On Christmas Eve, I returned from a three-weeks' masked sojourn in Italy, apparently uninfected. The wisdom and vicissitudes of Pandemic Tourism are out of scope here, but I did notice that e-bikes have become an increasingly visible component of Italian cycling, especially in city centers, and seem to be successfully competing for the ecological niche long occupied by Vespas.
On Wednesday, I put the GT Karakoram on the stand and swapped out the Rene Herse Humptulips Ridge Extralights, in exchange for studded Nokian
Hakkapeliitta W240 snow & ice tires. This is a case of competing goods, but having occasionally fallen on ice riding without studs, I find I get more winter cycling done if I have a bike fitted with them readily to hand. Thursday, I took the GT out for a test run on the Minuteman.
There were turkeys.
There were Bert and Ernie, encouraging the trail users.
In general, the bike seemed road-worthy, but a perhaps-imagined vagueness in rear-end tracking will probably have it back on the stand before it gets more serious miles.
In other related matters, I took another bike project into Battle Road Bikes, so the value of N is apt to continue to increase over the next few weeks. Good to be back.
rod