This post is dedicated to Peter who recently added the following message to his winter bike: "One less fixie." Peter dedicated that message to his student who was embarking on learning to ride her fix gear and learning to ride in traffic on the streets Philadelphia. You go girl!
One of my new old bikesSo of course, with all that is trendy, what the world certainly doesn't need now is another fixed gear bicycle. Don't worry though, I'm not trying to be cool (for me, any attempt to that end would require oh-so much more than any bike could provide), and in fairness, this isn't so much another fixed gear as a replacement for the cherry red Fuji I just passed on to a new home.
So I like my new bike. Assembled on an old Raleigh Technium platform(steel lugs and stays with glued aluminum main tubes), it rides comfortably, fits me well, and is PINK! I even liked it enough to grab it for 40 miles of hills and dales through Colchester, East Haddam, and Salem despite having to pedal like a sillier person than I usually am on the downhills. Sometimes a cobbled together bike like this just works right and one likes it very much.
The Devil's Hopyard is icy, ironic?So I'm not sure I like my new bike. No, not the Raleigh, I've been busy and also built up an old Shogun 400 that was unearthed from the deep bowls of the basement. It is a pretty basic 80's sport/touring/road frame with lugs holding together at least decent Tange double butted chromoly tubing and adorned with fenders for proper butt-stain-free winter riding. There is nothing wrong with this bike per say, but on my maiden ride with it yesterday I was bedeviled by the details.
The as yet unloved S-hog-un
1) I need to extend the toe clips so my feet are far enough forward to avoid knee pain even with wearing boots for winter warmth.
2) When I extend the toe clips, this will give me even more fender/toe overlap in sharp turns.
3) I fit it with a long stem for the short top tube, my I like short stems and long top tubes. I don't have the skills to fit a longer top tube.
4) It isn't pink.
I'll keep playing with the Shogun, but in the mean time, I supposed the world has an extra fixed gear, and I like it.
The as yet unloved S-hog-un2) When I extend the toe clips, this will give me even more fender/toe overlap in sharp turns.
3) I fit it with a long stem for the short top tube, my I like short stems and long top tubes. I don't have the skills to fit a longer top tube.
4) It isn't pink.
I'll keep playing with the Shogun, but in the mean time, I supposed the world has an extra fixed gear, and I like it.
3 comments:
My first new road bike was a Pepto-Bismol pink Shogun Selectra bought in 1989 or '90. My LBS had them in blue and pink. The pink ones weren't selling, so they marked them down substantially. I gave it away a few years back, and later heard it became a fixie. I thought I might have seen it running around Hartford a while ago, which would be cool, but I couldn't be sure.
I just got my old man's shogun 400 from the mid-late 80's and cleaned it up and am gonna start fixing it. I was wondering what kind of quality these bikes were made with and can't find a decent site to enlighten me. Any comments or a link would be great.
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