normally my attitude towards sports tools is very simple: if it’s got an engine it is a most welcome addition to our family collection. if it has none i take a more relaxed attitude: i completely relax and pretend it’s not there.
i’m not saying i have changed too much in that respect, but a year in the netherlands (it’s already that long!) have had a certain impact.
first of all everything is so close. close, as in ‘definitely too far to walk’ but also rather as ‘not far enough to take the car’. add to that a certain inconvenience when it comes to parking spaces – 3 euros per hour is inconvenient – and you find yourself wanting one of those stupid things.
then again i would not be me if i would go for a standard solution, would i? i mean these dutch constructions look very much as if they were designed before the war (before any war), with the clear goal in mind to make them last until after the war (any war). while they seem completely indestructible all the parts that can be destroyed (most probably only with a good measure of brute force) are of course disintegrated beyond recognition.
to my complete and utter surprise they also seem to run with on zero air pressure, a fact which is demonstrated by the locals on every possible occasion.
oh, and they are probably sold by the kilo, which would explain the ridiculously high prices.
anyway, instead of a ‘domestic’ product cut from a block of cast iron i got an american model made from chrome-moly, which is by accident the same material my ktm’s frame is made from. can’t be wrong, can it?
of course i got a used one. it was really quite cheap. that is .. in the meantime i got to spend nearly half of what the ‘core’ itself cost on all sorts of important extras like lights – obviously only important to foreigners -, a lock, etc.
looks like this:
cool, eh?
what? the luggage rack looks ridiculous? and what kind of ‘armchair’ is this on a bike like that anyway? well, actually i was going to play it safe. i mean if i buy a bike everyone will keep on asking me if i actually ride it. got to do with a certain precedent in the past (i think the bike still rots in some garage in budapest).
so i basically said this was going to be for kris (how nice of me to buy her a present). going to the shop, to the hairdressers, to the post office, the video rent.
after a short test drive (‘oh god i can’t turn here … why is this bike so high … how do i shift … why is the handlebar so low …’) she demanded a new saddle.
i did what every husband in the multiverse does in cases like that: i went and bought a new saddle. it might be slightly embarrassing now to be seen on the street but secretly i got to admit that it is actually really much more comfortable than the really cool leather / gel artwork it had when i bought it.
however, i still got 21 gears to choose from. given the nature of the dutch landscape we’ll probably only ever use the top 3, but it still sounds good, don’t it?
also got shimano v-brakes. whatever that means, but please try to be impressed. v-brakes. wow.
a completely new set of pedals (didn’t have to pay for that), probably bent & assembled in a sweat-shop in south-east asia.
and the right tyres to zip along the flat (!) dutch bike lanes: slicks!
not to forget the most important of all the gadgets:
the lock!