Ick!
It’s late morning on a Sunday in early May, and there’s snow in the air.
It’s too warm for it to stick to anything, but there’s snow flying around in the winds outside my window.
It’s days like today that really make me feel grateful for cycling to work during the week. Weekdays this spring have been glorious. Just this past Wednesday it was sunny, over 80, with just a light breeze. I was able to get out, get some big miles in and still get to work on time and get home at night before dark.
This coming week looks nasty all week, but the past several have been wonderful. I’ve taken either the Portland or Yellow Bike on Mondays and Thursdays. They have racks. On Mondays I load up the panniers with the week’s worth of work clothes, snacks and returning library books. On Thursdays I bring home the laundry and library books.
The more I ride this bike the more I like it. I have enough miles in on it now that its personality is starting to become apparent. Blue is a happy bike.
The Portland, is very stoic and businesslike. It goes about things with an air of confident competence and pride. It’s like having the military special forces under me. It never questions orders and it carries out every ride like its the only mission it ever had. Although, it seems to particularly enjoy carrying loads, and the more the better.
Yellow Bike is frisky as a puppy. All it wants to do is run and play. No matter how fast I’m going, it always wants to go faster. It’s happiest driven right to the edge. It has definite preferences. It intensely dislikes surfaces other than pavement. It throws its chain in disgust if I ask it to ride across grass. It refuses to track a straight line in gravel.
It doesn’t mind a light load in the Tailrider, and it doesn’t seem to mind a few dirty shirts in the commuting panniers. But more than that and it protests. It seems to actively try to shake the load off, since the load restricts its preference to bound around, run and play.
Blue, on the other hand, will never have to carry a load. It has no provisions for attaching a rack. Yes, you can cobble something together or even use one of those ghastly seatpost racks. But why? I have one bike that loves to tote things around, and another that will do so if it’s not too much trouble.
Blue is just plain happy to get out of the house. Its racing heritage comes through in that I hardly notice its speed until I look down at the cyclometer. It makes fast easy. Yet it always feels like it’s just loping along, waiting for a firm kick in the ribs.
Those times when its old motor can kick it in the ribs, it takes right off and runs easily. It’s on Blue that I’ve turned in my fastest average speeds on every route I’ve taken it on. It’s consistently turning in averages of over 18 MPH on commutes in stop-and-go. Yikes!
Yet, rein it in and it’s just as happy to poke along. On a club ride last month we returned home with an average speed of only 13.8 MPH. In my comments on the ride I wrote:
Blue took it all in stride. A easy cruise to the ride, downhill with a tailwind loafing along in the big ring at 30, and it was perfectly content tootling around at 10 and 11 mph. It liked the rollers, did well on the climbs, swallowed up the descents, and took potholes and bad pavement with aplomb.
Last Sunday we went out to Mendon Ponds Park for an early morning ride before the rains. I was apprehensive about the climbs on Mendon Center Road. I’ve always had to granny down on them when riding the triples. Climbing those hills with Blue’s standard double (53/39) was intimidating.
Yet, with its wheel pointed to the sky, Blue just said, “Oh boy! Nice climb.” and boogied right on up. While it didn’t complain when I coasted down the descents, it seemed like it wanted me to be pedaling.
Returning on Clover Street, we did just that. It was big ring all the way and over 30 MPH for much of the run. I’m usually switching between the middle and big rings on the other bikes, but it wasn’t necessary with Blue. It didn’t even seem to mind being cross-chained pulling away from the stoplights.
In the middle, I had hoped the porta-potties were out for the season. Alas, no, they aren’t. But there was a footrace in the park with the start/finish in the beach parking lot, and they’d opened the bathrooms. I never gave it thought as I pointed Blue across the lawn. It was only after we got back to the parking lot that AI noticed it hadn’t spit its chain, or handled funny on the grass.
The pavement on Clover Street from Monroe to Elmwood, and especially from Monroe to Allens Creek, hasn’t fared well this past winter. It ranges from bumpy to downright nasty. Blue just thought it looked like fun and rode right through.
I’m also beginning to get a sense of the material. Steel gives a different feel to the road and the bumps. Yet, Blue doesn’t ride any better or worse than the Portland. This only increases my respect for what Trek has done with the Portland. But the Portland’s aluminum frame feels different. Shock is dissipated just as well as with Blue’s Reynolds 853 steel, but Blue feels different, sort of like the bumps are further away or something.
I can’t really describe it, but I’m beginning to like it.
This coming week it looks like Blue is likely to remain on its hook in the living room. The forecast has rain in it every day except Monday. Definitely weather for the Portland with its full fenders, cool confidence, and grippy wet weather tires.
