Re: [CR]JRA (Just Riding Around)

(Example: Component Manufacturers)

Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2006 09:58:13 -0500
From: Marcus Coles <marcoles@ody.ca>
To: Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Subject: Re: [CR]JRA (Just Riding Around)
References: <59D6E530-C880-4605-AE46-2C8BF6D3E731@earthlink.net>
In-Reply-To: <59D6E530-C880-4605-AE46-2C8BF6D3E731@earthlink.net>


Most of my riding fits the "Just Riding Around" description. I will usually be found riding a fixed gear or a friction shifted multi-gear bike, although I too have other choices. What attracts me to such bikes is the greater simplicity than most of today's offerings and the fact that I find riding them almost an extension of myself, in a way more like strap on stilts than sitting and riding on something.

I think a lot of (not all) so called technical advancements from suicide levers onward are to appeal to a broader group of less skilled riders, good for manufacturers, simpler riders need more complex bikes. I think the upsurge in the popularity of single speed, fixed gear and classic bikes is not just a fashion thing, but a rejection of complexity for complexity's sake, the realization that less can indeed be more.

FWIW I select my fixed gearing by terrain, if I can struggle up the worst hill I have to face with the gearing then it is correct. The terrain around here is flat to rolling and any steep hills are fairly short, I find myself with gearing similar to Chuck's, my most ridden fixed gear bikes are 52 x 17 and 50 x 16 usually. As far as fixed gear fashion goes 42 x 16 to 18 seems to be most popular on the few fixed gear bikes I see around here. Such gearing makes me feel like a bear on circus bike, although I plan on trying it for riding on snow covered roads this winter.

Marcus Coles London, Ontario, Canada. (the other Ontario and the other CA ;-))