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Spring is here, and the city appears to be giving the local bike lane a facelift:
Not only that, but it looks like maybe they’re extending it, which should cause quite a furor:
And by “furor” I mean the Community Board will be upset, someone will write an indignant letter to the local newspaper, most people will just shrug, and the world will continue to turn.
Meanwhile, yesterday I spruced up my Artisanal Singlespeed with a “new” used crank and some “new” old cable scraps, and today I took it for a 30-ish mile ride, which is like a century in singlespeed miles:
Note how the texture of the bamboo bars complements the striations on the rock:
See?
Apologies to the Geology Freds if “striations” isn’t the right term. Also, I don’t know how the striations even got there, if that’s what they are, but I suspect it was glaciers, because in geology the answer to everything is “glaciers”–though I prefer to think of it as the Thumbprint of God:
On the way home I had a thrilling moment when I rode with a family of deer:
For one fleeting yet transcendent moment I too was a mangy Lyme-ridden garden-ravaging pest.
Speaking of spring, and looking all mangy, I seem to remember threatening some sort of jeans review awhile back, and with shorts season nigh I realize I’d better do that before it’s too late.
In recent years I’ve increasingly forsaken stuff like Lycra and clipless pedals, and thanks to Osloh I realized I could in fact do a lot of my riding in jeans. Well, at the end of last summer Vupine sent me a pair of their Opus cyling jeans, which I started wearing in the fall, and which I haven’t taken off since…except to swim, and bathe, and go to the bathroom, but that’s about it:
And yes, my sneakers do match my pedals and grips:
What can I say, I got the sneakers for Christmas and I suppose they must have subliminally influenced my subsequent color choices.
Anyway, the Lane jeans from Olsoh have sort of a chamois:
It’s velvety and purple and I like it:
I also like the multiple pockets, and the snap for the driveside cuff, and I appreciated the thick denim when riding in the cold an/or through the brambles and briar patches of suburbia. In fact I liked my firt pair so much I cut them into jorts and continued to wear them through the summer–though it turned out the multiple seams and other features did create “stress risers” in the seat:
By they way, have you ever thought about how saddle-induced pants wear sort of resembles the ass end of a deer?
Either way, like a randy and persistent adolescent at sleepaway camp, by summer’s end I was able to insert a digit:
Sorry.
The Vulpines take a different approach. They’re slim yet stretchy, and they have a more traditional pocket arrangement. I very much like the “tough” feel of the Oslohs (I’ve since retired the jorts pictured above, but I’m breaking in a new pair), but the Vupines are soft and comfy on the order of sweatpants, the fit is such that you don’t have to worry about rolling them up or getting grease on the leg, and so far the seat is holding up pretty well, even when subjected to the somewhat abrasive Cambium:
Once again, sorry for the posterior shot, but as the critical jean wear area in this application it warrants posting. After near-daily wear over the winter the crotchal seams are just now starting to fray, but no holes as of yet, and the ass isn’t yet threadbare enough for my kids to start laughing at me. (Once my pants reach a certain state of wear I can generally rely on them to do so and compare me to a baboon:)
So yeah, after years of wearing ridiculous stretchy clothes, it turns out all you need like 85% of the time are some jeans, a vest, and a wool jersey:
Who knew?
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