hsuBM

Macho? You guys are ridiculous.

any one reading this should read it with a regular, earnest tone of voice: I find commuting my 15 mile, mostly flat, city route mentally easier on 52-14 fixed than on/in anything else. It is the gear I used to find myself in most often on my 10 speed bikes BITD. I spin a low cadence and can roll through or whip around our very frequent pot holes and large debris with great ease. I use SPD only and the few small hills I have to climb or lights I want to sprint from have me out of the saddle and putting in about the same effort as 75lbs 12yo me did doing the same on a 30lbs bmx. Tight turns on a converted road bike with long cranks do call for a thoughtfully erratic lean to clear the inside pedal, but it still takes less than a tenth of the strain as does a good game of chess.

My knees only hurt when I pull out the geared bike and try flittling my legs around with some lower gears for an extended period searching for this storied aerobically efficient gear. My knees hate that.

I’m of the mentality that the only macho, badass people around are the ones who have a summer Bentley, a Porsche road car, a Porsche track car, and a winter Bentley, and none of them are ever more than ten months old. The only time they are on a bicycle is at MOAB or in Southern Europe and the only destination is a story.

There never was a fixed scene here, not much of a bike scene at all here, really. I’m not impressing anyone except for the occasional triathlete.

I’m just some jagoff on a friggin bike who rides it year-round deep in the snow belt.