Meet the fleet, pt. 2

My other bike is a Schwinn Tempo road bike. We're nearly the same age.

The Schwinn is my around-town bike. I use it for running errands, on bike dates with Pat, and for those days in which the point is not to go fast but to relax and rediscover the childhood joy of being on a bike.

One of the keys to any around-town bike is not washing it. This turns off the thieves. It's all about getting the best ride with the worst looks. The headlight on the handlebar and battery pack mounted to the frame easily double the value of this bike.

You may notice that the bike is a single-speed. Actually the bike is a fixed-gear / free-spin flip-flop^[*]. I had the bike converted to the flip-flop this summer from its original 12-speed, down-tube-shifters condition. If I redid the conversion I would go with a basic fixed gear and forgo the free-spin. At the time I wasn't so sure about not being able to coast. I enjoy not being able to coast. Track stand!

I love the simplicity of this bike. There's only one cable, which is for the brake on the front wheel. No rear brake, no gears, no shifters. And the front brake is for emergencies only. I mash to a stop.

Here's the flip-flop hub up closely. I've used the free-spin side only twice; it's geared way too low. The fixed gear is 42-16; the free-spin is 42-18. I don't see the point of 42-18 for an around-Phoenix bike. I once found myself skirting around the Mummy Mountain hills on the PV Loop while in the fixed-gear side and with the clip pedals and in my hiking shoes. No problem. I don't see myself ever climbing a mountain on this bike, although the thought of taking it up and down South Mountain has crossed my mind. I'll be sure to leave a farewell note if I do.

I've fitted the bike with a leather saddle because I'm not always in my bike shorts when riding it. Leather saddles are super comfortable once broken in, although they are a bit heavy -- no concern for a bike such as this. This saddle's leather is broken in and has conformed to the shape of my rear. Don't look too closely, though; it's kind of lopsided. The saddle, that is. Okay, and the rear.



Notice how the left handlebar plug is missing but not the right one. And there's no handlebar tape. This bike is not worth stealing, thieves!

I love both of my bicycles each in their own special way. I bought the Schwinn a few months before leaving Houston for $100 from a Craigslist ad. I wanted a bike with which to run basic errands like grocery shopping and going to the library, and I had no idea that such a small sum of money would buy me car freedom.





Special thanks to Coworker Lee for the photography.

Link: Meet the fleet, pt. 1

^[*] A fixed-gear bike is a special type of single speed in which the pedals are locked in gear with the rear wheel. So if (and only if) the rear wheel turns then the pedals turn. There is no coasting on a fixed-gear bike.

A flip-flop hub has a cog on each side, so you can flip the wheel around to change gears. In this case, one side is a fixed gear, and the other is a regular free-spin. The free-spin is intended for hilly terrain where the downhill gradients are too steep and can cause spin-out in a fixed gear.