I tried for ages to overlay my old bicycle (Giant Great Journey 2, 2006 model I think) and the new one (Surly Long Haul Trucker) on top of each other in Photoshop, but no matter what I did, I could not get the perspective right. So here's a regular comparison instead.
Also, drawing a triangle in photoshop is bloody stupid.
Today was a beautiful day so I decided to head north to Watford, which turned out to be real close by. I didn't take a lot of photos along the way, and I think that's because I'm not familiar enough with the area yet. But I had an 'aha' moment today where two distinct areas of roads suddenly linked up in my mind, completing another part of the puzzle that is greater London's road network. I made the mistake of remembering things wrongly the first time I came here, and it's still hurting me. But I'm getting over it.
This is rapidly becoming my favorite path.
I found something interesting today. I ended up in Watford city center, took a wrong turn and drove across a hospital parking lot in the wrong direction, then ended up on a big road that was closed for traffic because it was filled with football supporters and food and drinks stands. The policeman kindly informed me that I could just barge right through there with my bicycle, so I slowly cycled through the crowd, looking around. I guess a football match is the UK's version of Japan's festival. Hm, cute Japanese girls in kimonos or rowdy football fans with weird accents. I think I know which one I prefer.
The canals. For lack of a nicer place, quite nice.
I can tell that my new bicycle doesn't really like to be on non-asphalty roads, even more so than the old one. The tires are just that tad bit too thin and smooth for muddy roads, and the lack of front suspension makes almost any off-road path around here a very bumpy ride. Or perhaps I just haven't cycled enough lately and need to get used to it again. In any case, after leaving the muddy paths behind and finding some open asphalt it really felt great. The bike's made to do asphalt, so I should do a bit more of that next time, just to see how far I can go in a day.
A random park. Behind me were screaming children.
This is what I do in weekends. I've somehow forgotten this after two years of not being in Japan, but this is what I do, and I like it. I cycle somewhere random, take photos along the way and sometimes find interesting things. Then I head home, tired and exhausted, and enjoy a nice movie in the evening while eating snack food from the convenience store. Ah, what a life.
It's perfect. Honestly couldn't think of a better rack shape + size if I wanted to. I don't know how easy it'll be to remove, but I'll just have to try that. I'd like to say that the bike is complete now, but I threw away the broken compass bell, so I have to wait until the new one arrives.
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Today was perhaps the first time I really went out and 'cyclographed' in the UK. It's a bit hard to define why today felt like cyclographing and all my previous trips on my old bike near London didn't feel like it. Mostly it's the environment, I guess. There's less busy streets here, less traffic lights, less buildings everywhere. The roads are winding and you can go a long way without having to stop for anything. At the same time there's those interesting junctions that make you wonder where a road will lead to, unlike closer to the city where everything's square and everything ends up in the same places. And finally, there's the hills.
There's so many hills here, way more than around Atsugi actually. Cycling here is going to make me a lot stronger. There's no mountains though, nor are there massive landmarks that you can use to orientate yourself. I always found comfort in relating my position to some distant mountain or tower, but there's no such thing here. I still have to get used to that.
The bike is good. Everything is working as expected. The weather is getting worse but I don't want to let that stop me. Even though today was massively windy and quite cold, I brought the right clothes and managed to settle into a sustainable pace. I hope I can keep my motivation up through the winter. Then, perhaps in the spring, I can start thinking about the next big cycling trip :)
Today I fitted all the goodies that arrived earlier this week: lights, cyclocomp, bottle holders and toe clips + straps. The middle shot on the right is of the cool spoke holder area on the lower bar. Everything's still very shiny, perhaps a little bit too much. I'd better get out there and dirty it up a little bit.
The toe straps seemed quite tight when I tried them out just now. Definitely not as easy to get into as my old worn-out Giant's. When I bought the pedals the bike shop tried to convince me to go for clipless + cleated shoes, but I just can't bring myself to it. In my mind people who use clipless shoes are the ones that dress in skintight spandex and drive like madmen. I'm just a guy who wants to carry a boatload of luggage around a country. Cages and straps fit that image, clips don't.
