Well, not a full week; more like five days. But “nearly a week” still calls for plenty of gear in a very small car’s trunk.
Can you spot the Brompton?
This was my lengthy motor-vehicle trip with Basil, and it was stunningly easy to bring him along, even with baggage. Whoo-hoo!
. . . and the gin was a-gettin’ low. I scarcely think we’ll get a drink ’til we get to Buf-fa-lo ooo, ’til we get to Bufalo-oo.
So goes the old folk song. (You can listen to the song, see the lyics, and read some background here.) I wasn’t going to Buffalo, and wasn’t thinking about gin, either, for that matter, but this repetitive tune was the meme that accompanied me while pedaling along the Erie Canal last week on my longest single ride to date on Basil — 26 miles.
It was a glorious fall day. We started out at Lock 32:
The towpath is now used by pedestrians and cyclists much of the year, and by cross-country skiers and intrepid souls wearing snow shoes in the winter. It’s open all year long during daylight.
The trail is flat, with a surface that varies a bit; it’s paved in places, cobbled in others, packed at points with some loose gravel– but it’s highly suitable for cycling, even on high-pressure, skinny tires. Basil managed each surface without any difficulty at all — including flying over asphalt cracked by enterprising tree roots.
Ohhh, yeah! Nothing says fall like gold.
Though, come to think of it, I’m pretty fond of the greys and browns, too, and the last of the greens.
I love the bridges best of all, with trees running a close second. I was fascinated to see this one, which appears to be constructed almost identically to one just built back in my home state.
Rust is the new steel? This is a pedestrian bridge over the canal. It’s in Perinton, and part of the trail linkage system improvements.
One of the men working on the site saw my Brompton, and came over to chat a bit. He recommended cycling down by the harbor in Rochester, which I’ll keep in mind.
Here’s the bridge from the other side. You can see how new the trail improvements are.
Love those bridges.
The traditional barges were long. low watercraft, of course, and the canal is so shallow that nothing with a deep draft can pass, but these bridges are built essentially at road level. The lowest ones are lift bridges so that they can be raised to allow modern water craft to pass under without hazard.
There’s no water traffic on the Erie Canal after November 15th, and on this particular day the water was placid and mirror-like.
The canal takes a turn toward Henrietta, just past Lock 32, and looks almost lake-like at this juncture.
There are stretches along the towpath that seem almost desolate, but a sprinkling of small towns, too. You could probably pick almost any section and spend a day cycling and dropping in at various establishments for coffee and a bite to eat. Or, possibly, even a bit of gin to liven up your ride. Obviously, though, you don’t have to wait until spring; autumn is excuse enough.
Philadelphia is a strange city. Though it has some virtues, I always have the feeling that the city just doesn’t quite “get it”. Here’s a good example:
That’s the 30th Street [Transit] Station, viewed from across the river. That incongruent thing in the background isn’t a bad photo-shop job. It’s a building, and that’s where it sits. Really.
On the other hand, Philadelphia is improving pedestrian/cycling trails, and this bank of the Schuylkill River is really appealing:
Cities work best when architectural offerings, even if from different eras, complement each other . . but hey, recreational paths are timeless!
OK, it’s really “TwoFish”, but it reads better that way, don’t you think?
Brompton is (theoretically) coming out with a water bottle (due at the end of last month) which will attach to the bike with a neat little magnetic clip. The clip should have no effect on folding the Brompton, and won’t increase its folded size, either.
In the meantime, I’m making do with a TwoFish cage.
The TwoFish is a clever, and effective, water bottle cage. There’s a soft rubbery block that sits on the bike tubing. No drilling, and no permanent mounting required, but the wide hook-and-loop strap still manages ti keeps the mounting block firmly in place. If the strap is wrapped tightly enough, the cage doesn’t slip. Here it is, without the water bottle, on Basil’s handlebar stem:
Here’s an upright view of the empty cage. The strap is quite long, so I’ve tucked the end back; that’s the lump popping up. The cage is angled to keep it out of the way when folding the bicycle. Coincidentally, it’s also easier to grab the bottle when the cage is in this position.
I don’t use the TwoFish bottle, though I like it. It’s quite fat — too fat for me to hold comfortably on a bike — and I find it difficult to wrestle it out of the cage. Instead, I use a Nalgene bottle; works a treat, and has a covered, and easily-opened, top as a bonus.
