With a New Year approaching, my riding has also begun anew! My wife (who is awesome, by the way) got me a new ride for Christmas. For the past year, I have bee riding my “hardtail” mountain bike with either the urban assault tires or slicks to log miles. By “hardtail”, I mean no suspension. Many of the mountain bikes you see out there are full suspension or at least front suspension. I believe this takes away the true feel of riding. Some people swear by full suspension, but I’m not buying it.
My new bike is a ’08 Scattante Americano Single Speed. This bike has a flip flop back hub that I can flip over to change the bike to a fixed gear. A single speed bike is like the bikes we rode as kids – no gears. I bought a bike trailer from a guy in 07 who rode a fixed gear bike and swore by it. Ever since talking to him about fixed gear bikes, I have been intrigued. I did some research and found this bike that can be either single speed of fixed gear. Once I get the feel for hoe the bike handles I will get a new cog and make the switch to fixed gear. A fixed gear bike is an interesting machine. Basically, you can’t coast; if the pedals are moving, so is the back wheel. Stop pedaling, stop moving. Once I make this switch, I’ll be sure to post about it.
With the New Year also comes a new mileage goal. In 2008, I rode over 2000 miles on either my mountain bike or the stationary. It’s only the 30th and I still have 2 more riding days left in the year. Yesterday’s ride put me at 2048 for the year. In 2009, I am shooting for 3000 miles. This should be doable as I really only started counting 2008 miles in late February while helping my wife train for her first triathlon.
Stay tuned for how my progress is going.
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