Sad News

A recurring theme on this blog is the interruption of my bicycling dreams by the realities of life. In some cases, I could explain this fully on the blog. In others, I could not. For example, when my Dad's health began to fail and I had to interrupt my cycling to fly to California to help care for him, I described that in great detail. However, when other things happened, privacy concerns forbade me doing so. Instead, I repeatedly referred to a cryptic post which only said that my cycling was being impacted by something about which I could not blog. Sadly, I now can. In April of 2015, my wife Agi, had her ovarian cancer recur. Ovarian cancer, when it initially occurs, is rarely curable; only 20% or so of women with ovarian cancer are cured. Recurrent ovarian cancer is never curable, so from that date forward, we knew what was coming, but I could not blog about it. Why not? Well, if you know you are going to die, then you have to decide how you are going to live the years or months or days that you have left. Agi, being the brilliant, brave, and practical person that she was, decided that ignoring her cancer was the only rational response, and to do that, the fewer people who knew about it, the better. Thus the title of that cryptic blog post was "I Have No Mouth, but I Must Scream." But now that Agi has finally lost her eight year fight against cancer, there is no longer anything to stop the screaming.

The picture at the top of the post was my wife's commuter bike. Back in 2012, we went through a long process of trying to buy her a commuter, defined very specific criteria for the commuter we wanted, and then never bought anything. (There may have been some cause and effect there.) Whether it was the many cycles of harsh treatment or progression of the cancer itself, by the summer of 2016, she was finding it more and more difficult to commute to work on her road bike, mostly because swinging her leg over the frame was becoming a challenge. At about the same time, Public Bikes had a sale on a very attractive looking commuter, one with a step-through frame which promised to solve that problem. Although we have previously said we would not buy a commuter that Agi could not test-ride first, we abandoned that principle and had them send us one. Agi loved that bike and was able to bike to work a few months longer because of it. In brief, I cannot recommend Public Bikes more highly.

And so, life goes on. For me, but not for Agi. Does this mean a return to regular blogging? Honestly, I don't know. What I do know is that is very much what Agi would want, so I will try with everything I've got. Stay tuned.

Buying a Commuter

The Breezer Uptown 8, a dedicated commuting bicycle with an amazing collection of features.

My wife started commuting to work by bike last April.  The social, financial, and personal benefits of this change have proven to be substantial.  The social benefits of bicycle commuting are widely known. Besides the reduction in fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas production, my wife's bicycle commuting have saved us from buying a second car with all the environmental impact that would entail.  The financial benefits of avoiding the purchase price, taxes, and repairs of a second car are similarly obvious.  However, a big source of additional savings comes from not having to pay for parking.  Texas Medical Center (TMC) where my wife works is the largest medical center in the world, and as such, is very large, very busy and very crowded.  As a result, parking in TMC is expensive indeed, and canceling my wife's monthly parking contract had a significant impact on our budget. The personal benefits of bicycle commuting were the a surprise.  It takes less time and is less stressful for my wife to bicycle to work than to drive to and park in the busy TMC. In addition, although the ride is only 3.5 miles long, the 7 miles a day makes a noticeable difference in her fitness. The point of all of this is that we are highly motivated to remove even the slightest impediment to her bicycle commuting and can justify a significant investment to do so.

Aerial view of Texas Medical Center.  If you look at it on Google Maps, Texas Medical Center is almost as large as all of downtown Houston. (Image from Wikipedia by permission.)

Commuting by bicycle worked great until the days started growing shorter and daylight savings time ended.  Before that, there was plenty of daylight for the ride home even though my wife left work late to avoid the peak of rush hour traffic.  However, between the shortening of the day and the fall back of an hour, she now has the difficult decision of riding home in the dark or contending with rush hour traffic.  She has been commuting on her Surly Cross Check equipped with a Catseye Opticube HL-EL300, an inexpensive, battery-powered headlight, but has found that this provides too little light for a comfortable ride home after dark.  In addition, worrying about the batteries, although objectively a small issue, is one she finds distracting.  Thus, the temptation to revert to car commuting was growing. To stave this off, we have been in search of a perfect commuter bicycle.

The obvious question is why not just put a better light on the bike she has? In thinking about the "perfect light", we decided that one powered by a front wheel generator hub had the most appeal, and my wife didn't want to encumber her "fun" bike with such a hub. Similarly, although commuting with her existing bike has been working OK, the switching of bags back and forth each week to accommodate commuting during the week and fun riding on the weekends is a hassle that we would enjoy getting rid of. Once we contemplated a dedicated commuting bike, features like fenders and a full chain cover offered themselves as desirable upgrades. Finally, although my wife loves her Surly, stepping over its diamond frame is a challenge she loves less each year, so we were interested in looking at step-through frames.  Houston is very, very flat so a single speed bicycle would seem to be in order. Getting rid of the derailleur would both improve reliability of the bike and allow the use of the desirable chain cover.  That said, my wife finds starting from a traffic light or other stopped situation stressful and appreciates a lower gear to facilitate such starts. The obvious solution is an internally geared hub. A three speed hub would probably be more than adequate, but given the reasonable price of seven and eight speed hubs, they are in the running as well.

Trek Cocoa.  Full chain cover, dress guard (a plus), internal gears, and fenders.  Add a front generator and light and a rack, and it is perfect.  This bike is definitely in the running. My wife is not, however, in love with its appearance.

An invaluable resource in exploring the options available to us has been the "Lovely Bicycle" blog.  Its author is a fan of commuting bicycles and has reviewed an amazing number them.  Ironically, the first bicycle I came up with in a Web search that seemed to meet our needs perfectly, the Breezer Uptown, was panned on Lovely Bicycle.  This did not eliminate this bike from our consideration, but it did cause us to look harder at other options.  Most of the commuting bicycles favorably reviewed on Lovely Bicycle are unobtainable in Houston, but from those suggestions we were able to add the KHS Green to our list, and searching the web added a few more.

Last Sunday, after having done our Internet homework, we set out to a few of Houston's many fine local bike shops to look at our choices.  We had tentatively identified the KHS Green 8, The Specialized Daily 3, the Trek Cocoa, and the Breezer uptown 8 as bicycles we wanted to see.  We identified shops that carried each of these bikes from their manufacturers' websites. However, in no case did these shops have in stock the exact model in which we were interested.  In addition, we ran out of time before we made it to the shop that carries KHS bikes, and the shop that reportedly carried Breezer bikes in fact does not.  Despite these setbacks, we learned a lot from the test riding my wife was able to do.

The first shop we visited was listed as a Trek distributer, and we went there to see if they had a Trek Cocoa.  They did not, but my wife was able to test ride a comfort bicycle with 26 inch wheels and a more conventional hybrid with 700c wheels, the closest thing they had on the floor to the bike we came to see.  The first of these had a very low step through frame (like the Breezer, shown above) and the second a more moderate step-through (like the Specialized Work, shown below).  To my great surprise, my wife significantly preferred the handling of the second bike to the first. Was this because of the difference in the wheel size, the difference in the step through, other differences in frame geometry, or something else?  This is important because the Trek Cocoa, which we had gone to the shop to try, has 26 inch wheels, similar to the bike which my wife did not like. The bike shop staff opined that the frame geometry of the Cocoa made it likely that my wife would like it, and they offered to get one in for us with the understanding that if she didn't, we would owe them nothing. On this basis, the Trek Cocoa is definitely an option. What we learned is not an option is purchasing a bike without trying it first, which also lets out a custom bike. Because there is apparently no distributer of Breezer Bikes in Houston, the Breezer Uptown 8 is eliminated by our inability to test ride one. Finally, we learned that my wife has no problem with a frame with a higher step-through, expanding our range of options.

