1 Bike with 1 Gear since 1/1

 A few years ago my friend Karin told me an old Chinese mixed blessing: May you live in interesting times. Generally, interesting came be a positive, but consider, not-so-good times can also be exceptionally interesting. I'll let you fill in the blank for examples with samples that match your personal ethos for good or bad. Oh heck with it, I doubt cancer treatment is particularly boring.

Transport by bike is interesting, and fortunately, I feel that falls on the positive side of the blessing more often than not. I've been riding a bike quite often for about thirty-five years, and only a month of that time span was in hospital and recovery facility after being smacked by the front bumper of a car, which seems a pretty positive ratio of good versus bad. Very little of it was boring, although, one spring while riding in Tucson, I was on a long, straight, flat road in the desert where I could see my destination a ten minute ride away, and every inch of the route to get there. No, not thrilling, but I did have the murky depths of my imagination to keep me company.

Not in Arizona, there is snow on the ground around me now. As is my form, I thought of making the overtly simplistic comment, "I like snow; it's white," but I quickly realized there's an undertone there I distinctly do not support. See, human beings and their imperfect relations make for interesting times. Sigh.

Snow, yes snow, in addition to being interestingly cold and colorless, it came made some of my frequent off-the-road connections a bit less effortless than usual, so I've been taking my bike for walks to stay connected with some of these hidden gems. I've liked it, and the combination of riding, walking through the wintery woods, and continuing to ride once out to a road on the other side has been enjoyable, interesting!   

Definitively not a carmuter route!

Yes, interesting, in a good way, I'm also more in touch with the world around me, and not just with the cold air in touch with my face. One aspect of that: I find many, many, many, and then some things that people lose from motor vehicles. On my errand to pay my quarterly real estate tax bill for the town's continued permission to own my house, I rode past a small box on the side of the road, and then fifty feet later, a similar, but more open one that allowed me to see the pneumatic staple gun inside. I'd been considering buying one ever since building the house I was headed to pay to keep left me with a slightly sore wrist on days that included far more staples than I'd find interesting to count. I love it when my procrastination pays off!

Alas, the 1st box 50 feet early was truly empty, so no 2nd stapler for my dad. Luckily, if he needs one, I was raised to share.

Tax bill paid, I continued east for a rolling ramble through South Hadley to loop around the Seven Sisters ridgeline of the Holyoke Range, a back roads route that along with pleasing views includes a little library half way along the road that parallels the range to the south. Another advantage of living in an area with an education economy and the people drawn to that is a plethora of interesting reading material. Last year another good friend Colleen quoted the Tau Te Ching, and while I don't remember the line precisely, or even all that roughly, it did put the Tau on my to-read list. While that to-read is still to-do, I was quite pleased to find a gentle, and I suspect slightly whimsical, primer.

A few more errands in Hadley, including a stint of rolling up Route Nine, from whence I saw the parallel rail trail was in fact mostly free of snow, and then the treat of riding home on that same trail, but a more elevated, shaded, and, yes, interesting section with significantly less bare pavement. Often, when riding on snow and ice, I've heard people assume I am riding studded tires. I have tried studs once on a friend's bike and was pleased to find they still allow for some slip angle, and I even now own a pair given to me a couple winters ago by friend Todd, but I have yet to use them on one of my own bikes. If a little slippage is fun, a lot of slip must be a lot of fun, right? Interesting.

And oh yes, this post has a title, I will explain that. In December, I purchased an aluminum fork for my bike of one gear to save my much appreciated steel Viscious Cycles fork from the salty slush that bike now sees as the foul weather replacement for the ride that took direct impact from the car's front bumper, or maybe "banger" in that instance. I finally installed it a few days before the birthday of a Jew whom people celebrate for his preaching against violence (and some claim to love him so much they set bombs to abortion clinics in his name) and was treated part way through the installation by tire-doner Todd biking up to my house with a box of treats labelled, "MFC Y'ALL". I like interesting cookies in interesting boxes, but I did still finish putting the nonrusting fork on my bike.

I like not worrying about calcium carbide on my fork, and after filing the excess paint globs off the brake mounts, the front disc hardly rubs at all. It has become my winter fork, and so my single speed, with a 42x18 gear turning a 26x1.95 tire has become my bike of every day this year. Yes, I do fantasize about the up/flat/down magic of having three speeds (maybe in time for March, the fill-in-the-blank-th month of the year), one has been quite effective at getting me where I'm going, especially with get-off-and-walk speed available as an option. Mmm, maybe my simplistic hope of touring on a truly simple single speed will happen this year!