Wednesday 25 April 2012

Sans folding bike for a bit

A confession:  I was not "bloke on a folding bike today" but rather "bloke on an ordinary bike.  Allow me to explain...

Last night I took the rear tyre off my Dahon and found the source of my woes.  The rim has worn through the sidewall down to the reinforcement in two places.  I don't know how it happened as I only rode about 100 yards with the puncture before re-inflating the tyre.  But happened it has and, while I'm not very happy about it, the sorting out is a story for another day.

However, once I'd seen daylight through the hole in the side wall, I didn't fancy trusting my neck to that tyre again.  Call me "Old Mr Overcautious" if you like.  Anyway, cutting to the chase, with the car not being a palatable option, I had to use my other bike.  It's a nice hybrid on 700c wheels that I bought from Halfords a few years back,  Nothing to write home about but a nice enough bike really.  Crucially however, it has not got mudguards.  And today the rain was little short of torrential.  End result, I got soaked!  At no point did I wish I was back int he car though.  There's still a certain air of smug superiority that one can exude when pedalling hard in wet traffic surrounded by company car idiots drivers in their BMW 520s and Audi A6s.

I was also pleasantly surprised at how fast the bike was.  It's much higher geared than the Dahon and the extra turn of speed really helped to make a wet commute a more fun commute.  Quite a convincing argument for up-gearing the folder so I'll look into it after next payday.  The closer spaced gears (21 in all) also made it easy to find a comfortable cadence instead of the spin/heave options available with only three.  I do love the simplicity of the 3 speed hub gear though so overall I think it wins.

I can't do anything about the Dahon's tyre until the weekend at least so Friday's commute will be back on the hybrid as well.  OK not a folder, but a bike none the less.

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