The second shop, where we went to look at the Specialized Daily 3, is the shop where we purchased our Surlys and with whom we are very happy.  From our experience with the Surlys, we know that they are willing and able to customize bikes for the difference in cost between what the bike comes with and what we want, a very good deal.  Although this shop did not have a Specialized Daily 3 with a step through frame, they did have similar models to try, and also pointed us towards a model of the Specialized Work that we had not previously noticed that also came close to what we were looking for.

Specialized Daily 3 (upper) and Work 3 (lower) bikes.  Two similar bikes feature 700c wheels, 7 speed hubs, fenders, and chain guards (but not full chain covers.)  Both would require addition of a generator hub and light in front and a rack in back.  The Daily features an extraneous front basket.  Because these bikes come from a local bike shop we know and trust, these bikes are high among our choices.

My wife has not decided on a bike yet. When she does, I will post on what she picked and why.  However, we have learned a lot about what is available. More generally, we learned that the combination of searching the web to learn what's available and to get detailed specifications combined with in person visits to the local bike shops is an invaluable combination, much more useful than either by themselves. Finally, it seems to me that the bicycle market changes rapidly, and that fashion as much as technology dictates what is available.  A few years ago, internal geared hubs were all the rage. This year, we saw hardly any in the bike shops, and the selection of practical, commuter bikes in general seems to be reduced. A few years ago my love for the Bianchi brand and their local distributor would have definitely put a Bianchi commuter on our list, but Bianchi is offering no internally geared commuters this year. We have become true believers in the real practicality of bicycle commuting and look forward to the day when every serious bike shop will routinely offer a selection of no-nonsense commuter bikes with excellent lights, fenders, and a full chain cover along with the latest offerings of fashionable road and mountain bikes.

Transitions

The seven bikes I moved, in Texas, just before the movers put them in their van. In the back, from left to right, is a small Diamondback bike that my granddaughter should be able to ride in a few years, my son's large Centurion, my late wife Agi's 1970's Gitane (almost completely hidden), and her Public bike she used as a commuter. In the front, left to right, are my trusty Surly Cross Check, my 1960 Bianchi Specialissima, and Agi's road bike, another Surly Cross Check. Two other bikes, my red three speed and my sons' black Giant, I considered not worth moving and donated to Ghost Bikes to be painted white and used as markers for cyclists who died in traffic accidents. See the bottom of this post for links to the posts where these bicycles are described.

The same seven bikes in their new home in California. It would be weeks before I rode any of them. So far, I have ridden Agi's commuter (which fits me fine) and my Surly.

My last post was almost two months ago. A week after that post, Hurricane Harvey hit, flooding the house I had just sold. Would the sale hold? (So far, it has, but it is still a few weeks to the closing.) So, there I was, preparing best I could for the hurricane, then cleaning up the mess from the hurricane, all on top of my already-ambitious moving schedule.

The good news is that the move happened and me and my bikes are now in residence in the fair city of San Carlos, CA. The bad news is that it took every bit of strength I had to accomplish that, and my cycling and blogging suffered. In that post of two months ago, I promised the following:
"...my current plan is to do one more post from Houston, tying up a few loose ends before leaving, and then the one after that to be the first of what I hope are a long series about cycling in California. Stay tuned to see if I follow that plan."

This did not, in fact, happen. So, this post will keep that promise in an abbreviated form.

Loose Ends from Houston

• After a much longer struggle and with many more twists and turns than originally anticipated, the Houston Bike Plan passed. This now provides a framework to help the City of Houston continue building its cycling infrastructure.
• Mysteriously one day, Bike Houston announced that their office was moving. Did they lose their lease on their old property? Fortunately, the disruption of that move seems to not have been too harmful, they seem to be chugging along as before.
• I never got to know the people at Bike Houston all that well, but from the little I knew them, I liked them a lot! I particularly liked Mary Blitzer. Sadly, it was the point in Mary's career for her to move on and so she has left Bike Houston. Jessica Wiggins stepped up to fill her shoes, and I am sure everything will go on as before.
• The Braes Bayou trail continues to grow on both ends. I had hoped to explore this trail and perhaps even take some pictures, but alas, that was not to be.

Cycling in California

It's too soon to say what my cycling in California will be like. So far, I have only done four rides, and the first two were shakedown rides of a few miles around my new neighborhood. I thought I had some idea what my riding might look like from the rides I did during my extended stay with my son, who lives just a few miles up the road. However, despite that proximity, it turns out access to desirable cycling is significantly more difficult from my house than it was from his. Perhaps I will just have to suck it up and learn to live with an unpleasant several minutes at the start of every ride, or perhaps I will find some side streets that are more pleasant than the main roads. How this will impact my cycling is the question.

As regular readers of this blog know, I love to track my riding. I have gotten some criticism in the past for being overly concerned with tracking, a criticism with which I disagree. I wonder if my critics understand why I track my rides? I do it because it's fun, it's motivating, and because it helps me avoid overdoing my riding, a real concern at my age. Because the kinds of rides I can do in California are very different than the kinds of rides I could do in Houston, I have already made some changes in my tracking, and expect that my tracking will continue to evolve as I gain more experience riding here in California. For example, because hills drastically affect the speed of a ride, and thus the number of miles that can be covered for a fixed effort, I am now tracking rides by minutes rather than miles. Once I have this all figured out, I may do a blog post on it.

One piece of good news is that I have a goal; to ride in the Eroica California next April. At least one of my Modesto Roadmen buddies plans to attend, which, along with my ownership of a 1960 Bianchi Specialissima, inspired my interest in this ride. (Eroica is a celebration of classic (pre-1988) bikes, and only these are permitted.) There are rides varying in length between 40 and 127 miles, all of which include at least some unpaved sections. The challenge of this ride consists in equal parts of getting in shape for even the shortest ride and restoring my bianchi to both rideable and original condition, somewhat conflicting requirements.

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Blog Posts about the Bikes Pictured Above

1) My Bikes: In my fourth post on this blog, I discussed every bicycle I had owned. I have not purchased any additional bicycles for myself since then, so this remains a pretty comprehensive list.
2) Old Bikes, Part Deux: Early on, I did a post on some old bicycles I saw on Martha's Vineyard, while vacationing in Massachusetts. The post linked to here was an extension, looking at old bicycles that were in my garage. Between this and the previous post, only one of my bikes was missed..
3) An Unfortunate 3-Speed: The picture and history of this sad bicycle are stuck in the middle of an unrelated post.
4) Bianchi v. Surly: Another view of some of my bikes, focusing on my Bianchi Specialissima and my Surly Crosscheck.
5) Sad News: My late wife Agi commuted to work by bicycle, and for years, we had planned to buy her a dedicated commuter. When we finally did, I was so consumed with caring for her in her last months that I never blogged about it. Only in the blog post where I announced her death did I discuss that bike. 

