After two weeks of largely street driving, this previous weekend I returned to the beguiling dust trails of suburbia:
To city and rural sorts alike these environs could appear tame, however make no mistake–you by no means know whenever you might need a pulse-pounding wildlife encounter:
I may virtually really feel its sizzling breath and odor its flatulence. Or vice-versa.
Sure, I could also be a civilized kind, what with my indoor plumbing and wi-fi Web connection and entry to a number of TV streaming providers, however as quickly as I enter the wild all my senses come alive and I revert to an nearly animal-like state. I’m additionally an professional tracker. For instance, I do know this was left by a gravelista working precisely 36psi and a left cleat that must be adjusted inboard by two precisely levels:
Whereas this was left by an grownup male, 6’3″, driving a light-weight blue woman’s Mongoose mountain bike, measurement small, with each entrance and rear v-brakes unhooked:
And I didn’t even must style the dust to determine that out:
Although I admit I did odor it for awhile.
In fact one can not courageous such circumstances on simply any bicycle. (The man on the Goal bike with the unhooked v-brakes however.) No, to undertake such a journey I have to be capable of belief my bike with nothing lower than my very life. Furthermore, it have to be each succesful and cozy, in a position to traverse each pavement and naked earth with equal aplomb, and ideally have a kickstand for once I have to cease and go pee. My Platypus is such a bicycle.
Have you ever ever ridden a motorbike and famous the way it evokes your undergraduate days of studying about Carl Jung’s idea of the collective unconscious?
Me neither.
Nonetheless, I do bear in mind Could 2021 prefer it was solely two years and 4 months in the past, and that’s once I first bought the ‘Pus. Some bikes spring totally grown from the pinnacle of Zeus. For instance, whereas I did briefly Riv-ify it for affordable thrills, my Jones is just about precisely as I obtained it:
It’s because the Jones is designed round sure elements (the bars, the plus-sized tires), and so there’s actually no level to getting all funky with it. The identical factor kinda goes for street bikes:
We every have our saddle and pedal preferences, and we might like one barely completely different handlebar bend than one other, however finally a street bike is a street bike, and so they’re just about all the identical when it comes to total setup…effectively, largely:
However some bikes can inherently be arrange numerous alternative ways; furthermore, it could actually take time to determine simply what they need to be. (Or what you need them to be. They don’t need to be something. They’re simply bikes.) The Platypus is like that. Wanting on the body, you would see it as an on a regular basis bike with fenders and baskets for commuting and working errands, or with fatter tires and baggage for mixed-terrain rambling, and even lean and “imply” (or as imply as a Rivendell may very well be) as type of a genteel upright speedster. What attracted me to it was the entire “mixte” (or at the least mixte-adjacent) factor, and my crotch and I had reached the purpose the place I used to be able to discover the thrilling new world of beneficiant high tube clearance. Moreover, with my youngsters now in a position to trip their very own bikes I now not wanted the brute child-hauling functionality of the WorkCycles, which I handed alongside to a good friend–and which, now that I consider it, had taught me to understand the virtues of a step-thru body within the first place:
So the Platypus appeared like one thing that might be good for WorkCycles-type stuff like errands, household picnics, and so forth, but additionally the form of bike I would really need to simply trip for a number of hours on my own in a leisure, sporting vogue–and as completely phenomenal because the WorkCycles is at what it does, you actually don’t need to simply trip it for a number of hours in a leisure, sporting vogue. You actually don’t.
Then there was the truth that my spouse had moved from a WorkCycles to a Clem Smith, Jr. for a similar purpose the earlier fall, which made me desire a bike like that too:
Past that although I wasn’t positive precisely find out how to set it up past a imprecise notion that it ought to be capable of carry stuff whereas additionally being enjoyable, and whereas I did order some key elements together with it I additionally form of let it evolve and crammed within the blanks with stuff from my huge shops of mediocre elements:
Right here’s the way it seemed when it first got here collectively:
Some bikes trip simply the best way they appear, and whereas the Platypus is actually comfy, I shortly discovered it’s additionally vigorous in a means you won’t anticipate from the upright place in addition to all these lugs and tubes. I knew I wished a basket on it, and after driving it “bare” for a bit simply to get to comprehend it I put in one:
Nonetheless, owing to that sudden liveiliness, for awhile I had the notion that aside from the basket I’d hold it type of minimal. That didn’t final:
The entire level of a cushty bike is that they’re, effectively, comfy. You’ll be able to’t get comfy in case you can’t calm down. And you’ll’t calm down in case you don’t have all the things you want on you always–instruments, tubes, patches, that type of factor–and so I added the voluminous saddle bag, which I’d beforehand been utilizing on the Homer. Equally, I additionally discovered I may calm down extra on trails with extra tire quantity, and it turned out I may match a set of ’29er tires in there no downside. In flip, I additionally discovered that, whereas it’s on no account a mountain bike, it’s additionally prepared to go deeper into the woods than you would possibly assume. Switching the bar-end shifters for thumbies, placing on bigger pedals, and including a second set of grips for cranking up steep rises additional enhanced its all-terrain rideability:
Round this time I additionally lowered the bars from the Rivendell-approved “lofty” place you see in all of the above pictures to a positively reckless “roughly degree with the saddle.” As a result of I wish to dwell dangerously.
A nicer rack for the voluminous saddle bag adopted:
As did a interval throughout which I switched the Tosco bar for a Choco, which felt nice on the street:
Although I finally went again to the Tosco, and total I feel it’s a greater match for the bike–or at the least how I trip it.
So whereas I’ve beloved the Platypus from the start, it occurred to me this weekend that I’ve lastly bought the bike precisely how I would like it:
Now all I’ve to do is bear in mind to cease fucking with it.
