NBD

 New Brompton Day!  

    I'd been toying with the idea of upgrading my Brompton with a 6 speed model for quite a while.  I was in the Chicago dealer (JC Lind) a few months ago and mentioned that.  The owner, Jon, told me to do it in the following six months because Brompton is changing the drive train specs and the six speed would not be an option for long.

    After looking at the new options, I decided the 6 speed was what I wanted.   I kept an eye on their website and snatched up a bargain before it disappeared. 

It's the six speed model marked down $200 with $300  in accessories thrown in.  I would have liked a different color, but red and black is OK.  In fact it looks pretty sharp for the strange bucket of bolts that is Brompton. Any way it's January,  so the first business was replacing the tires with studs, then rust proofing the frame with Cavity Coater, change the grips and give it a once over with turtle wax.

 

The first ride was on the snow but I like it.  I took it with me to Chicago, 

a few days later and the extra range is a real pleasure.  The six ratios are reached by way of a 3speed IGH with two external cogs. So. It's a 3 speed hub with a high and low range. The range is selected with this curious derailer. 

  With the 6 speed the range is 33-100 gear inches compared to the 3 speed range of 47-85.

Although the gear selection isn't really needed in Chi-Town, I leaned to the lower range riding the heavy, slow studs in the heavier icy sludge on the streets.  

    It was a sunny winter Saturday in the Loop and people were out and about making use of the cold at the Millennium Park skating rink.  

    By the time I returned home from the city, it was a dark winter night for the ride home and the optional light I'd gotten for free proved itself.  Not only is the 500Lm light (made for Brompton by Cateye) penetrating on a totally dark icy street, Having it that low to the ground over the 16 inch wheels provided details that really enhanced the safety for the few miles home.

    A new bike in January is tough to deal with, it just looks at you like a puppy waiting to go for a walk, but it will be held to grocery-getting until I take the studs off.  "It'll only be a few weeks, I promise."

 

Baby, it's cold inside!

 So we had a cold snap a week or so ago. It's Michigan, it happens, like for months sometime.  Temps were down in the teens, wind chill in single digits. Schools were closed one day but not the next. I went to work and back without any discomfort. Winter jacket up top and base layer under my slacks and was perfectly comfortable.

After work, I had an appointment and two quick errands to run.  The streets were still frozen, icy and rutted, the temps in the teens and it was getting dark early. I decided to drive my car in the evening.  Sitting in the car, in the same clothes, I was freezing and shivering.  In and out of the car, bundled up as I was while riding my bike, I was totally uncomfortable while I was perfectly comfortable riding my bike in the same temps and clothing. Sitting to go places ain't good. Biking is the warm cold weather sport.

Leelanau Harvest

I was waiting and waiting to see if the weather was going to cooperate and fulfill the long range forecast hope. Hey it worked!  I had great weather for a weekend in the woods.  The Leelanau Harvest Tour is a charity ride I hadn't ridden.  Starting  a few miles northwest of Traverse City

 on the Leelanau Trail which is also part of US Bike Route 35 following the lake shore from New Buffalo to

 Mackinaw City.

We didn't do  that, but the trail is a beautifully paved trail to start the ride, cutting through the orchards and vineyards of the Leelanau peninsula.

Dancing ornaments were found

as well as the ripened orchards of the area

until we reached the main attraction.  

Lake Leelanau is enourmous and was peeking

 through the trees all along the roads.

Unlike the Paw Paw harvest tour

 there were more orchards than vineyards

 and I missed the fragrance filling every breath.

E-bikers were out gliding through the hilly course,

not with  monsterous mountains

but frequent steep climbs. 

I'll admit to some conceited smugness as 

I pedaled my Sam Hillborne past a number of

 spandex hamsters pushing their 

crabon crotch rockets up the grades.

It was a windless 40 mile ride through the fruit industry

 back to the village of Suttons Bay on the big lake

where a few hundred surviving riders shared 

 lunch, ice cream and stories.

It was a welcome break from the routine and another

night in the woods by the lake at Interlochen.

A couple good books

      I managed to squeeze a couple good books about cycling into my frantic summer reading schedule.  

      The first was Camageddon: how cars make life worse and what to do about it.   The author, Daniel Knowles, is a journalist who lives in Chicago.  Thanks to his globe  trotting assignments writing for the Economist magazine, he is able to provide an expansive look at the effect the automobile is having all over the world.  His vision compares experiences in cities on every continent. 

This very well written book explains effects the automobile has had from Mumbai, to Kenya to Houston, New York and elsewhere.  It provides a macro world view of social problems, air pollution and concrete everything that has developed to support the auto industry.

     The second one is The Immortal Class; Bike Messengers and the Cult of Human Power.  The author, Travis Hugh Culley, is also a Chicago resident.

His is a more personal, gritty, street level look at urban cycling.  A former theater student who needed "A JOB" found his way into the life of bike riding for a profession.  It's a beautifully composed story of sweat, confusion and success living and racing on dangerous streets at high speeds.

     Carmageddon is a cold blooded analysis of the global insertion of the auto into urban life and the challenges it is creating for the future.  The Immortal Class is a shot of adrenaline straight off the street reaching the same conclusions.  They're both a pleasure to read.