What Happened?

The Zombie, sitting in his office. Why isn't he out on a bike? Who knows?

I ended my last blog post with two questions:

1. Is this the end of my blogging?
2. Is this the end  my cycling?

The answer to both of these questions is the same: I hope not, but I worry it might be. I have not ridden 300+ minutes (my goal) during any week since that post, and during those 8 weeks, there have only been 4 where I have reached even the lesser-goal of 150 minutes a week. There was a stretch of 9 days where I did no riding at all, not even a trainer ride. It has been 28 days since I have been outdoors on a bike, any riding I have done has been on my trainer. I am not happy with this state of affairs and am thinking hard about how to get out of this slump. If not the end of my cycling, could this be the end of my blogging?

Do any of you really want to read about me not riding my bike? I don't think so. So, unless I can do something interesting on a bicycle, I don't really have anything to blog about. In 2017 I went from trying to post once a week and failing to trying to post once a month and succeeding. Since then, my posting had been remarkably consistent until two months ago when I missed a monthly post for the first time since moving to California in 2017. Having missed that one post, I may never post again, and if I do, I have no idea when that will be, but the one thing I will promise is that I will not post again until there is something I really am inspired to write about that has something to do with bicycles.

What Happened?

In my last post I said about sticking to a cycling schedule "Once I miss a week, the spell is broken, and I am more likely to miss future weeks". That's exactly what happened, but I think there is more to be said than that. One fact that I feel is relevant is that this lapse was preceded by my second longest run of rides that met the 300 minute goal since I restarted cycling. I think these two things might be related. Starting with the Art of Survival in May of 2024, I have been struggling to maintain my enthusiasm for cycling. My speed on that ride was so poor that I decided to stop riding metric centuries, the events that had been my most important source of motivation up until then. It is true that I did manage to complete my 75th birthday ride a few months later and that did give me immense satisfaction. The problem was that it was a one-off, I did not provide any motivation for the future. I tried a number of different things that I hoped would provide that motivation, developing a training program that I hoped would increase my speed, making an effort to ride and appreciate my entire collection of bicycles, seeking out new routes for rides, and these things did work for a while, but somewhere about the middle of that last long run of 300+ minute weeks, the motivation from of all these faded and the only thing keeping me going was the determination to stay above 300 minutes a week. The thing that actually ended that run was a week of rain. It is almost impossible for me to accumulate 300 minutes during a week where my riding is restricted to my trainer. Once my winning streak was broken, that last motivating factor was gone.

I want to mention one more interesting bit of news. I had my routine physical a few weeks ago. I talked to my doctor about my sciatica which comes from age-related deterioration of my spine and also talked to him about my frustration with the dropping speed of my bike rides. He surprised me by suggesting the two might be related. If the nerves leading to my leg muscles are being pinched as a result of my spinal deterioration, that might reduce the strength of those muscles. This is on top of my theory that the pain resulting from my sciatica contributes to a generalized fatigue which both reduces my enthusiasm and might also affect my speed. My aging back might be playing a larger role in this story than I have been giving it credit for.

This is Not the First Time

Well gosh, this all seems so hopeless. The good news is that I have been here before and in each case, I managed to start riding again. I have blogged many times about how my cycling restart in August of 2008 was something of a false start in that by February of the following year I had stopped riding and didn't start again for over a year. But even if I ignore that lapse and just scroll through entries in my cycling journal since then, there are plenty of multi-week lapses, my current slump is not all that unusual.

All that may be true of riding, but how about blogging? Back in 2017 I stopped blogging for four months but restarted thereafter. Why might this time be different? What is different is that I have been wondering for quite some time now why I was continuing to blog. More and more I have been feeling that I have had nothing new to say. Arguably, this is not even particularly connected to my current riding slump. There is one more blog post I do hope to write concerning a ride I hope to complete, the 60th birthday ride for my Hetchins which would happen in July of 2027, the 60th anniversary of the day I picked it up and began my European bicycle tour. Does that mean no more blog posts for a year and a half? Who knows. If I come up with an idea that I am excited about, I may resume blogging before then.

An Aside

Given that this might be my last blog post, I am going to stick in something that I have been working on as its own post which is somewhat relevant, and that is the context in which this is all happening. So far, my second cycling career has lasted over 17 years. (A generous estimate of the length of my first cycling career is 14 years.) 9 of those years were in Texas, 8 since my move back to California. Of those 8 years, more than 5 have been since my move into my current home in the middle of the Santa Cruz mountains. "The days are long but the years are short" as the saying goes. 17 years is a significant fraction of the lifetime of a person. 

Another point of reference: I am not certain of this, but it is my impression that there are groups on Facebook for cyclists in their 60s and for cyclists in their 70s, but no groups for cyclists in their 80s. Similarly, most (but not all) of my high school riding buddies have stopped cycling. The 70s seem to be the age when this happens.

As of the time of this post, the Social Security Administration expects me to live 11 more years, less than the length of my second cycling career and only twice the amount of time I have been in my current home. Maybe it is not surprising that I have to start letting go of some things. All that said, I haven't given up yet. Quitting cycling will happen when it happens and not before.

What can I Do to Regain my Enthusiasm?

For my first three years in California, I lived in a rented house in a fairly flat part of the Peninsula. Once I got there, I found that when I replaced and adjusted the height of the saddle on my wife's commuter bike, it fit me quite well and was very comfortable even on fairly long rides. The nice thing about that bike is that it was set up to be ridden in normal clothing and shoes. This was especially nice when the weather got cold. There was something very motivating about hopping on that bike with absolutely no preparation and going for a ride.

About five and a half years ago, my landlord dramatically increased my rent and I decided to purchase a house. That seemed like a golden opportunity to try to find something closer to my grandkids, which I managed to do, I am now just four doors down from them. The one thing I worried about, correctly in retrospect, is that this new neighborhood is much hillier than my old, making it harder to manage that same kind of easy, door to door rides I had been doing when I wasn't up for a hillier ride. One consequence of that is that I haven't ridden my wife's old commuter bike since that move. From my current house, I have a choice: I can either take a hilly ride leaving from my driveway or if I want to do an easier ride, I have to put one of my bikes on my car and drive to a flatter area. The only bikes with low enough gears to allow me to ride these hills pretty much demand special cycling clothes and shoes, just enough of a production as to create a bit of friction. Driving to a flatter route, giving me a greater choice of suitable bicycles, creates a different kind of friction. That said, I now have a new rack on the back of my car that would allow me to transport my wife's commuter bike. If I got it back into riding condition (it needs maintenance), might the joy of riding that bike help with my enthusiasm, even given that I would have to drive to ride it? That might be something to try. I could maybe combine that with the exploration of new routes, that bike is especially good for riding on the many stretches of the Bay Trail that are gravel, and there are some interesting parts of that trail that I would love to explore.

