It’s getting crowded in the bike/plant room.
Shauna informed me that it may frost this weekend and that we had to move the potted plants from the porch into the basement. Some of these potted plants are 10 years old, one of my plants is 20 years old. Every year we drag them down to the basement where they get just enough light and water to get them through the winter. The plant room is also the bike room so its getting pretty crowded.
My last 5 rides have all been on the Beast of the East, which is vintage 1992 bike, including vintage “super narrow” bars and purple anodized bar ends. Riding this bike is alot of fun, it’s high bottom bracket allows you to get over things with ease, it’s stiff as a rail, nimble, and has geometry that seems endo proof. In short it rocks, but there is a down side.
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The high bottom bracket means you have to reach a little harder when getting on and off the bike, it’s lower position puts more strain on your lower back, and the narrow bars put way more strain on your shoulders. If you’ve ever bench pressed with your hands too close together that’s what it feels like. Oh and the cantilever brakes make your fingers work alot harder to slow down compared to disc brakes.
After a couple weeks riding the Beast, my shoulders are killing me, my arms hurt, my back hurts, my sides hurt and my hips hurt. In short I’ve had too much fun.
Riding Eagle Mountain
Having all these bikes hanging up makes me wonder if I wouldn’t be better to have one “do it all” bike. My buddy Barry is thinking about getting the Santa Cruz Bronson, a bike geared more towards going fast downhill then anything else. He rode one in Colorado recently and said it was the greatest bike he’d ever ridden. That’s probably just what he needs, he’s got plenty of power to wrestle a heavy Enduro bike up a hill, and he’s young and fearless enough to let the bike fly down. Unfortunately riding in the Shawnee doesn’t offer to many chances for a bike like this to really shine, sure we’ve got some hills to fly down, but your riding up the next side before you know it.
One last thing on today’s grab bag post. The recently heard of the Lauf fork from my buddy Eli. I’ve always thought someone should take advantage of the flexible nature of carbon and try to build some kind of carbon suspension fork. Well it’s been done and it looks awesome. Regular suspension forks are great, except for that they are kind of heavy, and need to be maintained and worked on. This fork has no moving parts and nothing to maintain. It looks awesome.
Barn Door Cycling 