the blog at eric moon dot net

Today I joined the ranks of Bike Commuters.

It wasn’t without minor problems, but it sure as heck was better than driving.
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Here’s the current parking situation on my side of the garage – the truck will just have to stay out in the driveway, permanently. Besides, these bikes are probably worth 3-4 times the truck, anyway!

Current Stable of Bikes

As mentioned before, here are some of the details of what is going into the Great Transportation Bicycle of ’08 (man, I need to come up with a better name for this bike).

It all starts off with a solid frame.  After extensive research (ie, surfing the web and reading reviews), I decided on the Surly Cross-Check.  Try to look beyond the picture of the balding dude with the hot pants and half-shirt on Surly’s web page and focus on the frame.

The Cross-Check is a steel cyclo-cross bike, has a hanger for a rear derailleur,  semi-horizontal dropouts for single speed or fixed gear use, braze-ons for fenders and …  Well you can read the details on the page above.  If you’re not a bike geek, all of this boils down to : it’s a rock-solid frame and fork with lots of versatility in how it can be built.

Mine is black, of course.

For the past couple of months, I’ve been building up a new bike as a general transportation bike, as opposed to the racing bikes that I own.

I’m doing this because at some point earlier this year, I came to a number of realizations that left me absolutely no choice – I needed this bike.

My infallible and irrefutable underlying reasons for yet another bicycle:

1. I love riding bikes – it’s just dang fun.
2. I hate driving – it makes me angry and stressed.
3. I ride about 10,000 km a year training and racing, but don’t actually go anywhere.
4. I love adjusting, fixing and tinkering with bikes.
5. I live pretty darn close to where I work (less than 6.5km and that’s the long way).
6. I live pretty darn close to other things (grocery stores, other shops, etc).

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