Traveling again

I am going out of town tomorrow for a little over a week. I will post if I get a chance, but it is sometimes hard to find the time when traveling for business and working long days. The trip also means that I will be off the bike for a bit over a week. Whenever I get ready to fly out of town, I always start thinking that I need to get a lightweight folder like a Bike Friday Pocket Rocket or a breakaway road frame like the one from Ritchey. I don’t travel all that much for work, but it would be nice to be able to ride when I do. I know that I could always ride the stationary bikes at the hotel fitness center, but trust me, I’m not that disciplined. Besides, real riding always beats watching CNN on a cheap exercise bike with the seat way too low.

While I am posting, I’ll mention this link to a city bike project that a reader, Casper, recently sent to me. The project bike, shown here, was designed by students at the Koln International School of Design in Cologne, Germany. You can see some of the design details, including what I assume to be an integrated GPS based cyclocomputer/ navigation system and a modular carrying rack with compartments for tools and supplies, on the project website.

Finally, I’ll mention the December print issue of BikeBiz (available as a pdf download on the website) because I was reading the quote/unquote section on page 15 at lunch today. I read at least three quarters of the 3rd quote before I realized that it was from a comment I left in response to the Spokesmen podcast a few months ago. No joke, I read nearly the whole paragraph before I remembered writing it in response to a discussion about the customer service problem in some bicycle shops. The scariest part is that I was reading the quote and thinking, “good point but it is a little hard to follow” until I realized that it was something I wrote myself several months ago. From now on, I’ll look at the name at the bottom first. Pretty funny.


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4 responses to “Traveling again”

  1. Ron Avatar
    Ron

    I like Casper’s website. Great presentation/graphics. As much as the rendering looks good, some assembly details look questionable. Ofcourse, now I must remember its an art project, not an engineering one 🙂 Good work though…

  2. Velomancer Avatar
    Velomancer

    If you’re gonna get a traveling bike go for the BreakAway Ti. It’s not the cheapest bike in the world bit the frame design and custom bag are fantastic. The bike, bag, underseat bag (levers, couple of tubes, topeak micro pump and a mini multi-tool), shoes, a couple of jerseys, socks and bibs weigh in a just over 14kg. AND the bag doesn’t get a second look at check-in.

  3. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I was interested in your Strida 5.0 review so I linked to it.

    Great site.

    Drk

    bikesTHATfold.com – all about Folding Bikes!

  4. bikesgonewild Avatar
    bikesgonewild

    …casper’s site is interesting, no doubt & good point regarding it being an art project, ron…the wheelchair is nothing but an interesting design study…unfortunately, i have several friends in chairs & that low seating position is really only good for racing units…i don’t understand how the wheels would have any practical method of hand propulsion, but the ’round into elliptical’ feature maybe has promise…

    …here is an interesting fact regarding ritchey’s breakaway design…first, i’ll say that i think the concept is a beautifully elegant solution…

    …the fitted & shaped lugs tightening to the seatpost is an simple, attractive, yet strong join…the proprietary downtube connection ring is what i want to address…while ‘tr’ specifically designed this piece for the ‘breakaway’, the idea came directly from a coffee maker…not a little old barista somewhere but the ring idea was from a high pressure hose connector coming off a an italian (saeco maybe) espresso machine…

    …jimmy sullivan won both national & worlds veteran mtb championships racing for ritchey, “back in the day” & sully is THE espresso machine man these days…tom saw one sully’s ‘coffee rings’ & ergo, the downtube connector was born…

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