Last August, I got my granddaughter a very nice new bicycle for her birthday, allowing her younger brother to claim the very nice bike she had just outgrown. It has been a bit heartbreaking that since getting that bike four months ago, she has only managed to ride it once. There is nothing wrong with the bike and it is not that she doesn't like to cycle, it is just that their family has a very busy schedule. I have been wondering if I can do something about that, maybe getting the two grandkids to join me for a ride on the traffic-free Bay Trail. And of course, there is that birthday ride for my Hetchins. Maybe, given all these wonderful opportunities, the Zombie will ride again.

So is this "goodbye" or is it "see you later"? I wish I knew.

The Peninsula Bikeway

I talk a lot on this blog about my "GoTo Ride", a 23 mile ride through the Santa Cruz mountains. The name I use for that ride in my training notes is the Alpine ride, because it goes south from my house to Alpine Road, and then back home again. That ride is actually my goto ride only when I want a workout. When I want an easy, recovery ride, I have another goto ride, listed as the Neighborhood ride in my notes. This 5 mile long ride is so named because it goes around my neighborhood, mostly in the town of San Carlos. but dipping into the neighboring city of Redwood City at its southern end. It was while crossing into Redwood City that I encountered this sign:

(This is the kind of notice that must, by law, be placed before any kind of road construction or repair is begun.) I was intrigued! Would Bayside Stripe & Seal be painting new bike lanes? Something more? Why was this limited to Redwood City? Can't San Carlos get a little bike lane love? Shortly thereafter, Facebook supplied the beginnings of an answer:

So I went. It turns out, all that Bayside Stripe & Seal was doing was "sign toppers", a little sign that attaches to the top of an existing street sign, in this case, the sign shown at the top of this post. The long term plan is a high quality commuter bike path running north-south between the cities of Redwood City and Mountain View. The city workers championing this project felt that having something in place Right Now would help move things along, so they took advantage of bike paths where they found them, quiet neighborhood streets, when bike paths were lacking, and whatever was there when all else failed, to create an "interim" bikeway. All that interim bikeway required was the aforementioned sign toppers to mark the way, and voila. The purpose of the "launch event" announced on Facebook was two-fold: the lesser goal was to run group rides along this interim bike route, to introduce it to the community, and the greater goal was to get that community together to discuss the long term plan:

The cities of Redwood City, Menlo Park (where the event was held), Palo Alto, and Mountain View had clearly put a lot of effort into the event. Note the custom sheets of paper for collecting longer suggestions, in the foreground, and the giant map and sticky notes in the center of the picture, for collecting quick comments on particular parts of the route. If you look closely at the above picture, you will see different color lines weaving their way along the map in the center of the picture. These represent the three long term and the existing interim routes for the ride. The three proposed long term routes are along the railroad right of way (too noisy and ugly!), along El Camino Real (too busy and ugly!) and along Middlefield Road (hmmm...) The Middlefield Road route is the one farthest to the east, and thus farthest to the left on the map in the above picture, in red. Note the bright orange sticky note in the middle of the map. That one's mine, advocating for the Middlefield route. In addition, the city workers had created something like a dozen posters describing every aspect of the project, which they set up around the park. Here's just one:

Finally, there was an array of other activities, as is shown on this "Welcome" poster:

(For the city workers, this bikeway is part of a larger effort to get people moving around their cities using anything but cars, thus the Caltrain schedule.) For me, one of the highpoints of the event was the opportunity to chat with the city employees who are doing the hard work and making the decisions needed to make cycling infrastructure happen. They were available for conversation both on the ride and during the event. The specifics of how they were thinking about the project and how they reacted to the thoughts from the experienced cyclists in the group were of interest, but so was their explanation of the realpolitik that they have to navigate as they try to get something done. I learned that the current city council of Redwood City is expected to be turned out en masse this November as a reaction to traffic problems in the city and residents' hostility to the introduction of more cycling infrastructure, for example. They also talked about the complexity of funding sources, the long time that it takes to go from an idea to its fruition ("ten years"), and the difficulties of building a collaboration between the different cities needed to create a useful bike route. The City of Atherton, smack in the middle of this project, is not yet on board, nor is my home town of San Carlos. I was encouraged to attend the planning meetings of my city government to show them that there are voters in favor of cycling infrastructure, a suggestion I hope to take.

But this is a biking blog, what about the ride? The original start site in San Carlos was revised to join an existing group, so we started at the high school in Redwood City. This is our group at the start:

I decided that the appropriate bike for this ride was my Public commuter bike with the step-through frame I inherited from my late wife, in the lower left corner of the picture. There were a variety of bike and rider styles represented, from lycra and carbon fiber to heavy duty police bikes and electric bikes. Electric bikes were especially popular. Among bike brands, Public was a popular choice. We picked up riders along the route, and our group got larger and larger as we went along. When we got to the event, we were joined by another group which had traveled from Mountain View in the south. An idea of the group size can be gotten from the Bike Valet parking station:

(This represents maybe half the bikes, the other half were parked at other locations around the park.)

The ride to the event along the interim bikeway was a twisty little maze of passages, all different. Some parts were delightful, winding through interesting neighborhoods. Others were terrifying, weaving in and out of heavy traffic. The city workers on the ride were the first to acknowledge that the existing signage, the street toppers, were just a start, that more and better signage would be highly desirable. Using just the existing signs, I doubt I could follow the route again, even having ridden it once. My bottom line is that I gain little or nothing from this interim route. There was no organized ride back, so I opted to try the proposed Middlefield Road route, to give it a look-see. I knew from Google Maps that part of that route already had bike lanes, but that other parts did not. It turned out, that made a big difference. Middlefield Road is fairly busy, so even where there was bike lines, I might not ride it recreationally, but would be comfortable riding it for transportation. Where the bike lanes vanished, I felt sufficiently insecure that I probably would avoid riding it in the future. Of course, choosing the Middlefield Road route for the final bikeway would mean adding the missing bike lanes, so this route should be judged in that context. Here is my final route there and back, courtesy of Strava:

I'm really glad I attended this event! I learned a lot about the process by which the cycling infrastructure I use and love is created, and enjoyed hanging out with my fellow cyclists. I am definitely going to keep my eyes open for other group rides.

Exploring the Plains of the Peninsula: Preliminaries

A Portion of the San Francisco Bay Peninsula. San Francisco and the entry to the bay is off the top of the picture. The blue to the left is the Pacific Ocean, that to the right is San Francisco Bay. Terrain View was turned on in Google Maps to show the hilly vs the flat parts of the Peninsula. I start many of my rides at the blue dot near the center of the picture and ride south. If I go through Portola Valley (bottom center of the picture), Woodside, and Emerald Hills, as I do for my "GoTo" ride, I have a strenuous, hilly ride. This post is about some easier, flatter rides I have been doing that go through Atherton, Menlo Park, Palo Alto, and Mountain View (in the lower right corner of the picture.)

