New Outside Column And More!

Firstly, I've got a new Outside column, and it's about how hard it is to buy a lousy bike:

At the same time, it's also truly hard to buy a great one, and certainly the preponderance of nearly-identical and eminently adequate "genre" bikes means upstarts like Tresca have their work cut out for them:


By the way, if you're wondering how things are going with the Tresca, the next phase of testing will involve riding it in a sanctioned bicycle race, which I plan to do this weekend.

Secondly, I was also on the radio waves again yesterday, and you can listen to that show here:


A number of people have asked me if the show is available as a podcast, and the short answer is "no."  As for why it's not available that way, you'll have to ask the radio station, because I have nothing to do with that stuff.  I just show up, sit in front of a microphone, and set my brain to "bloviate."

And finally, while I've been riding my Midlife Crisis Fixie to the studio on Mondays, yesterday I rode the Jones SWB instead so I could drop it off with the winner of the essay contest!


Please note this is not how the bike looked yesterday; rather, it is a photo of the last time I washed it, which was quite awhile ago.  Rest assured the winner received a fairly dirty bicycle.  I did, however, add sealant to the tires and replace the chain before riding it down to Brooklyn and turning it over.

Since doing a back-to-back comparison between the SWB and the LWB I've been on the latter pretty much exclusively, so when I hopped on the SWB to head down to Brooklyn I was immediately stricken by how much smaller and more playful the SWB feels--as I'm sure I've mentioned, it has a sprightliness that belies its considerable heft.  That certainly doesn't make one bike better than the other, and indeed I'm committing to the LWB over the SWB because I value its overall composure.  (I like the longer wheelbase on the road, and I like the additional pedal clearance on the trail.)  But certainly in an ideal world where space weren't an issue I'd happily go back and forth between both bike--and in a really ideal world I'd have an LWB in titanium with really light wheels and parts, because a bike like that would be truly amazing.

Hey, maybe we'll all get lucky, I'll get that titanium Jones, and I'll have an LWB to give away.