Showing posts with label 29er. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 29er. Show all posts

Friday, March 20, 2009

The Beauty of the Solo Ride

As surely you all know, we both ride single-speed mountain bikes, and have been for several years now. Even in this mountainous terrain, I have not yearned for gears (well, okay, perhaps in my weakest moments while slogging up a 15% hill...).

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 - ??- actually translates to "skirt" or "foothill" of the mountain. We are the foothill of Mt. Fuji.