 

Background

A while back, I posted that I had "...started exploring routes through the beautiful neighborhoods on the eastern flats of the Peninsula." This post goes into that exploration in more detail. The inspiration for this exploration was the demonstration ride of the interim Peninsula Bikeway I went on last September. What I learned from that ride was that there were delightful neighborhood streets through the flat parts on the bay side of the Peninsula that are worth riding. That demonstration was actually organized was as two rides, one coming from the southern end of the route, the other (which I rode) from the northern end, with both groups meeting in the middle, in Menlo Park. So one inspiration for exploring this region a bit more was to try out the southern end of the route, which I had not ridden in the demo. Another was to see if I could find better roads than those identified by the city governments when putting together this interim route. I suspected this was an option because some of the experienced riders on the demonstration ride asked pointed questions about route choices, suggesting alternatives they liked better. A third was to explore some destinations beyond those reached by the Peninsula Bikeway. This was originally planned as a series of three posts, which, despite my general policy of posting monthly, I planned to post over three successive weeks. Posts one and two, this one presenting background material and the next one on how I would remap the interim Peninsula Bikeway, are on track, but as I have been developing post three, about extensions to the Bikeway, it is not clear that it is a stand-alone post. Perhaps its contents can best be presented as parts of other posts over the next several months, or perhaps it will appear as originally planned two weeks from now. Stay tuned to find out.

Coordinates

If you look at the picture above, you will note that the part of the San Francisco Bay peninsula where I live angles from northwest (San Mateo) to southeast (Mountain View) with the San Francisco Bay on the right and the Pacific Ocean on the left. Most of the roads on the Peninsula run either parallel or perpendicular to the peninsula. For convenience, I will ignore the angle and refer to heading towards San Mateo as going "north", towards Mountain View as going "south", as heading towards the Bay as going "east" and as heading towards the Ocean as heading "west".

Criteria for a Better Route

What makes for a better route? It depends on the rider and the reason for the ride. A brave young commuter might look for a fast, direct route to work. As a nervous old man riding for fun and exercise, I look for pretty scenery, low traffic, dedicated bike lanes, and anything else that leads to a fun, safe experience. What this post will be about is finding the safest and most pleasant roads that allow me to ride this part of the Peninsula.

So is the idea to string together as many dedicated bike lanes as possible? Actually, no. As it happens, dedicated bike lanes tend to be on busier streets, and that busyness can outweigh the advantage of the bike lane. Also, bike lanes come in many different qualities. I could (and might) do an entire post on what makes bike lanes more or less useful, but very briefly, they can be divided into properties of the lanes themselves, their width, surface quality, and how they handle intersections, and properties of the road of which they are a part. The aforementioned busyness is one such property, but so are speed limits, the number of intersections, and amount of traffic which crosses the bike lane. Bike lanes on roads like the section of Middlefield Road which goes through Mountain View contain many strip malls, with lots of traffic into and out of the mall crossing the bike lane and making it unsafe. Junipero Serra Boulevard is at least as busy and much faster than Middlefield Road (the speed limit is 45 mph) but is almost controlled access. Although it goes by strip malls, there is no access to these malls from Junipero Serra, access to the malls is from a parallel street, so there is much less traffic crossing the bike lane. As a result, I vastly prefer riding the bike lane on Junipero Serra to that on Middlefield, and in fact prefer lightly travelled residential streets with no bike infrastructure at all to the bike lanes of Middlefield.

In the end, although I can explain my preferences for one route over another after the fact, my ability to predict the best route is weak at best. I find that I simply have to try promising-looking routes to discover the ones I prefer.

Bikes

One more important factor in this exploration is my choice of bikes. Mostly, I ride road bikes, my classic 1960 Bianchi Specialissima, my Surly Cross Check, and the road bike I use most often these days, my Bianchi Volpe. The Volpe has the lowest gears of all my bikes due to its 28/38/48 tooth triple chainwheels in front and its 11-32 cogs in the back. When I am tackling some of the steeper climbs in the region, Kings Mountain for example, I really appreciate its bottom 24 inch gear, but when I am riding my GoTo ride, I leave the chain in the middle 38 tooth chainwheel which provides an adequate range of gears for this ride, 32 to 93 inches. When my wife died, I originally tried to find a good home for her commuter bike, a step-through frame Public bike with a 7 speed internal gear hub. I failed to do so before the move to California, so brought it with me, and found that if I raised the seat and scooted it all the way back and raised the handlebars, it actually fit me pretty well. I replaced the seat with which it came with a Brooks Cambium C19, and the result was a bike I am enjoying very much, and it has become my choice for my exploration of the Plains of the Peninsula. The synthetic Cambium is harder than my favorite saddle, the leather Brooks B17 I have on my road bikes, but I have gotten used to it and overall, find this bike extremely comfortable for rides up to 35 miles. (I have yet to try it on longer rides, but my experience so far suggests 35 miles may be no where near its limit.) Even on these flat rides, there are hills. In particular, my home is on a hill so there is an inevitable steep climb for the last few blocks of any ride I do. A concern I had about the Public bike is that, because it had an internal gear hub, it might not have an adequate range of gears. However, when I sat down and figured out what its gears actually were, the low gear on the Public bike is 33 inches, virtually identical to the 32 inches low gear on my Volpe when I am using only the middle chainring. That is not the whole story, the fact that the Public bike has me sitting upright compared to the Volpe's traditional road bike posture means that I have less power climbing on the Public bike even at the same gear ratio, but even so, the Public bike has gears more than adequate for any of the flat rides I want to do. Due to the higher wind resistance of that upright posture, it is a slower bike, about 2 mph slower than my road bikes, but who cares when I am out for fun and exercise?

So what is the attraction of the Public bike? First, the upright posture makes it easier for me to look around and appreciate the neighborhoods through which I am riding. Second, there is no changing into bike clothes, which makes rides less of a production. Also, I find it a bit easier to stay warm in normal clothes. Third, because of the Brooks Cambium seat, fenders, and internal gear hub, rain is just not a problem on this bike. Between the lower traffic roads I have selected, the lack of hills, and the fact that the Public bike is more comfortable, an easy ride on this comfortable bike is great when my motivation is a bit low.

Resources

Why am I doing this exploration on my own? Aren't there guides to tell me what the best routes are? Actually, there are lots of great resources out there, and I use all that I can find, but at the end of the day, I find my preference in roads is different than anyone else's, so that there is no substitute for exploring possible routes on my own. Still, I always start with these resources.

