6, 2019 at 6:15 pm |
Just to clear things up a bit: my boss is Household6, my better half. She’s a graphic designer at NBB, and she’s pretty much loved every minute there.
March 6, 2019 at 5:33 am |
I saw that Brooklyn was doing New Belgium’s bikes now. Check out the twin top tubes. A nod to Rivendell, p’raps?
Pat, in my capacity as Fake News Specialist for the Adventure Cycling Association, let me say thanks for the compliment and for the membership.
March 6, 2019 at 7:29 am |
“The New Belgium bikes are based on Brooklyn’s Driggs 3 model, a three-speeder with a double-butted chromoly frame with geometry by Rivendell Cycles’ Grant Petersen, a former member of Brooklyn’s board of advisers.” I bet you are right about the twin top tubes. Wonder if they are on all sizes?
You are welcome. And ACA membership is worth every penny.
Now, I got to start learning that damnable B7 chord so I can impress Alan when he comes over this afternoon for one of out “picking and grinning” sessions. He loves Doc Watson’s cover of “Deep River Blues”, and I would like to strum along with his finger picking.
March 6, 2019 at 7:49 am |
Which version of B7 are you working on? I can manage this one, sometimes, if I ain’t sufferin’ the rheumatiz.
March 6, 2019 at 10:18 am |
Thanks for the link. That is the way I am trying to play it. I think I will experiment with barring a A7 instead.
March 5, 2019 at 8:31 pm |
If New Belgium wasn’t so far north, I might apply for a job when I get tired of building weapons of mass destruction.
Today’s ride amounted to scooting around Fanta Se collecting license plates and stuff that was still sitting in the newly departed Impreza, which our insurance company declared a total loss. But at least it was a bike ride.
So is anyone on for the Fanta Se half century at a snail’s pace? It will be a slow ride for this old guy, who gained a shitload of weight driving back and forth to BombTowne instead of riding to work, and then sitting on my ass in front of a computer instead of a set of handlebars for eight hours a day.
Sheesh. I look way too much like O’G’s cartoon these days.
March 6, 2019 at 5:34 am |
K, I’ll do a post about the century, see if we can flush any participants out of the woodwork. Maybe it’ll finally be mud season come ride time, yeah?
March 6, 2019 at 9:03 am |
So Patrick, are you in for the ride?
March 6, 2019 at 9:49 am |
Yeah, what the hell? I haven’t participated in an official event of any sort in far too long. A half-century it is. O, and to think that as a young pup I routinely did the full hundy in under five hours, rocking the 42×21 on Heartbreak Hill. Woe, etc.
I’ll do an official Santa Fe Century post later today to alert the rest of the readership, all three of ’em. At the moment I’m up to me arse in alligators.
March 6, 2019 at 4:45 am |
Not that I ever would DO such a thing, but I thought they always said NOT to load a bike up with just the bags on the back as it screws up the handling of the bike? My only experience with the idea was years ago when we strapped a chain-saw motor onto my Schwinn Varsity’s spring loaded rear rack to haul it down to a repair shop. Talk about speed-wobble!! Didn’t even need any real speed to get the wobbles! Have things changed? Low-rider front setups used to be all-the-rage.
March 6, 2019 at 5:40 am |
I think the rule of thumb remains a load divided between front and rear, especially for anyone carrying serious weight, which I was not.
I had 10 pounds of camera gear in that rear setup and another couple of pounds in the handlebar bag, and I hardly noticed the weight at all, whether going up or down. The beast even cut tight corners nicely as I rolled around in circles trying to get some suitable video.
When I got back home I added a low rider, a Tubus Ergo, and will shoot a bit of fully loaded bike today. I always ride these suckers unloaded, rear loaded and totally loaded. (The bike, not me.)
March 6, 2019 at 6:02 am |
Yep that’s the way I load my shopping bike in Sicily, though the basket up front and plastic milk-type crate on the rear rack mean the weight’s far higher than is optimal. But I’m not going more than a few kilometers and it’s all pretty flat, so no worries. Serious weight (like jugs of wine) go in my backpack so they don’t have any effect…until I get home and enjoy some!
March 6, 2019 at 6:22 am |
The rear rack that comes with the Jamis mimics the Tubus Logo Evo, with side rails that let you hang your panniers 38mm beneath the rack top, further lowering your center of gravity.
Since I wasn’t carrying much in those little Arkel Dry-Lites, it was no big deal. But with big weight it’s nice to carry it a little closer to the deck.
March 6, 2019 at 9:06 am |
I rode with all the stuff in the back on this trip from Amsterdam to Cambridge, UK. Worked really well but as O’G said, it was not an insufferably heavy set of panniers. Mainly clothing and paperwork.
March 6, 2019 at 9:07 am |
Yes, that was me, believe it or not. Back when I was a man and a cyclist, rather than whatever it is I am now.
March 6, 2019 at 9:50 am |
See, folks, there’s a real bicycle tourist for you. Not the Fake News dude who runs this outfit.
March 7, 2019 at 11:08 am
1986 sure is a long way in the rear view mirror, ain’t it? Bike Nashbar panniers, Motobecane Mirage with a 52×39 up front and IIRC, 13-30 on the back, downtube shifters, and an actual bicyclist’s physique back then.
I was runner up that year for a job in the geology dept. at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. If I had gotten the offer, I would have taken it. Life sure would have turned out differently.
March 6, 2019 at 10:12 am |
Khal’s the man! I found my legs on the ride yesterday. But there is a strange swelling right about them that is blocking the view of, well, anyway. I have no idea where it came from, but I suspect New Belgium was somehow involved.