***It’s the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. I’m not formally blogging and this is not a post. This is just us hanging around and talking.***
There’s a “Seinfeld” episode in which Kramer sells his life story to Jay Peterman, but he runs out of anecdotes, and so his tales become increasingly mundane:
As a semi-professional bike blogger I’ve clearly reached the same pathetic state, because not only am I also listing things in my apartment by analyzing all my bike holdings, but I’m quoting “Seinfeld” in the process, which means that on the literary hierarchy my prose now ranks somewhere between “Reddit thread” and “What’s App group chat.” However, you will note in the above disclaimer that this is not technically a post, so I won’t have officially hit rock bottom until I resume posting after New Year’s:
Also, as tedious as all this may be for you, it’s incredibly helpful for me, since this is the first time I’ve conducted a meaningful inventory of all my bikes instead of ratholing them throughout my home like an inmate hoarding smokes. And just yesterday I cleared out a bunch of parts and accessories, mostly comprised of old tires and things I’ve promised myself I’ll fix but never will. This represents progress, and I credit the past few days of non-blogging for introducing some much-needed fiber in my backed-up bicycle digestive system.
Anyway, some of you have mentioned other bikes I haven’t addressed. One of those includes my wife’s Clem Smith, Jr., which I haven’t mentioned because, well, it’s not mine:
It’s her bike, she loves it, it’s fantastic, and it’s not going anywhere.
Others of you have mentioned the Brompton, shown here looking like a freshly-smacked dog:
Well, for the Bromptonauts out there I’m sorry to report I’m no longer one of you. The Brompton was a revelation in terms of sheer practicality and I used it quite a bit. However, circumstances changed, and I was no longer using it enough to justify keeping it, and so awhile back I found it a new home. This in no way diminishes my respect for Bromptons or the people who ride them, even if they do look a little bit like circus bears. Also, don’t tell Brompton, because they may be disappointed, or even angry, though it’s far more likely they no longer remember who I am.
Also no longer among our holdings are these his-and-hers WorkCycles:
Like the Brompton, both were marvelously practical, and both saw lots and lots of use. But once the kids were big enough to ride around on their own bikes we passed them along to people with younger kids of their own. As for riding around in comfort and carrying stuff and taking little family jaunts around the neighborhood or whatever, the Platypus and the Clem now fulfill those duties whist also being better suited to riding longer distances and much easier to bring in and out of the building or load onto the car for family outings and that sort of thing.
It’s been years since I passed the Surly Big Dummy along though I figured I might as well mention it. This bike saw me through my elder son’s earliest years and was my first cargo bike. Unfortunately the challenge of a bike like this in a city is that it’s got an exposed drivetrain so you can’t really leave it outside day in and day out, but it’s also a long-ass bike and therefore difficult to store inside. So the WorkCycles that succeeded it was easier to live with in that regard. But if you have the room for a longtail like this it’s a great bike because it’s not only extremely useful but also lots of fun to ride. Chatter on the Internets seems to indicate that Surly are discontinuing the Big Dummy, which is a shame. I assume it’s a casualty of the move to e-bikes.
Speaking of Surly, someone mentioned my coupled travel bike. I got that directly from Surly when I was traveling a lot for book tours, but once those wound down I didn’t use it nearly as much. Also, it was a tad small, since that’s the only size Surly had left at the time. I last used it as a singlespeed at the Rainey Park Cyclocross race in Queens:
After that I was returning a bike case to Paul at Classic Cycle, and rather than sent it back empty I put the Surly in it. I never received a thank you note, which is surprising, because if there’s one thing bike shops love it’s more bike clutter.
But while I no longer have the coupled Surly, I do still have the Ironic Orange Julius Bike–or at least the frame. It has lived many different lives, from the commuter you see above, to the singlespeed cyclocross bike you see below:
And that you wish you could unsee:
Now it’s just a frame and fork:
Plus a rusty Excalibur of a bottom bracket awaiting a brave knight to extricate it:
Surely it’s the ironic tracklocross bike of someone’s dreams.
Also reduced to frame and fork was my On-One Inbred, though I did recently move that along to a new owner:
For years I rode it as a singlespeed, and I probably should have used that as the basis for the cheap 29er singlespeed I mentioned yesterday, but at the time I was building it back up for my elder son and it felt really weird to put him on a bike called “Inbred.”
So there you go, I can get rid of things when I put my mind to it.