On 1/10/2016 11:41 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/9/2016 10:49 PM, Joy Beeson wrote:

A few years ago, I bought a Trek Pure model of "comfort bike" so that
I could exercise a sprained knee without putting any weight on it.
It's been useful several times since: It makes an excellent granny
walker, and if a hill gets too steep to draisine, the extra-high
handlebars and the deep notch in the middle of the frame make it a
good rolling cane. I rode it around the block one day when I needed a
walker to get to where I'd parked it, and at least twice I've bungeed
a cane to the back.

And it's also a dandy toy: it sits in the garage ready to go, and if
I feel like a little spin, I can hop onto it in whatever I happen to
be wearing, as long as I'm willing to leave the house in it. If the
pants I'm wearing are already shabby, I don't even pin my ankles to
keep my hems from rubbing on the sprocket guard.

If I'm feeling poorly on a Sunday, I'll ride it wearing floor-length
skirts -- but I do have a special pair of pedal pushers to wear
instead of pettipants on those occasions; I have to hike the skirts up
quite a bit, and don't want to show white ruffled underwear.

The Trek is so un-fussy about footwear that I took a lap around the
block barefoot.

I've found that I love having one bike set up so I can jump on it
immediately and ride, no matter what clothing I'm in.

OK, most of my bikes use platform-ish pedals that allow me to ride them
using almost any shoes I own. But when I built up this three speed, I
left the toe clips off, so I can ride it in backpacking boots if I choose.

And about pinning pants angles:

Make that "pinning pants ankles." My engineering brain's habits
wrenched control away from my writing brain.

I fitted a double chainring crank, but
ground the teeth off the outer chainring. Now it's just a ring, but it
keeps my pants out of the chain just fine.

It's not that pinning pants cuffs takes a long time. It's just that its
nice to remove that one little step, and totally eliminate the
occasional "Wait - where's my safety pin?" irritation. Similarly,
clipping on my eyeglass mirror is normally a three-second operation; but
the handlebar mirror on this three speed eliminates even that step.

Of course, it's got hub dynamo lights (quirky ones, I'll admit) and a
basket on the front and a rack on the back. So it's great for
instantaneous trips to the local stores, etc. And the upright
handlebars are sort of a pleasant change. They either allow or force me
to take things slowly.

So the Trek would seem to be the ideal just going someplace machine --
if one could go someplace on it.

Yep, there are tradeoffs. I don't think I've ever done more than ten
miles at a time on this bike. Horses for courses, they say.

But it's been kind of fun to have a different, quirky bike that I can
jump on and ride in literally two seconds.



--
- Frank Krygowski