Of the four options I talked about in "The bike dilemma," I chose #2 (convert my mountain bike to a decent crossover).
#1 (keep mountain bike as is) sucks because it's a lot of work to ride on wide, knobby tires (and a cushy, energy-absorbing suspension). #3 (buy a new but cheap bike) is clearly against our 2013 rules. And #4 (buy a secondhand bike) didn't work out, simply because I found that even a used $500 bike is in many ways inferior to my existing bike, a >$1200 bike that I bought used for $400 in 1998 or so. Even so, as I wandered around my bike shop of choice, I had to stop myself from rationalizing how great this or that $1000 bike would be. Old habits die hard.
So here is a tally of my upgrade expenses:
$60.00 - Two puncture-proof commuter tires
$8.40 - Two tubes (I have loads of new spares, but they're all way too wide for my new skinny tires)
$2.24 - Wheel rim tape (the previous stuff was fifteen years old and almost worn through)
$2.80 - One pretty little red bell (to let pedestrians and other bikers know I'm about to pass them -- but not really, given that most commuters have sleeker/faster bikes than mine)
Also, I spent $32.48 on a pair of MEC shoe covers. It rains a lot in Vancouver. I've heard that these will do a decent job of ensuring that I arrive at work with dry feet. On a related note, I already had some fenders that I could reinstall; these should keep me from showing up at work with a mud stripe down my back.
In all, it took me a few hours to tune my bike up and swap out the tires, but it was a fun activity to reconnect me with this old friend. Gearing up for bicycle commuting set me back just over $100, a far cry from the several hundred dollars I would have been tempted to spend in any non-2013 year. A great bonus was that Erin and I were able to take our bikes out of storage for a test ride downtown to drop in at our friends Kat/Liam & family on Sunday evening.
Anyway, here are some pics:
#1 (keep mountain bike as is) sucks because it's a lot of work to ride on wide, knobby tires (and a cushy, energy-absorbing suspension). #3 (buy a new but cheap bike) is clearly against our 2013 rules. And #4 (buy a secondhand bike) didn't work out, simply because I found that even a used $500 bike is in many ways inferior to my existing bike, a >$1200 bike that I bought used for $400 in 1998 or so. Even so, as I wandered around my bike shop of choice, I had to stop myself from rationalizing how great this or that $1000 bike would be. Old habits die hard.
So here is a tally of my upgrade expenses:
$60.00 - Two puncture-proof commuter tires
$8.40 - Two tubes (I have loads of new spares, but they're all way too wide for my new skinny tires)
$2.24 - Wheel rim tape (the previous stuff was fifteen years old and almost worn through)
$2.80 - One pretty little red bell (to let pedestrians and other bikers know I'm about to pass them -- but not really, given that most commuters have sleeker/faster bikes than mine)
Also, I spent $32.48 on a pair of MEC shoe covers. It rains a lot in Vancouver. I've heard that these will do a decent job of ensuring that I arrive at work with dry feet. On a related note, I already had some fenders that I could reinstall; these should keep me from showing up at work with a mud stripe down my back.
In all, it took me a few hours to tune my bike up and swap out the tires, but it was a fun activity to reconnect me with this old friend. Gearing up for bicycle commuting set me back just over $100, a far cry from the several hundred dollars I would have been tempted to spend in any non-2013 year. A great bonus was that Erin and I were able to take our bikes out of storage for a test ride downtown to drop in at our friends Kat/Liam & family on Sunday evening.
Anyway, here are some pics:
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