• Google Maps is almost always the resource I go to first. Besides its basic mapping function which is essential planning a ride, if I turn on the Bicycling option, I get excellent (if not perfect) information as to where the bike lanes are, and Google's recommendations for "Bicycle Friendly Roads", though problematic are not worthless.
• On principle, I want to love Open Cycle Maps, an open source resource built on Open Street Map. However, I almost never find it useful. The one thing it has that Google Maps lacks is "official" bike routes. For example, the interim Peninsula bikeway is marked on Open Cycle Maps but not on Google Maps. That said, I cannot think when I have ever found this helpful. I keep returning to Open Cycle Maps hoping my love for it will grow, but so far, it hasn't.
• Also based on Open Street Maps is Google Map Pedometer (its name notwithstanding.) Its primary function is to plan out routes; lay out your route on this resource and you get back the mileage and elevation change. It has one additional critical feature, however, and that is it shows stoplights! When I am trying to plan a route that only crosses busy streets like El Camino at a stop light, by zooming in on any intersection, I can tell if there is a light there.
• What is it that I want from Open Cycle Maps that it lacks? A crowd-sourced compendium of what roads cyclists prefer. Guess who has that? Strava, in their Global Heatmap! This is absurdly cool, but still, I find it more fun than useful. More often that not, I look at the bright red lines of cyclist-favored roads and think "Are these people crazy? That road is much too dangerous!" There are three things missing that prevent this from being the resource I am looking for. First, it is just a counting of where cyclists have happened to go. Thus, regions with high populations and lots of cyclists will have brighter lines for worse roads than regions with lower populations and fewer cyclists. Second, there is no option for feedback. Maybe there is no great road from San Carlos to Facebook, but folks commuting by bicycle do the best they can, taking their chances on uncomfortable roads. If they had the opportunity to rate these routes, that would provide essential information now missing. Third, all riders are lumped together. As I noted at the beginning of this post, different riders are looking for different things. I can think of a variety of ways of stratifying riders that would be helpful.
• Finally, there are curated lists of good biking routes. There are many local organizations that map their favorite rides, here are just a few:
  
  • Given how this whole project started, I have to begin with the Peninsula Bikeway Website.
  • The Stanford Bike Club has an excellent list of local rides. I developed my GoTo ride from information on this list. That said, this resource is better for strenuous rides through the hills than it is for the flatter rides I am looking at here.
  • SF2G stands for San Francisco To Google, and started as a group of bike commuters who worked at Google in Mountain View and lived in San Francisco. (This is a 2-plus hour commute, each way!) They have developed several highly optimized and creative routes for this commute and are an invaluable resource for biking north-south on the Peninsula. Of all the ride lists I have come across, this one is the most directly relevant to this post.

Next Time

With the preliminaries out of the way, I will describe how I have modified the Peninsula Bikeway route to suite my preferences in my next post.

Bikes I Want

This cartoon, from the bikeretrogrouch blog, illustrates a modern cyclist on the right and a "retrogrouch", a cyclist who prefers older technology, on the left. This conflict between wanting the best that the modern cycling world has to offer on the one hand yet still being in love with the cycling technology of my youth on the other, is one of the themes of this post.

Almost three years ago, I posted a description of every bicycle I have owned. I confess, however, that this is only a small fraction of the bicycles I would like to own, the topic of this post. Here is my wish-list of bikes I would like to acquire:

Trek's $370 entry level mountain bike

A Mountain Bike. So what is the deal with mountain bikes? They had yet to be invented during my first cycling career (1963-1971) so when I rejoined cycling in 2008, I didn't know what to make of them. (Coincidentally, one of the inventors of the mountain bike, Gary Fisher, was a racing companion of mine; little did I know what future lay in store for him.) So one reason I want one is just to try to understand the breed. Another reason is to get away from traffic. Some of my friends from my first cycling career have all but abandoned road biking for mountain biking for just that reason. There is a strong argument that mountain biking is safer than road biking because of the lack of cars. Finally, a "mountain" bike is not just for the mountains (which is a good thing, since there are no mountains anywhere near Houston.) In the first place, they probably should be named "trail" bikes; they are meant for riding on dirt roads and hiking paths, whatever the geography. In the second place, the same features that make mountain bikes good on dirt roads makes them good for deteriorating urban streets; the Houston Bike Club recommends mountain bikes for their urban rides.

Having said all that, it is not clear I would get much use out of a mountain bike. In a recent post, I detailed how I tend to ride the same routes over and over. If I am not interested in getting in my car and driving to more interesting routes on my road bike, what makes me think I would be willing to drive a mountain bike to the trails on which I could use it? Also, it is unclear how much additional functionality a mountain bike would give me. Part of the reason my wife and I chose our Surly Crosscheck's is their versatility; they have wider tires and are generally ruggeder than a typical road bike, making them quite satisfactory for the mean streets of Houston, and even for a good quality dirt road.

Still, maybe if I signed up for mountain biking lessons, that would give me the inspiration I would need to extend my cycling options in fun new directions.

Trek's top of the line Domane Road Bike. This is their "endurance" fast bike, used in races like Paris-Roubaix, where comfort is a factor. This bike sells for $7,600.

A Fast Bike. Isn't my Bianchi Specialissima my fast bike? Not really. It is faster than my Surly, but not as fast as a good, modern road bike. When my Bianchi was manufactured, it was as fast as any bike being ridden in the 1960 Tour de France, but bicycle technology has moved on. That said, I am in a bit of a quandary as to what it is I want to buy. A full-on carbon fiber bike, like a Trek Domane ($7,600) or a Bianchi Infinito ($4,600)? I confess to a prejudice against carbon fiber as a frame or fork material, but perhaps I need to get with the times. Neither Trek nor Bianchi publish bicycle weights so I am going to assume these bikes weigh in at the minimum weight allowed by UCI or USA Cycling, 15 lbs. Obviously, if one considers bicycle + luggage + rider, the bike weight is almost irrelevant, but there is something inspiring about picking up your bike and having it feel light as a feather.

This is Grant Pederson's all steel answer to the bikes like the Trek Domane. When comparably equipped, it sells for about the same amount of money. It weighs a few pounds more. Which of the two bikes is faster is perhaps open to debate, though conventional wisdom would probably bet on the Trek.

If I stay true to my retrogrouch tradition, I might take the advice of Grant Peterson and purchase his 18 lb all-steel Rodeo, Grant's self-titled "answer to speedy carbon road bikes" ($5,400.) Besides being not all that light, Grant has made other design decisions (e.g. fatter tires) that might not be entirely consistent with speed, or at least the perception of speed. Grant is a strong proponent of conservative design and functionality. Normally, I would be full on board with that, but because I am buying this specifically as a fast bike, his philosophy might not, in this case, be as attractive. Surly has an equivalent bike, its Pacer, but it seems that would be even heavier and certainly not any faster. There are other vendors who sell steel-framed road bikes that are so light that they come in below the 15 lb UCI limit. These are based on the latest, extremely light steel tubing, and a custom frame builder, such as Waterford Precision Cycles, can use these to build a truly fast bike with an exceptionally light frame to please even the most grouchy of the retrogrouches. Such bikes do not come cheap, however.

One fast option that used to be available is an aluminum bike. Although it is still possible to purchase fast, light road bikes with aluminum frames, as best I can tell, all now come with a carbon fork, a deal killer unless I overcome my aversion to carbon, at which point, why not go full carbon?

I confess to spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about and researching a "fast bike", but I think the fun may be more in the dreaming than the riding, at least for now. One game I am playing with myself is to say that if I can loose my 40 pounds of extra body weight, then I will reward myself with a new fast, light bike. That might be the best use of such a bike imaginable (inspiration), but will mean that I will not be buying it tomorrow.

Surly's Travelers Check is available only as a frame. I would have West End Cycles, my LBS of choice, build it up as a complete bike. The silver lumps at the top and the bottom of the frame, near the seat tube, are where the bicycle comes apart so that it can be put into a regulation-sized suitcase for air travel.

