Garage surprises of the unpleasant kind (but not that)

I was happy to return to my house after two weeks in Japan. The trip was majorly exciting, but I majorly needed a dose of the mundane. Not only that, I wanted to get on a bicycle again. We decided to not bring Bromptons on this trip, partially because I wanted to see how bringing...

Bikes and Biking Year in Review: 2022

North Beach, Orcas Island. 5 August 2022 Looks dreamy, but this serene image was hard-earned from a challenging day biking the island. Olympus XA2/Fujicolor 100 Hello, friends. As another year comes to a close, it's customary for me to look back at the past year and reflect on what's happened, then ponder what may come...

The Return of the Heavy Duti

You may remember that towards the end of last year I decided that my Schwinn Heavy Duti was one bike too many. I made a half-hearted attempt to sell it then, and tried again in spring. I only got three bites, none of them good: "I want to buy your bike, but tomorrow I will...

On sale again: Schwinn Heavy Duti

Hey folks. I tried to sell my Schwinn Heavy Duti back in December. I knew it was a bad time to do so, but too that chance. Obviously it didn't sell. I took it off the chopping block, and wanted to see if I still wanted to keep it. And I don't. So now it's...

A state of the bike fleet at the end of 2021, and what the future might bring

The current fleet What a year for my bicycles. What an unexpected year. When I filed my "Looking ahead to 2021" post at the end of last year, my take on the fleet was this: My fleet of bikes is as good as it’ll ever be, so no major upgrades. And probably no new bikes...

The Heavy Duti gets some tweaks

Down by the tracks, 3 July 2021. Minolta SR-T 101, MC Rokkor PG 50mm f/1.4, Cinestill 800T Since the Crested Butte left the stable, my Schwinn Heavy Duti is now the bike I've owned the longest. A lot has happened since that October day in 2014 when it became mine. For the longest time I...

Commuter Bikes vs. Non Commuter Bikes

My stable of bikes is currently five, in order of how long I've owned them: Raleigh Crested Butte (2012) Schwinn Heavy Duti (2014) Bantam Rambleneur (2015) Raleigh Superbe (2016) Robin Hood path racer (2018) All of them have done "commuting duty", i.e. get me to and from work, run errands, pick up groceries, etc. But...

But the summer lingereth. (Plus a Heavy Duti update.)

Oh, Northwest weather, you got all contrary again. The autumnal equinox hit, and what do you do? Give us summer like weather, dry and highs in the 80's F. Okay, fine. As long as it doesn't come with all that haze and smoke, I think I can survive. 😉 But no, weather like this is...