In Which We Contemplate a Non-Cranky Biking World

Drove downtown in the rain, 9:30 on a Tuesday night. No, not really--I shot this Sunday afternoon. But I hope some of you heard Barenaked Ladies.

Well, that’s a bummer. Recently, Crank’s Uptown bicycle shop in Marion announced it is closing.

I purchased my most recent hybrid bike there, and have taken all of my bikes in for service there. We’ll miss you, Marion bike shop—you’ll leave us feeling cranky.

Last week was one of slightly cranky biking. I was thinking that last Thursday as I rode to campus—in winter-like cold, with little wisps of snow drifting down.

Why I didn't bike Monday.

Of course, I can dress for the cold, and, while it has been too chilly for April (it feels like we’re being treated to two Marches this year), it has by no means been beyond my biking zone.

Then again, several inches of show fell last weekend—although, now, the spring is finally warming up..

I hope the warm weather stays The MMU Bike Club hopes to have a remote bike ride around April 21. It would be nice if we were not fighting show on the High Trestle Trail!

Here is the text of the announcement from the Marion bike shop:

"Well... here’s some news about the store. Due to a pending spouse relocation for work, I made the hard decision to close Cranky’s Uptown over the next few months. It’s just too hard to try to manage a business on top of the big changes for her so we’re bringing it to an end. It’s been great to be a part of Marion Uptown and to have you all as customers. I need a few days to get the store set for the closing sale so watch our postings for more information."

We will miss you, Cranky bike guy.

Some spring view. One above is early morning last week. Below are two view this week--one below is Tuesday morning, bottom is Wednesday flowers on campus.

In Which Three is Not Too Many

Got sprinkled on Wednesday night riding the "new" bike home. That's OK--the mountain bike is going to be, among other things, my "it could rain" bicycle ...

 Do you own one pair of shoes? Maybe, but most of us have more than one because we do more than one kind of locomotion. I have dress shoes, gardening shoes, flip flops and several pairs of sandals.

Biking is like that, to me. It’s not just going from one place to another, it’s going there for different reasons under different conditions. So I do not feel too guilty that I own and ride more than one bicycle.

Front and back wheels wobbly, dusty and dirty--the Fancy Beast was reborn this week. I'll have to tighten the seat, but that's not a big deal.

Me and my three bikes. Fancy Beast for unpaved trails and winter riding, Argent for RAGBRAI and weekend fun, Clarence for commuting and transporting grandchildren. Of course, I need them all. And maybe one more ...

Although for many years I did. When I started riding RAGBRAI, the only bike I had was a big heavy hybrid. Three years ago, after a difficult year on the road, my wife kindly allowed me to get a road bike, which is a much better transport for RAGBRAI.

Meanwhile, the hybrid bike wore out—and was replaced by a newer, and much nicer, hybrid.

The road bike is the summer, fast, fun, RAGBRAI bicycle. The hybrid has the back rack and bags for commuting, and the attachments for the toddler seat and Tag-a-long, so it’s the grandchild bus, too.

And this week, I got bicycle number three. It’s not a new bike at all, in fact it’s close to a decade old.

I’ve ridden it before and written about it in the past—calling it the “Fancy Beast” because I had a heavier mountain bicycle that I called “The Beast.”

The Beast is probably headed to “the farm” (that mythical place we tell our kids that animals go when they check out) soon, as it no longer make sense to keep it in running condition. But the black Raleigh mountain bike—The Fancy Beast—is another story. It was obtained originally as the Microsoft bicycle—my oldest son did an internship at the tech company, and they offered interns either a free bus pass or a bicycle, and he chose the bike.

The bike was passed on to a son-in-law who used it to commute in Ames for a while, before it came to me when the son-in-law moved to England.

But about a year ago, the back wheel got severely out of true. It seemed like it had a broken spoke, but I could never find it. And so it gathered dust in the garage. But despite it's age, it doesn't have tons of miles and seemed too good of a bike to toss aside, so I held on to it.

Until I broke a spoke on my commuting bicycle last week, which I took to Uptown Cranky Bike Shop in Marion for repair this week. I suggested to my wife that we could also take the black Raleigh in. She agreed, because occasionally we are short on loaner bicycles when we have visitors.

Thursday night. Happy to have Clarence back, too! Four grandchildren got rides.

I had no idea what the repair on the Fancy Beast would entail. I was worried I maybe would have to replace the wheel, and wasn’t sure what a mountain bike wheel for a 9-year-old or so Raleigh would cost. At a minimum, I figured the cost to have the wheel trued and bike tuned would be around $70 to $80, and I fully expected the bike to need a new drive train or other extensive, expensive repair.