Although not very visible in the photos, I had the bike shop remove the front rack. I went there with bike and pannier this week to get their opinion on how to carry more stuff on the front, but I met with large resistance. On the phone they kept saying that the rack they got me was 'the biggest rack there is', even though it was tiny. The me of three years ago would have let that slide and just gone to a different bike shop, but I'm feeling assertive lately, so I kindly told them that was bullshit and there's many bigger racks to find online, including the one that Surly makes. So I drove in for a little advice, which turned out useless, as they now tried to sell me smaller front panniers rather than a larger rack. This is it, you know: the fight between the spandexies and the touries. It exists. My encounter is proof of it. Although the Surly rack is massively heavy I decided to order it anyway, my decision perhaps assisted by the anti-cargo-hauler sentiment of the shop people. Yes, I'm a niche market. Still better than wearing spandex.
Today, despite the weather being overcast, gray and uninspiring, I took my new bike out for a spin. Here's my first impressions of the Surly Long Haul Trucker.
It's awesome! I had my doubts about the gears at first, being used to Shimano Total Integration levers, but the bar-end shifters are of superb quality. There's a robustness in them that my STIs never had. The best part about the gear levers is that the rear gear lever is indexed, but the one that controls the front gear is not. Up until yesterday I didn't know what indexing gears meant, but now that I know I realized that it's what I've always been missing on my old bike. The front gear always used to get misaligned after a while, but having a non-indexed gear lever means that the shifting is analog, so you just move the lever however much you need in order to get the chain to catch on the next gear. Brilliant.
I didn't go very far today, but I'm very pleased with my new area. I'd been wanting to cyclo-explore the area ever since I came here, and today I finally had the chance. I was not disappointed. It took only a 5-minute cycle to end up on a winding hilly forest road with not too much traffic, and the initial hillclimb was a good challenge for someone as out of shape as I am. I kept turning right until I ended up back in the town center, after about 30 minutes of forest and countryside roads. The area is perfect for cycling. Now if only the weather would cooperate..
Today's route, ~10km.
I can't help but compare the Surly to my old bike, the Giant Great Journey. The gear ratios feel about the same, the highest gear being not that high, and the lowest gear being low enough to haul a large load up a steep incline. My old Giant had an aluminium frame which is supposed to make it more stiff than the steel Surly, but I noticed no such thing. I think the build quality of the Surly just makes it that much stiffer. There's also the lack of suspension on the Surly, which on the Giant was nothing more than a dead weight weighing down the front of the bike. The Surly feels much more nimble.
Other cool things I noticed: the Surly comes with two spare spokes on a neat little holder on the bar between pedals and rear wheel. It also has three mounting points for water bottles and/or pump. The old Giant had but two, and the frame was so small that it wouldn't fit large bottles. The Surly on the other hand has ample space everywhere: inside the frame and between the wheels, mudguards and frame.
The only thing I don't like about the Surly is that it advertises itself with great white letters all over the frame. In a country like the UK, that makes this bike an obvious target. I'm planning to get a GPS tracker to ensure that I get my bike back if someone tries to steal it, and my girlfriend has convinced me for 90% to get bike insurance as well. I'm not sure which odds are better: that of the GPS tracker remaining undiscovered when someone steals the bike, or that of a sleazy insurance company actually paying out when my bike gets stolen.
I'm planning some improvements to make the bike perfect for touring. I've ordered the usual (lights, bicycle computer, bottle holders), but the biggest issue right now is the front rack. The current one is awesomely light-weight, and looking down on the handlebars looks like I'm driving the speeder bike on Endor, but I think I'd rather have more space on the front. Surly is selling a pretty impressive front rack, but the price is also impressive. But it offers a neat platform space in the front, which is something I'd love to have, so I'll get the bike shop to exchange the front rack for me. As usual, if you want quality, your wallet has to suffer.
(yesterday was exactly 5 months since my bicycle got stolen. 5 months since I rode a proper bicycle.)
Behold!
It's here! My new bicycle, a Surly Long Haul Trucker, freshly built today. I've only taken it out for a short spin today. When I picked it up it was pouring with rain, and I got soaking wet cycling during the 10-minute cycle back to work. It's hard to say anything about a bicycle having only ridden it for 10 minutes, but I think it feels robust. Sturdy. The weight feels about the same as my old Giant, which had an aluminium frame, but was a lot thicker and had front suspension which added a lot of weight. This bike is made of thin powerful steel and just feels.. solid.
The front panniers fit a bit awkwardly on the small front rack. I'll have to decide whether to get new front panniers or not. I'll just have to give it a try I guess. I can't wait to take it out for a real drive.
