To answer The Spice Girls

 

In my defense,

I did have to search for who sang the lyric.

But to negate that,

I didn't think it was awful.

Props for the back flip hand vault!

What do I really, really want? I like dirt roads, a lot, but years ago when looking at properties in New Hampshire, I realized living on a dirt road would mean riding a dirt road every day, except for the ones when it was downgraded to a mud quagmire. Yesterday, I was reminded there are times I do appreciate bare, clean pavement. While I skipped bumping along the unplowed section of railtrail, I did join the plowed section in Amherst after a short stint on Bay Road, coated with a dusting of fresh snow an hour before my departure. I just didn't feel like sharing what was left of the clear road.

Harris Street, 

my sedate approach to busy Bay Road.

The quarter inch dusting on the trail didn't increase rolling resistance much, but it was very effective at concealing the periodic coatings of untreated ice. I've never opted for the wear, tear, and expense of studded tires for those conditions, even hautily quipping that I'm studdly enough already, and they take all the fun of sliding on ice. Yesterday, after a couple interesting bits of sideways movement on hidden ice blocks, I found myself contemplating the studded tires I'd seen lurking in the Bike Lab basement, which conveniently was precisely where I was headed.

Part way, I saw the DCR ute plowing.

I think the remaining footprints were cool!

Well, even with slightly slower, more cautious snow transit, I arrived in Northampton an hour early, so after dropping off a few items I'd brought for the Lab, I rolled into the center of town for a little who-knows-what. Some of the what was a yummy pumpkin pastry from Tart which had me walking my bike while I nibbled and took advantage of cars having to yield to pedestrians, but not yet bikes in Massachusetts, in crosswalks. That had me walk past the Iron Horse Music Hall where a poster for likely my favorite musician, UK based Jesca Hoop, was posted. I haven't bought a show ticket in ages, but that might be one I won't afford to miss.

I discovered Jesca though a NPR Tiny Desk performance she played with Sam Bean.

Her solo work took a few listens to appreciate, but then it clicked, and I never stopped.

Back to the railtrail, and back to Bike Lab, I was gaining on the rider of a kick scooter. I was thinking to give cheers for riding one in the snow, but then it appeared the rider was making fast enough progress that I'd turn off on the connection to Northern Avenue before passing. But then the scooter also turned off toward Northern, I realized the rider was the grand maven of Bike Lab, original Pedal Person, Ruthie. If you are anywhere in the area and have a bicycle conundrum, or want to help others with theirs, I highly recommend joining us at Bike Lab, even if it does put you at risk of bad advice from me!

The studded tires had waited for me, and Ruthy was so thankful that I would help clear space in the basement that when I then noted and commented on the surprisingly nice and modern, versus our more common older donations, 160mm travel Rock Shox fork, she replied, "If you want it, take it!" Um, yes, I kinda do, and not just because it's free. I'd be shocked if I haven't here proclaimed that I want only three things on my mountain bike that can leak: front tube, rear tube, and me. I like riding bikes much more than I like working on them, and as a bonus in addition to reliability, rigid mountain bikes offer the full experience of a challenging trail, completely undamped. Heck, I'll even continue the word play by saying uncompressed. I like rigid forks.

But I also like the super slack angle bikes the industry finally started producing after going in the opposite direction for years after my first mountain bike from 1985. Long and stable are good, but even hardtails, especially the "roudy", slack ones are now built around long travel suspension forks, and it's hard or impossible to find a long enough rigid fork to replace those big boingers. I'd even started, just barely started, considering succumbing and accepting a long suspension fork, like say, one with, hey, 160mm of travel. I'd even quickly shopped to see how much a reasonable one might cost me.

Caveat on the word "reasonable". I love rigid bikes, but I'm actually more that a little particular about suspension when I ride it. I want it perfect, perfect for me. I was even a relative early adopter of full suspension bikes as a racer after Matt Estes rode away from me at Wrath of the Boneyard on one in 1996. That Monday I'd called Kona and asked for one of my own. It, a unified rear triangle design, helped a bit for the handful of races where I rode it, but I didn't love it, so the next year, I requested their other design with a four-bar suspension linkage. That one I genuinely loved, and when my usually much faster teammate asked at the NORBA finals, "What are you doing on that?" I later refrained from saying, when I, riding with the extra traction the suspension offered, caught him half way through the race on a rooty climb he was running, "Remember you asked what I'm doing on this? I'm riding!" 

In fact, I consider riding those two bikes, and my response to an email from owner Jacob, that the product manager forwarded to me, as the reason I was possibly worth the money they spent on me over the course of three years. Jacob's question, "We're doing a new suspension design. Should it be unified rear triangle or four-bar." I replied with my experience on both bikes, suggested that good shock tuning with enough damping could negate the four-bar pedaling disadvantages (a year or two later "Pro Pedal" shock tuning was introduced), and gave the nod to that more active design.

I never saw any of the replies from the in house employees, but Jacob did CC me on his next email distribution, with my response attached, and the simple, somewhat curt statement, "You know, THIS is what I was looking for!" They did use a four-bar design for the new bike, and given the expense of producing a production mold for a new bike (I was once told tens of thousands of dollars, per each size), and that unified rear triangle designs were gone from the market a few years later, I figure this slowest rider on the team ended up being a pretty good value. Yes, in case it wasn't already clear from the the last three paragraphs, I'm a suspension nerd. I might even learn to like it again. The fork tucked rather nicely into my pannier, with the drawstring stabilizing its LONG length that protruded. 

But wait, there's more! As a slow, cold, semi snowy day, Bike Lab had only one visitor in need of help, so after that, I helped teach Max how to swap out a ruined fork on one of the donated bikes, and Ruthy sorted through some of the parts stockpile with an eye to clearing space and recycling the bits that weren't worth keeping. One of the discard bits was a single, steel crankarm, much like the one damaged by being ridden loose on my newly acquired Huffy experiment in "How bad can a bike be and still be fun?". Yes, I'd intended to try filing the taper to serviceability, but, well, maybe if I'm going to intentionally use a suspension fork, I'm really, really soft enough to just replace it. I wanna be a bike lover, not a fighter?