Seasonable weather may have returned for the moment, but The Duck! City remains a sandy, salty, gooey mess, and thus the Soma Double Cross now sports mudguards because hey: Sometimes a fella doesn’t feel like taking his exercise on a 32-pound touring bike just because it has fenders.
The DC is another of those absurdly versatile sport-utility bikes, suitable for cyclocross, light touring, or simply trying to keep the muscle memory alive in January, when its lesser poundage — just under 26 elbees with a saddlebag and handlebar bell — makes a real difference on the hills.
I used it for a three-day credit-card tour of central Colorado in 2012, and it’s logged plenty of hours on roads and trails in New Mexico, too.
The DC is just a little small for me, which is fine, especially if you suddenly happen to straddle it on some sketchy stretch of singletrack. When I first got back into cycling in the mid-Eighties I started with a 60cm bike, then downsized to 58, and again to 56, before finally inching back up to 58 for pretty much everything save the cyclocross bikes.
The Steelman Eurocrosses, Bianchi Zurigo Disc, and Soma DC are all 55cm, while the Voodoo Wazoo is a 56cm. I should turn the Wazoo back into a drop-bar bike one of these days, but I kind of like it as a flat-bar, single-ring deal. It’s also less welcoming to fenders and a rear rack, should I want them.
Ordinarily when the weather goes sideways I turn to trail running. But we’ve had enough moisture lately to turn crucial segments of the foothills trails into skating rinks, peat bogs, and tar pits, which makes running nearly as much of an exercise in staying upright as cycling.
“Well, at least the motorists can’t nail you on the trail,” you quip. Ho ho, etc. Wrong-o, sport. Lately they’ve been hitting everything from traffic-light stanchions to tattoo parlors, restaurants, and private homes. Stationary objects, easy to avoid, unless you’re ripped to the tits on your reality-management substance of choice.
The wiseguys used to say that you’re taking your life in your hands just by getting out of bed in the morning. Now you can wake up to find yourself sharing the old king-size with a Ford Expedition.
Not even fenders will keep the road grime off your ass then.
Mad Blog Media 
My last road bike before I gave up riding was a DC, disc brake version. Patrick is right; you buy a DC frame set, build it up just the way you want, and you could cover any road ride save a full load self supported tour. Just hard to go wrong with SOMA frame set.
Why wouldn’t a fully loaded tour not also be possible? It seems like that fine roller would be just fine hauling panniers and a fat burro around.
The chain stays are too short on the DC. I got some heel strike with my larger panniers on. But, too your other point, a SOMA Saga, would make a fine all around road bike if you ain’t in a hurry. My old Trek 520 wasn’t bad either. I rode that 520 a bunch, even with faster road bikes in the garage, because it was so damn comfy.
Also, the Double Cross used tubes that were a tad less burly than you’d find on most dedicated touring bikes, which makes the DC a little whippy under a heavy load. I could and did run panniers front and rear on the 55cm DC, but I had to move the rear set waaaaaaaay back for heel clearance. The 58cm Soma Saga has longer chainstays and a longer wheelbase, and it’s really comfy and stable to ride with bags at front and rear.
Any of you ever roll a stick up under the front fender and become intimate with the tarmac? I did many years ago commuting to work-crashed 3 blocks away from getting there. Came in carrying bent bike (frame and fork) and bloody as hell. That was it for fenders until I got a Joe Breezer commuter which had “breakaway “ fender struts. They still made me nervous and also because that frame was dead feeling and stiff I offed that pig. I have a set of fenders for my Rivendell but bet I never put them on before I khack off.
Not yet, Herb, and I hope I never do. I’m kinda over taking headers like that. I fly as well as I ever did but I ain’t so hot at the landings these days.
Now that you mention it, I best keep an eye out for sticks and such. I have four bikes with fenders. Yikes, etc.
Sorry Gents. I should have paid more attention to POG and his posting about the Double Cross. That was the obvious indicator (Cross) about pannier use. I’m a bit messed up these past few days. We lost our dog on Monday and I didn’t realize how much his passing would be so difficult to get past. I just hope is afterlife is as enjoyable as the one he gave to us.
Shawn, I’m truly sorry to hear that. Some neighbors just had to say adios to their dog, and it likewise hit them hard. As did the passing of our Turkish, Mister Boo, Chairman Meow, Bandit, Fuerte, Jojo, and on and on and on.
We are so entranced by their love that the certainty of its eventual absence never occurs to us, until it is made plain. My condolences.
“Dogs’ lives are too short. Their only fault, really.” Agnes Sligh Turnbull
And watch your ass while getting your haircut.
https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/man-who-drove-car-into-hair-salon-early-sunday-faces-drunken-driving-charges/article_1990dbba-b556-11ee-bc7e-c7463d9fe839.html
I did a major faceplant headed downhill from the Audobon Center on a snowpacked little road that suddenly turned to ice. Just a mildly sprained wrist, thankfully. Got a half mile farther and noticed my back pockets, where I kept my cell phone et al, were empty, so climbed back up to find my stuff, which I did before they were run over. But still, more fun than sitting on my ass at home. That was on the Salsa LaCruz with 700-40 X’plor MSO’s too. As Dirty Harry once said, a man has got to know his limitations.
Today? I know that area up there from bitter experience. Many of us have eaten shit but not died in that neck of the woods. Not yet, anyway. My man Matt Wiebe, who lives nearby, has some tales to tell.
The ice is the worstest. You’re down so fast you don’t know what hit you. It was ice covered by water that did for my left communications digit back in 2009.
Tuesday I was using a short stretch of sidewalk to avoid a sketchy right-hand turn from the Tramway bike path onto Candelaria and too late saw a big ice patch in the shade dead ahead, covering most of my intended route to the next intersection. I had about a foot, foot and a half between the ice and a long drop off the curb to a gutter filled with the usual debris.
Happily, I didn’t twitch and made it through unscathed. Lucky, not good. Next time I’ll just stop at the intersection and wait for the green.
Was Wednesday afternoon. Spent yesterday up in Bombtowne.
Khal, I’m glad to hear that you are ok. Although I bet your cussing periodically when you move that wrist a certain way. It was good of you to test the waters for us and remind us that ice can be slick as, well, drum roll please I’m proposing a new verb; “trumpety” slick.
My fitness since Sunday has been pushing, lifting and scraping two domicile driveway and sidewalk appendages. I think I’ve lost myself in the task five times now. No, I’m not tired of it but I am running out of space to place it. It’s nice to have good hard work around that doesn’t require any problem solving brain power.