Big Bikes

XX in X

That's right, I've done gone geared for 2010. And not just geared, SRAM XX geared. That's two in the front (in my case a 26/39, SRAM has 29er specific gearing...sweet!) and ten in the rear. Whatever am I going to do with all those gears?

It's an experiment, a human experiment. Or something. Although the last time I did one of those I wound up with a prehensile superfluous nipple. But how superfluous can such a useful extra appendage be really?

I've thought this through as well as I think anything through.
That would be not all that well. Excuse me, I'll be right back. I have to go wander into the kitchen in my Snuggie (even Mr. Cool Ice likes to be warm and cozy sometimes) to make some hash browns with my Slap Chop.

An opportunity came up, it was time sensitive, I decided to douse myself with gasoline, light myself on fire, and jump off the cliff.

I struggled with the idea of going geared for a few minutes (or maybe it was seconds), then I came up with the shaky justification which allowed me to go forward with the decision. The important thing about my bike is not the number of gears it has (or doesn't have), the important thing is that it's a freakin' bike. It takes me places. I take it places, crazy stuff happens, I have new stories to tell.

I skated when I was a kid. We used to session a curb or a bank for hours. Pushing around in circles in the roughly the same space. Then I got a bike. I would ride around Wellesley College (illegally) and some other assorted town lands on my too-big orange Rockhopper with the saddle too low. There were some real woods about five miles away, over in the town of Dover, the Noanet Woodlands. I started riding over there. I don't recall ever driving over, it was always the "long haul," ten miles round trip with usually at least an hour ride in-between. I would come back shelled. I would pull a chair into a cold shower with a half-gallon of orange juice and sit there trying to stop sweating.

What was my point?

Oh ya — my bike takes me places and that's a big part of why I like it. I don't like downtime in my sports (hence my lack of interest in pretty much any mainstream sport). On a bike you're always rolling. With the right eye you can make almost any terrain exciting.

This doesn't mean I am giving up single speeding. I'll still be riding my single a ton and racing it whenever I can (hopefully "doing the double" when possible). Who knows, once the SRAM guys see how slow I am on gears, maybe they'll tell me to take a hike and I'll be back to constantly whining about improper gear choice. For the time being I'll keep the Blog subtitle "2 Dumb 4 Gears," until we see what happens out there come April.

It's actually more relaxing to think about going to a race with 20 gears at your disposal instead of one. All you have to sweat is tire choice (oh and I will be sweating it).

Don't worry, I have some great ideas as to how to make my life more interesting (miserable) even on a snazzy geared bike.

Bring on the "you're a pansy" comments. I'll have Bronski Beat cranked up so loud, I won't be able to hear you.