I often get asked about my bike. ”You’re so into bikes! Why don’t you have a prettier* bike?” Or a lighter bike. Or a fancier bike. Well, I think my bike is very pretty and fancy. It isn’t light though. She isn’t light for a reason.
I don’t know a lot about bicycles, but I know enough to know that Surely is exactly the bike that I want and need. Surely is the first bike that I ever bought new, directly, with my own money. I picked the frame from Surly Bikes and the components and had it built up by The Corvallis Cyclery, whose service far outweighs their web presence. Since I don’t have a car, I needed a bike that can carry weight. Groceries, pieces of wood, books, computers, shelves, you name it. I like to go on bicycle tours, so it needs to be able to carry a tent and sleeping bag and food and watermelon. I need to be able to fix this bike and it shouldn’t be liable to break down, since I plan on being several hundred kilometers from a bike store on Surely.
So here is a flashy guide to my bicycle and the reason for everything on it.
Due to the limited resolution of the photo, the above is not intended for full screen. Produced using prezi as a test run of an alternative to slide-based presentations.
* Shhhh, Surely, they don’t know what they’re talking about.
JeffE — July 21, 2010 @ 4:49 pm
Awesome. Now I know what I’m getting myself for Christmas.
D. Eppstein — July 21, 2010 @ 7:28 pm
Fancy presentation. Some of it went by a little quickly to read easily, though — maybe I shouldn’t have used autoplay. Here’s a related blog post introducing someone else’s bike — it’s a small sample size but the comparison between Dutch and Canadian/American standards of bike practicality was interesting to me.
Glencora — July 22, 2010 @ 7:59 am
Thanks for pointing that out, David – I hadn’t tried auto-play. Hopefully I’ll have a more technical talk prepared soon to compare.
I should add that my daily commute is VERY short and VERY flat. I also have few worries of theft in Corvallis. Your link definitely points out that the type of bike you buy very much depends on what you want to use it for. I plan a longer post on that in the future. Mainly because I always get asked “what bike should I get?”. My advice is invariably ignored.
I’ll also add that down-tube shifters, particularly for 9-speed, are hard to come by. I actually won these ones on eBay.
ali0482 — September 6, 2010 @ 7:10 am
I should add that my daily commute is VERY short and VERY flat. I also have few worries of theft in Corvallis. Your link definitely points out that the type of bike you buy very much depends on what you want to use it for. I plan a longer post on that in the future. Mainly because I always get asked “what bike should I get?”. My advice is invariably ignored.
Yaroslav Bulatov — September 22, 2010 @ 11:34 am
I used to have no worries about bike theft in Corvallis either until someone stole my bike! It was locked to the drainpipe next to my house, and someone took the effort to pull the drainpipe out of the ground to get it. When I filed report, the cops were very evasive about the percentage of bikes that are actually recovered.
ali0482 — September 28, 2010 @ 5:29 am
Fancy presentation. Some of it went by a little quickly to read easily, though — maybe I shouldn’t have used autoplay. Here’s a related blog post introducing someone else’s bike — it’s a small sample size but the comparison between Dutch and Canadian/American standards of bike practicality was interesting to me.