woods in the city in the winter

Riding in the winter sucks. Period. You spend like 20 extra minutes figuring your clothing out, you have to put extra time and energy into fixing and cleaning your bike, you have to buy more clothing most of which somehow makes you look stupider than a regular person in spandex. It needs to be done though.

Pez Cycling news had a feature recently about building the perfect winter bike. I laughed when I read it, because the author must live on mercury. The article is linked, but the bike is basically just a mix of carbon and tech stuff, with a handlebar mounted ipod.

According to Chew, winter is a season and a temperature. If it is 50 degrees in January, and we do a double century, it isnt really a winter double century. He said it has to be below freezing all day for it to count. I dont think this bike above is going to see a winter ride according to Chew's parameters.

Now let me document my blinged out winter rig.


-Surly crosscheck older version that was made of 853 steel.
-mix of 9 speed xt/lx components with an 8 speed dérailleur.
-Chain and cassette and tires have over 3000 miles on them!
-yes that is my dining room.
-yes my house is so cold that the snow didnt melt since my ride.

Some highlights of this bling ride include the custom under the seat bag:

Notice the plastic buckle that snapped when it was 15 degrees one day has since been customized in a way that should avoid future breakage.



Today this hotrod was taken out for 3.5 hours in the city. Pittsburgh's city parks are totally amazing, and this bike is made for them. Today I cruised between 2 parks, rode the trails and headed home.
Ed was in vermont, or else I could have possibly seen him at the fruit loop while I was hitting the trails there. Its weird that gay man walking through the woods have made a good 15 minutes worth of singletrack.