Scenic Route

Stopped at the light at Exchange and Broad Streets, I was sweating more heavily than I’d anticipated after a lunchtime ride that could only be described as a “right good flogging”.

While wishing for a water bottle, I became aware of a tension bearing down on me from behind. Over the past few months I’ve developed a sort of sixth sense in traffic. It rarely fails me.

The light changed to green, acting on my intuition, I faded to the right just bit as a black ricer shot by on the left. The driver, a kid barely out of short trousers, shouted across his girlfriend’s lap, “Get out of the road!”

I’ll bet he thinks chicks dig it, I thought to myself. Good thing I was there for him. Then upshifting, I stood on the pedals and swung left around a car prevented from turning right at the next intersection by swarms of office workers returning from lunch.

I thought back to the first and last time a driver shouted at me. It was in my first week of cycling. Maybe the first day or the second. I was stopped at a light, waiting to turn left into Cobbs Hill Park. A man in a Jetta had the green and turned left in front of me while shouting, “Get on the sidewalk!”

I braked hard, downshifted and swerved around a jaywalker in front of the Federal Building.

You know, the last time I was yelled at, things worked out okay. I’ll take this as a good omen.

I made the light at Andrews, leaned hard into the turn and shot up the street, the snick, snick, snick of successive upshifts keeping my cadence high and effortless as the bike flowed across the bridge and up the grade to Saint Paul. It felt as if it was being pulled uphill by an unseen force. All I had to do was pedal fast enough to keep up with it.

 
Tung looked up from the bike he was fixing and grinned at me as the Portland and I crossed the threshold. He asked, “How was it?”

“Downshifts need to be coaxed in the middle of the cassette,” I replied, “and apparently we got the stem on crooked the other day, because the bars aren’t quite straight. There’s some numbness in my right hand, but I think rotating the bars down a bit or the levers in a touch should take care of it—something so I’m not riding on that nerve.”

I leaned the bike against the counter, pulled off my glasses and wiped the sweat from my face with my glove. “Otherwise, it’s one sweet ride,” I concluded. “Tell Kyle I’ll be back after work to put down a deposit.”

Thursday evening when I arrived back at Full Moon Vista Bike and Sport, the tag on the Portland—my Portland—said “Sold” and had my name on it.

Agonizing over it

Deciding between the Trek Portland and the Schwinn World DBX has been one of the most difficult decisions I’ve had to make in a good long time. The bikes have nearly identical geometry and are similarly equipped.

The differences primarily being the Schwinn uses a sloping top tube and has a 9-speed Tiagra drivetrain with a splash of 105, whereas the Portland’s top tube slopes just a smidge and it’s drivetrain is 10-speed 105 with a dash of Ultegra.

In the Schwinn’s favor, it comes with full fenders and lists for half-a-grand less than the Portland. Plus, I liked it’s paint job better.

It came down to the dealer and the numbers.

At Towners’ I could ride around the parking lot for a little while. At Full Moon Vista, when I asked about limits on the test ride, Scott said, “Go wherever you like and bring it back whenever you’re done.”

Scott and Kyle fitted the Portland to me before they let me take it for a test ride. I was in the trainer quite some time last week and we swapped the stem in the course of our adjustments. Even before I took it out the door, I knew it fit right and would be comfy. And I knew that was all part of the service with every bike they sell, no extra charge.

Lambert fits by the standover method. In other words, if the top tube doesn’t crush your nuts when you straddle the bike, it fits. Even so, I felt cramped on the Schwinn—the reach was too short.

The only size they had was a medium. Without a pre-purchase fitting, I couldn’t be sure if it was just a fitting issue or if I needed a larger size altogether. And if so, how much larger. I’d have had to guess, take delivery, then take it to another shop for a fitting, where parts changes—like a different stem—would have been purchases.

That raised the effective price of the Schwinn and increased my doubts about long-term happiness with it. Would I be stuck with bike that didn’t fit?

Meanwhile, Kyle cut me a sweet deal on the Portland. It’s a leftover 2006 model and the 2008s are on the way. Better to convert it into cash now than to try to get full markup later. Plus, with the full fitting and unlimited test ride, I’m absolutely certain I’ll love this bike for years to come.

In the end, the effective difference in price was around $100. For 10-speed and name cachet, $100 is cheap. The Portland became the better bargain.

The ride

In traffic, the Portland is nimble without being twitchy. It maneuvers quickly and easily without being thrown from the intended course by bumps or stray, unintended rider input. Out on the MUP, it’s almost stately in its smoothness.

Rough roads and even the tree roots pushing up through the pavement in that one section of the Riverway are somehow toned-down and dissipated by the carbon fork, or the longer, touring bike-style chainstays, or some sort of compliance engineered into the frame, or even the 28mm tires.

Whatever the magic is, it takes the harsh edge off the bumps. The ride quality verges on plush and the wheels stay planted firmly to terra firma. You won’t confuse it with a full-squishy mountain bike, but it doesn’t slap your butt either.

Climbing, it’s not quite as light-feeling as Yellow Bike. I didn’t expect it to be, given the added rotational mass of the brake rotors and the heavier hoops required by the stylish low-spoke-count wheels. Still, it’s nowhere close to the dragging-an-anvil-uphill feeling I get from Bike.

Sprinting away from a light, I can see why the designers specified a 39-tooth middle ring (closer to Bike’s) rather than a 42-tooth ring (like Yellow Bike’s). It needs the lower ratio for quick acceleration.

While I’m undecided on the heavier hoops of the spiffy-looking low-spoke-count wheels, I’ll put up with the weight penalty of the disc brakes. Grabbing a handful of stoppers is like reaching the end of a rope.

And yet, when just a smidge of slowing is required, it’s easy to accomplish by feel. I was able to do both with confidence—and anything in between—within the first mile or two of my ride.

I got all of the testing done on the outbound leg of my test ride, so on the return leg, I just settled in and enjoyed the ride.

I took in the noontime scenery in the park. This included a squirrel trying to run off with a slice of pizza. The little guy had a hold of it by the middle of the crust side, and kept tripping over the point, which had folded under and was trailing behind. The geese ignored me, and I them. It seemed like half the university was out jogging.

And the miles just rolled away under the Portland. I began to get the feeling that this would be an excellent all-day bike as well as perfect for the daily cut-and-thrust of commuting, errands and grocery-getting.

As that thought popped into my head, I realized I had to get back into traffic. I hopped off the Riverway and crossed the river on the Ford Street bridge.

I shifted to the big ring and did my best scalded cat impression down Exchange, never slowing for that nasty section through the construction area. I can’t be certain without a cyclometer and in the absence of radar, but I think I could have gotten a speeding ticket in front of Police Headquarters.

I was thinking I just might make it through downtown without stopping when the light changed at Broad Street by the War Memorial. I downshifted the front to the middle ring, the back to third, and enjoyed the tactile pleasure of squeezing the disk brake levers to a smooth stop.

While wishing I had a water bottle, I became aware of a tension bearing down on me from behind…

Not there yet

It’ll be a few weeks—September 20 at the earliest or November 15 at the latest—before I’ll have the Portland all paid for and can ride it home. In the meanwhile, I’m trying to figure out where I’ll put a third bike in this apartment. I have no plans to part with either Bike or Yellow Bike in the immediate future.

However, Friday at work, a co-worker’s brother or brother-in-law was visiting from LA. He’s a cyclist and we got to talking. As it turns out, he owns a Portland. He got his two years ago and has been slowly thinning his herd of road bikes ever since. The only one he rides any more is his Portland.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 12th, 2007 at 12:32 am EDT and is filed under Bike. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.