A Travel Bike. At this point, travel bikes are the most likely next purchases for my wife and I. The motivation to act now is that Surly, after a long lapse, is once again offering the "Travelers Check", a version of our beloved Surly Crosschecks, but with the S&S couplers which allow the bike to be taken apart and put into a regulation-sized suitcase for checking onto an airline flight. Financially, this almost certainly doesn't make sense. In the first place, these new bikes will have substantial overlap in function with our existing bikes. Paying back the full purchase price of these new bikes in bike shipping fees would take many more years than we have left to live. Even if we sold our existing bikes for a good price, the extra cost of the S&S couplers, the special suitcases for packing the bikes, and other necessary paraphernalia would all by itself take many years to recoup in saved shipping fees. The reason we are interested in these bikes has to do with psychological factors. I find the process of shipping a normal bike stressful, and as a result, tend to not travel as much as I would like. In addition, transporting the packed bike to the airport is awkward. I am hoping that if I could pack the bikes up myself in normal sized suitcases, the stress of travel will be less and we will travel and enjoy biking more.

A Tandem. For years, I begged my wife to consider a tandem. For years, she refused to consider it. Lately, however, she is more open to the idea. I originally wanted a tandem just because I thought they were cool, but more recently, it has occurred to both my wife and I that on a tandem, there would be rides we could do together than would not be possible if each of us were on single bikes. The reason is that I am a stronger rider and could "loan" her some of my strength, to go longer distances and to make it up steeper hills. A number of the couples who ride with my bike club, the Houston Randonneurs, ride tandems. On my last brevet, I fell in love with Co-Motion Mocha, available from a local dealer who specializes in tandems, the House of Tandems.

One issue we struggled with in selecting a tandem is how to have it configured. At one extreme, we would purchase it with S&S couplers, an internal hub gear (Rohloff), and belt drive at significantly increased cost or alternatively, a basic tandem for much less money. The advantage of the former is that it makes it possible to take our tandem on trips. The disadvantage is that it makes it much more expensive and possibly more difficult to maintain. Also, when we thought about our one guided bike tour, we realized that a key part of that trip was the ability of the guides to transport bikes on the roof of their van. Would they have been able to transport a tandem?

My wife would have to participate in the purchase of any tandem and she is very busy at work right now, so the purchase of any tandem is probably not imminent.

The picture of this randonneuse is from Chris Richards, linked to from the Boulder Bicycle Shop website

A True Randonneuse. Purchasing a bike specifically designed for randonneuring, a randonneuse, was high on my priority list a couple of years ago. However, with the growing realization of my limitations as a randonneur and with the modifications I have made to my Surly Crosscheck to make it more suitable for randonneuring, my enthusiasm for a dedicated randonneuse is waining. Nonetheless, it is still something I think about.

Picture from http://velospace.org/forums/discussion/2762/peugeot-px-10/

A 1960's Peugeot PX10. Although my Bianchi Specialissima is not my dream fast bike anymore, it still brings back wonderful memories. As I have previously blogged, a Peugeot PX10 was my bike during the peak of by first cycling career, and I miss this bike very much. I am sure my actual bike is long gone, I don't even know if I could identify it if I found it, but a similar bike from about the same era would make me very happy.

Catalogue scan from:
 http://www.creativepro.com/article/scanning-around-with-gene-getting-that-new-bike-down-the-chimney

A 1960's Schwinn Varsity. My first 10-speed was a Schwinn Continental, an upgraded version of the iconic Schwinn Varsity. I did not love that bike the way I loved my PX10, but it was an important part of my history. Besides, that era of Schwinn 10 speeds is of great historic significance and employs some very unique (if questionable) technology. In this case, I am less motivated to reclaim the actual bike I had than to own a piece of this history, and the Varsity is a more canonical representative than the Continental. Similarly, I might want to own a Super Sport from that era, a very different kind of technology employed by Schwinn for this line of bikes. (Modern day Schwinn bicycles have no connection whatsoever with the Schwinns described here. They are not even a single brand, the name is licensed by whoever whats to pay for it.)

A Replacement for my 3 Speed. My commuter bike is an old department store three speed a friend gave me when he moved. It is truly awful. The brakes don't work well. The frame is poorly made and out of alignment. The three speed hub is failing. It makes no sense to repair any of this as there is no part of this bike which works correctly. I would love to have a commuter bike that looked cheap, ugly, and useless so it is less likely to be stolen but which rides well. It would also be nice if it wasn't tremendously valuable, so that if it were stolen, it would not break my heart. There are a couple of ways I could go with this. One direction is to use this as an opportunity to add to my bicycle museum; to get something like an old Raleigh 3 speed or an old Schwinn 3 speed. Another way to go is to kill two birds with one stone, to purchase an inexpensive mountain bike which could also double as a commuter.

Picture from Bianchi's website

A Fixie. A few years ago, fixed gear bicycles (which have but a single speed and do not coast, the pedals turn all the time) were all the rage; "fixies" and hipsters went together like peas and carrots. Although this fashion has wained, fixies remain popular among serious cyclists for their many virtues. In fact, fixies are not a new thing. When I was "cycling in the 60's", fixies were recommended as good training bikes which helped improve one's rhythm; they were especially popular among racing cyclists in England. I briefly owned one in college. For all these reasons, I would love to have a fixie in my garage to ride when the mood struck me. An example of such is the Bianchi Pista, still available, still steel, still reasonably priced at $800. An interesting thought: perhaps an $800 fixie could slate my lust for an $8,000 fast bike, at least temporarily. The place I am most likely to want a fast bike is on the Rice Track, and there ain't nothing faster than a fixie on that venue!

Conclusions

The reason I was able to retire at age 62 is that I am frugal by nature. In fact, I am frugal to a fault. I hate to buy things and as a result, I even put off buying things that I really need or that would make me very happy. Thus, I do not anticipate acquiring the bikes describe above very quickly. That said, both the entry level mountain bike and the fixie described above are relatively inexpensive and quite versatile. Maybe I should get outside my comfort zone and give my LBS some business. In any case, it is fun to dream.

The Hetchins Rides Again

Gebhard Ebenhoech of Veloro Bicycles LLC, who lovingly brought my Hetchins back to life. Veloro Bicycles is located at 910 Main Street in Redwood City, California. Their website is www.velorobicycles.com. Gebhard can be reached at gebhard@velorobicycles.com or 650-241-1060. If you have a 1967 Hetchins (or a similar bike) you'd like restored, Gebhard would be delighted to help you. He has an extensive collection of old tools perfect for working on vintage bikes. (He also sells fully modern high end racing bikes, if that's your fancy.)

A year ago, I blogged about how, almost exactly 50 years after I sold it, I got back the Hetchins I used to tour through Europe during the summer of 1967. Or rather, I got back what was left of it, a frame, and not even all of that original. I wrote how I was disheartened by how large the frame turned out to be, that I was far from sure I would be able to ride it. In that post I suggested "My son acquired a 1970s Centurion which he is not using, and to my eye, it looks like many of the components on that bike would be compatible with the Hetchins frame. Could I temporarily build up the Hetchins with parts from the Centurion so that I could see how rideable the resulting bike would be and to what extent I could modify the fit with changes to the stem, for example?" That is exactly what I did, and it is rideable indeed! There is not much spare standover (I can put both feet flat on the ground while standing over the frame, but just barely) so it is probably good that I am done having kids, but except for that one unimportant detail, the fit couldn't be better.