When I rolled the bikes into the shop late Tuesday, the owner of the bike shop said the broken spoke would be repaired quickly and I could pick up that bike Wednesday morning. He wasn’t sure about the black bike, since he didn’t know what it needed.

Well, I called Wednesday morning. “Your Fuji (the commuting bike) is done, and the black Raleigh should be ready in about five minutes,” Mr. Cranky said.

I was a bit taken aback—I’m not used to such quick service. My wife and I drove to the bike shop.

“Your front wheel was also out of true, so I showed my daughter how to true a wheel,” the bike man said. “And everything was a bit sticky, so we lubricated all the cables, trued the back and front wheels and adjusted the brakes.”

And his son rang up the purchase. The bill was around $15. I was stunned. I expected fixing a spoke on the one bike alone would cost more than that in labor—let alone repairing both bicycles. I paid my bill in a bit of a haze.

I was going to ride a bike to campus after that, and I decided as a test to use the “new” mountain bike. It rides just fine, for a mountain bike, although I’ll have to tighten the seat, which slips slowly down as I ride.

But for $15, I’ll take it.

So now I have bike three—my "new" Sac and Fox trail bicycle, which is also now my winter beater bike. It’s comparatively slow and noisy—it’s not a fat tire bike, but has fatter tires than the hybrid or road bikes, and it makes a lot of tire noise on the road. It partly compensates for the lack of speed and noise by being incredibly comfortable—it’s the only bike I ride that has shock absorbers, and I did enjoy rolling over bumps in the pavement without feeling them in my rear.

So, welcome The Fancy Beast to my now trio of bikes. I don’t think you’ll get a bunch of miles—now that school is here, most of my riding will be on Clarence, the hybrid bike. But my wife and I plan to check out the Grant Wood Trail soon, and since it’s not paved, a mountain bike will come in handy.

Well, it would. What biker doesn’t need at least three bicycles? Or, as my oldest son once observed: How many bikes does a bicycle rider think they need? It’s always N plus one.

For now, however, I’m happy with three. And here, for your entertainment, are a few of the outtakes as I tried to use a camera timer to take the three-bike portrait:

In Which I Ride the Boyson Trail Thrice … And Another Thing

I didn’t have a lot of time this morning—my daughter was going to fly to Baltimore, and I and my wife were dropping her off at the airport—so my morning bike ride was a simple trail loop on the nearby Boyson Trail.

Which, as fate would have it, I rode three times today. The two later rides were a bit different.

“After we drop (our daughter) off at the airport, why don’t we visit the bike shop?” asked my wife yesterday. Why not indeed?

I’ve been down to one bike in riding condition. The Beast broke a spoke shortly after I had the rear wheel repaired. The Fancy Beast has been lame for months with an untrue back wheel. Francis “went to the farm” in the euphemism of adults talking about where old dogs go.

And I have been lobbying for a second bike. Fortunately, some in my family—I am especially looking at you, Jon, although you’re not alone—supported the cause. My rationale was, basically, my road bike is for fun and RAGBRAI, but not really for commuting. I need a bike to put a back rack and some bags on, a comfortable bike to bolt a toddler seat to, an everyday, pickup truck bike to ride when I don’t want to have the sports car out.

And today was the day. We visited Cranky’s Uptown Bicycle in Marion, and I tested a bike I liked a lot—a blue hybrid with a very light aluminum frame. Then, we went to Northtowne, where I had purchased previous bikes. The Northtowne experience was less than satisfactory. The salesperson I dealt with seemed distracted and disinterested. The bike I test drove was OK, but not as comfortable as the blue hybrid I had ridden at a previous shop.

We, my wife and I, talked it over during lunch, and both concluded that we liked the Cranky Uptown bicycle better. That shop had agreed to put on a kickstand for free if I purchased the hybrid, so I called at the end of lunch to ask if they would install it so I could pick up the bike later that afternoon.

“It’s already installed,” the man at the shop said.

And so, about 2:30, my wife flashed a card and a new blue bike was added to the family. I had my helmet with me, and rode the new bicycle home from downtown Marion, which involved going over to Seventh Avenue and heading west to the Boyson Trail. As a test, I also rode it over the Brentwood Drive Hill.

The new bicycle, light aluminum frame, medium width hybrid tires, fun to ride.

The new bike is not quite as light or fast as Argent, but is significantly lighter than Francis was. It has wider hybrid tyres, and straight handlebars, rather than the drop handlebars of a road bike.

Selfie with bike after I rode it home. Wearing MMU Bike Club shirt, which matches bike pretty well.

The first ride went well, and after a swimming outing with some grandkids, my wife and I went on an early evening ride together—on the Boyson Trail.

So I rode it thrice today, twice on a new blue bike that I like very much.

My shadow at Hanna Park during evening ride on Boyson Trail.