organic a natural home
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bicycle STORY
the commuterMarch 15, 2001 My bicycle commuting goal for this year is 4500 miles. That works out to 90 miles a week for 50 weeks or basically 4 days a week every week. I used to be a fair weather commuter but this year I did a considerable amount of riding in the rain and really only stayed off my bike when it was foggy. Getting rained on a little bit is one thing; getting hit by a car in the fog well... that's where I draw the line. I've been commuting by bike for three years now and have finally gotten the clothes and bike down pat. This is my bike. It's a commuting work in progress. I started with a 1996 Cannondale F700 hardtail mountainbike which was originally purchased for cross-country racing (which it still gets used for about 3 times a year). It was at that time, a relatively high end rig, set up for racing, but as it turns out, it was an excellent platform on which to build a commuter. Mountainbikes in general make good commuting bikes for several reasons. You usually sit more upright than on a road bike (unless you get fitted for your road bike by Grant and the guys at Rivendell 'cause they set you up for comfort over the long haul - that is, more upright), they have fatter tires so you can run over a heck of a lot more junk in the dark of winter and there's usually plenty of room to mount fenders which if you're riding year round you absolutely must have them. My Cannondale also had several other advantages that even mountainbikes often don't have. With it's proprietary HeadShok© fork it was a snap to mount a regular fender and even though it is a racing frame it came with complete rack mounts. With full fenders, rack with pannier bag, front and rear lights, wheel reflectors and street tires its a dream machine. As this page developes we will detail the changes that went into creating this commuter – dave © Copyright iriguchi 2001 |
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