Why did it take me a year to do this? I am indecisive by nature, a trait that has gotten significantly worse with age and with the loss of my wife, and simply trying to decide on a plan kept me actionless for much of that time. Should I try to swap the parts from the Centurion myself, or should I pay someone to do it? What should I do about wheels? I was OK with stealing parts from my son's bike since everything was reversible, but my Hetchins came with 700c wheels and the Centurion had slightly larger 27" wheels, so I assumed I would have to rebuild the Centurion's wheels if I wanted to use them, a less reversible step. I have been thinking about building a set of 700c clincher wheels for my 1960 Bianchi Specialissima as a practical alternative to its sew-up wheels, so maybe I could use the same wheels for both? One barrier to building such wheels is that it is hard to find hubs with the now obsolete 120mm spacing (modern spacing is 130mm). I have my wife's old Gitane, which is basically a throw-away at this point, and thought about stealing the hubs from it. As Eroica California approached this year and I thought what bike I could ride in that, I started down that path. Alas, somewhere during its long and eventful life, the Gitane's rear axle had gotten bent, killing that idea. So that got me looking at the Centurion wheels again. I put the Centurion up on my bike stand and pulled the wheels to look at them. I can neither remember nor imagine why, but I then pulled out the Hetchins frame and put the wheels on it. To my astonishment, I discovered that when Mike, the Hetchins' former owner, had the frame rebuilt, he had it rebuilt for 27" wheels - the Centurion wheels fit perfectly as-is! Doing this also allowed me to test the standover, and I fit over the frame, another encouraging result. I had been forced to make a bunch of rapid decisions in order to go to Eroica, so I took advantage of my brain temporarily being in decision mode, called Veloro Bicycles, and took them the Hetchins frame and the Centurion. At that point, it was two weeks before Eroica, and I briefly wondered if the Hetchins could be put together in time to be my ride for that event, but Gebhard disabused me of that notion. He warned me that he tends to be slow, so having given up on riding the Hetchins for Eroica, I assured him that time didn't matter at all, and thus was a several month long project born.

So how is my resurrected Hetchins? Gebhard's work on the bike was amazing! That said, the Hetchins is what it is and ain't what it ain't, which is true of the Centurion as well. This Hetchins of today is not the 1967 Hetchins I remember (while wearing my rose-colored glasses.) It definitely is not as pretty as it was. The ornate Hetchins decals and the delicate gold pinstriping of the lugs are long gone. Gebhard recommended not putting the head badge back on yet, so that is missing as well. The components from the Centurion are all Japanese copies of Campagnolo parts, and to my eye are of equal or better quality. However, a chain guard on the outside of the front gears and a pie plate (spoke protector) on the inside of the rear gears don't do much for the appearance. So far, I have only ridden it home from the bike shop, a grand total of three to four miles, and I will have more to say about the performance when I have ridden this bike more, but what I have noticed already is that the brakes grab a bit. Can I get new pads for these very unique, very dated brakes? Gebhard warned me that might not be easy. In terms of shifting, modern bikes with their indexed shifting are simply better than the best of the classic drivetrains. That said, the drivetrain from the Centurion is definitely the best of its day, and shifting is not bad. The range of the gears is limited, however. The front gears are OK, 52 and 39 teeth, but the rear cluster is quite narrow, 14 to 24 teeth. The low gear on this bike is hardly lower than my Bianchi Specialissima with its notoriously narrow racer gearing. Even my commuter bike with an internal gear hub has two gears lower than the low gear on the Hetchins. The saddle from the Centurion is mediocre at best.

So that's the bad news, what about the good? To put things into perspective, the point of this whole project was to determine if this bike could be made to fit me. If it could, then it would be worth thinking about putting more money into it to bring it closer to my dream bike. The best thing about the current build of this bike is that the fit is wonderful, so mission accomplished. I can even use the drops (lower part of the handlebars) something that is quite uncomfortable on most of my bikes. Again, I will have a better feel for how good the fit is when I have put a few more miles on the bike (I told Gebhard I wanted to ride it 100 miles before making any decisions) but so far, fit couldn't be better. A lot of what is less than wonderful about the bike is potentially fixable. If I replace the rear 14-24 gears with a 14-32 cluster purchased on EBay, the gear range won't be spectacular, but would match my internal-gear commuter bike and my Bianchi Volpe in the middle front gear, the one I use most of the time. If I replace the rear gears, I can have the ugly pie plate removed at the same time. If I wanted even lower gears, I can replace the front cranks for $200 to have gears as low as any bike I own. I am most definitely replacing the saddle with Brooks B17, even before riding those 100 miles, especially since I can temporarily borrow one from one of my other bikes.

What is the future of this bike? It is way too soon to say, but at present I can imagine a few broad directions I could go. Almost certainly the best use for this bike is a bike to ride at Eroica California. It is a comfortable bike that meets all of Eroica's retro-requirements. The two things to consider fixing for that purpose, assuming I want to ride some of the more challenging rides, is lower gears and perhaps wider tires (for the unpaved sections of road.) Assuming that is the purpose of the Hetchins, here are some possible (non-exclusive) plans for it:

1. Leave it pretty much as-is. That is Gebhard's recommendation. He is definitely of the "is what is is and ain't what it ain't" school. Attempting to replace the rear gear cluster would probably fit on this path. (Attempting? Gebhard has warned me that one never knows with old derailleurs; what works on paper may not work on the bike.)
2. Maximize appearance. This would involve undoing what Gebhard has done to get back to a bare frame, which I would ship off to a high end restorer for stripping and repainting and adding back the gold pinstriping, adding replacement Hetchins decals, and putting back the headbadge. At that point, one would need to look with a critical eye at all of the components. Is the chain guard on the front cranks unacceptable? What else needs to be changed? There is no way this Hetchins can be restored to original condition, the motorist who ran a stop sign and ran into it, necessitating a frame repair, made sure of that, but I could make it look pretty while giving it an age-appropriate feel.
3. Modernize the bike. The first step on this path is to spread the rear triangle on the frame from its current 120mm to a modern 130mm which would allow me to use more available modern components. At that point I would have to decide, do I go for full-modern appearance, or do I want to maintain the appearance of period correct? One example of the hard choices this decision requires is that almost all of the best modern drivetrain components are black as opposed to period correct components which are silver.

So, exciting times ahead! Right now, I am days away from the Art of Survival metric century which I will ride on my Bianchi Volpe, so my Hetchins is sitting sad and alone in the garage. The first opportunity I have after I get back, however, I will take it out on my Alpine ride, 23 miles and 1300 feet of climbing. I know its gears (and my legs) can handle the hills because I recently completed this ride on my Bianchi Specialissima which has about the same gear range. Depending how that ride goes, I will come up with other rides to test this bike. I wonder what I will decide to do with it?