The single-speed is simple and pure. There are no complications, no noise of a dérailleur rattling, no jumping chain. And the look, too, is pure and purely beautiful - no excess cables, no mess of wires. I even had Joel (from Clockwork Bikes) provide internal routing on my custom frame...
Check-out the internal routing:
The only thing more beautiful and pure than riding a single-speed is riding it alone. Two mornings in a row I got out for a solo ride, up into the mountains around Susono*.
On both rides, I realized that I may have lost my 'riding legs', since getting up a once-easy hill was agony. I also remembered what it was to be alone with the bike.
- You can get off and push the bike whenever you want to
- You don't have to stop for a break if you don't want to
- You hear the wind in the trees and your own heavy breathing, not that of your riding partner
- At the top of the hill, you are free to enjoy the victory, a solo victory, in peace and contentment
- Best of all, you just get to be. Just Be.
*Note: The kanji for Susono - 裾野- actually translates to "skirt" or "foothill" of the mountain. We are the foothill of Mt. Fuji.
4 comments:
Just surfin' SS blogs when The Man thinks I'm working--hey, it's Friday!
Anywho, came across your blog. Sounds like a good ride and I enjoy learning about places where I never thought of folks as mountain biking, especially on a single speed! So, this may sound like a silly questions, but do you have trails running through bamboo forests? I always thought that'd be kinda cool.
Peace and Happy Trails!
Haha. Glad you found me, and I totally understand the surfin' time.
And, yep, we go through bamboo trails. It just is not quite as idyllic as one would wish...
I love solo rides. My best rides have been solo.
I guess the proverbial grass is proverbially greener on the proverbial other side since it definitely seems idyllic!
K.O.S.S.--Keep On Single Speedin'!
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