Well, winter is really ON here now. My street out front is covered in a good 1/2" of ice and packed snow and it's pretty much between 10 and 30 degrees. This, of course, isn't OFFICIALLY winter yet, it's technically "late Fall" which means that we've got a very long way to go.
I had a sexy photo shoot of my "stable" a few days ago on a lark after my wife had been shooting some pictures. Below are pics of the finished Orbea Euskaltel team bike, my trusty Paramount, the Look 171 I have had sitting around for a few months which I pilfered the Dura Ace on the Paramount from (it is now resurrected with a nice mixed Shimano 600/105 setup), and finally, the finished Trek 400 from a few posts ago that I fixed up for my friend Jeremy.
Here we go:
Nice right?! My basement is getting a little cozy though. I did get the Trek out of there and I'm getting ready to hand over this Centurion, which was my (for lack of a better term) "beater" bike. This, however, presented a little problem since, with the crappy weather, it leaves me without a less-than-quite-nice bike to ride in these slippery, falling down, salted road months. It also wasn't super ideal due to the lack of clearance for anything larger than a 700 x 25 tire (700 x 28 MIGHT have fit, but not by much). So I started hunting around for some kind of cross bike, commuter bike etc. with more ample tire clearance.
After about 3 days of posting, searching and e-mailing, I ended up finding a pretty decent deal on a Surly Steamroller. It's got the so-called "fatties fit fine" chainstay/seatstay as well as plenty of clearance at the front fork as well. As a winter riding experiment, I have also ordered a pair of these:
They are carbide-studded snow/ice tires. It may be overkill, but my neighborhood as well as the long street I work on are often not plowed at all. In addition, I commute down the hike/bike path in Humboldt Park, which is also un- or underpaved regularly. These tires are supposedly they best choice for mostly plowed roads with some icy patches and offer the least rolling resistance, so I'm gonna give them a go on the Surly. I'll keep everyone posted.
Here is the bike in it's original incarnation on craigslist:
Speaking of which, I'm out the door now to give this thing a test ride to work (no ice tires yet, but at least it's not super awful out right now.
Bike on!
No comments:
Post a Comment