There's still a lot to improve. I didn't order a cyclocomp cause the one they had in the store was too expensive, and the model I wanted was 20GBP cheaper on Amazon. Same goes for lights: I bought some from the pound shop the other day, but that's just temporary until I get proper ones. The pedals are a similar story. The bike shop tried to sell me clipless pedals for 70GBP, but I'm not quite ready to commit to that yet, not in the least because I'd have to get special shoes as well. I just want casual pedals. I do miss the cage/toe straps I used to have on my Giant, so perhaps I'll order that later on. Other improvements I want to make include a compass bell (of course!) and a center kickstand thingie, if the frame allows for it. I've also seen a really cool gps anti-theft device that I may want to buy.
So much to do! Taking out for a spin tomorrow ^_^.
I had a quick ride on a Surly Disc Trucker today. The ride felt really good. I was only on it for a couple of minutes though, so it's hard to tell if it'll be comfortable during a long trip. Unfortunately the bike doesn't come with any racks or mudguards, so a full package was quoted to me as costing 1500GBP. Ouch. Something to think about.
Disc brakes were on my list of wants for a new bike, but now I'm not so sure. The non-disc-brake version is about 200GBP cheaper. The one I rode today had particularly thick tires, and replacing them also cost extra.
The thing I disliked most about it was the brake placement on the handlebars. My old Giant Great Journey had two brake handles for front and rear each, one mounted on the lower area of the handlebars (usual place for racing bikes), and one mounted on top (the usual place for regular bikes). I hardly ever assume the racing position when touring so I quite missed them.
Customizing parts should be more or less possible, but will quite likely end up in an even higher cost. Is a bicycle really worth that much to me? Perhaps I should just import another Great Journey..
I can't help but think that I've gone full circle and ended up back where I started. Yet instead of circling back to the point of origin I've spiralled into something else that I don't quite fully understand yet.
Last Sunday I took a walk around the area I now live in. Everything is incredibly countryside. The area near the station has only a handful of shops, and almost all of them are closed on a Sunday. The one shop that was open offered household goods, and while I was wandering around in the shop some local children came and greeted the shop owner by name, obviously familiar with each other. I walked on a bit further and realized that there was nothing else to do. The local chav youth, of which there are lots, were bored and hung around in the square in front of the station. I found a nearby mini-forest tucked away between the residential streets and wandered from one end to the other, which took me all of 5 minutes. This is the countryside. And yet it's convenient.
I'd like to think that the place I stayed at in Japan, Atsugi, was not countryside. It was conveniently located on a major train line towards Tokyo, all of the area towards Tokyo was suburbs and city centers, and Atsugi itself had a voluptuous shopping area. Yet somehow it was countryside. I could head out for a cycle for 10 minutes either south, west or north and I'd hit rice fields. It had just the right balance. My new place here in Greater London reminds me of Atsugi because my room is once again small (but just the right size for me) and the area around here is extremely suitable for cycling.
But of course this area resembles Holland way more than it does Japan. The little houses, the local people, the gray days, the cold winter, it all reminds me of my time in Holland. I used to live in a converted warehouse with no central heating. It was always a struggle to stay warm in some of the rooms. This place was bloody cold too, but I've since bought a better heater.
Back when I was staying in Ealing I was never able to properly get away from things. I never felt quite comfortable to walk out the door at any time of day to just take a walk, or to go cycling. There was no place to run away to, I guess. Even after coming home from work I'd still feel the stress and the environment didn't change at all. Now though, I can leave the annoyingness of central London behind the moment I step in the train home, and I forget all about work. It makes me realize that there's more to life than "a job in the city" and that there's a lot more agreeable methods of getting to where I want to go in life.
Keeping in the theme of strange circles, I plan to buy a new touring bicycle soon. I considered saving money and buying a second-hand road bike, but my brain doesn't seem to have a problem with spending a sizeable amount of money on a proper touring bicycle, made from the right steel, with a comfortable frame, excellent brakes and sturdy wheels. I sent an e-mail out today to Drover Cycles, which appears to be famous in the UK for touring bicycles, and they responded to me immediately with great information. On their advice I'm considering the Surly Disc Trucker for exactly the reasons mentioned above. It does need a lot of add-ons to bring it up to full touring spec, though. We'll see. I have to get a test ride first.