Here’s the problem:
Basil folds just fine, but the cage adds considerably to his width. Not, ultimately, a good idea. A bit of a pain, actually. My money is on Brompton’s upcoming water bottle. (Literally.) In the meantime, though, this is a workable, if not exactly desirable, solution.
I bought the basic Garmin cycling GPS, the Edge 200, to use on a previous cycle. At the time I was really only interested in tracking mileage, but now I’ve begun to appreciate being able to compare and contrast other data, too, particularly elevation.
The functions are straightforward; they’re not any more complicated than this screen suggests. The GPS records trips with no fuss; there’s a stop/resume feature that’s easy to use. Two buttons on each side control the menus. I can save particular routes as “courses”, if I want to, and store ride histories as I wish. Other records include average MPH (or kmph), moving speed, elapsed time, elevation gain, calories burned, etc. All the data can be uploaded, at no charge, to Garmin’s website, and crunched into various reports. (You’ll also be shown a map of your route.)
The mount is sheer genius; it’s as simple as possible, and takes up minimal room on the handlebar. The device is very secure, but easy to remove. The mount itself doesn’t interfere with folding the Brompton; neither would the GPS, but I’m reluctant to fling it around in the same way I do Basil’s handlebar. The 200 came with two mounts; one is still on my other bike; it’s very easy to move the GPS from one cycle to another. Additional mounts are readily available.
It’s irrelevant to the functioning of the device, but I love the way the device feels in the hand — it’s almost like holding a favorite smooth stone.
Uploading data is easy and fast (even though I have to do it manually on my computer), and the GPS recharges efficiently through the USB port. It’s usually charged by the time I’ve finished uploading a ride.
This turned out to be a Goldilocks GPS for me — not too much, not too little, but just right. It’s incredibly easy to use; that matters most of all to me, since I want to be cycling, not fussing with the equipment.
Late afternoon on a trail in November:
This trail parallels a major highway, but you’d never know it, in places:
The traditional autumnal hues are almost gone from the landscape, but the afternoon sun deepens what’s left:
Lovely ride.
I use a GPS, a headlight, and a mirror mounted on the handlebars of my Brompton. As I acquired this stuff, I wondered how it would all fit when I folded my Brompton.
Well, the headlamp doesn’t — it gets removed when I fold Basil. Ditto for the GPS, but the mounts stay on the handlebars, and the mirror is permanent. Thanks to clever bases for the GPS and the light (and the right mirror design), it all works. The mirror even clears the floor; all I have to do it fold it in toward the handlebar before folding Basil.
Here are close-ups of the bits and pieces. Here’s the lamp mount (the tiny, but powerful) lamp is removed before folding:
The GPS mount:
Here’s the mirror, unfolded. It’s a Mirrcycle Mountain Bike mirror, fitted into the handlebar end. It rotates next to the brake lever when folded; it’s quite quick and easy to do.
The mirror just perfectly misses the ground when it and Basil are rotated into the folded position.
Basil has a bell, too, but that came integrated into his gear shifter:
There are also two hook-and-loop fasteners on the handlebars (you can see one just under the bell’s lever, above), for holding a cue sheet, but they (and their small clips) aren’t really taking up any room. I haven’t used them yet, so they’ll be the topic of another post. In any case, they don’t interfere with the rest of this gear, nor with the folding.
Bromptons can be purchased with an integrated headlamp, but it’s the one thing Brompton owners seem to uniformly complain about; apparently it gets knocked around too much when the bike is folded. There are lots of choices for battery-powered, removable lights, so that’s what I went for, instead.
I’d forgotten to get touch-up paint when I first collected Basil; when I returned to NYCEwheels, David, who’d been so helpful when I ordered my Brompton, and, later, during the awful non-delivery in September, checked Basil over for me, and answered a few more questions. Here’s what the guys at the shop told me, along with a few more things I’ve learned along the way.
That’s it for the moment. It’s amazing how quickly all the “new” things become second-nature, baffling and daunting as they may seem at first.
Update: The white cap is easily replaced with a sturdier one, details here.
It’s My Orange Brompton’s fault. He’s been posting pictures of his adorable Maine Coon kitten on his blog.
Here we are, across the pond from Mr. Orange and his family, with a Brompton and two Maine Coons of our own. Coincidence?
Or is there something about Bromptoneers that draws them to smart, clever, adorable Maine Coons?
Both of these pictures are of only one of our Maine Coons; the other character is buff, not blue. They switch off using the “heat lamp” on cool days. Yes, all those smudges on the glass desk surface are paw prints. Isn’t your work area covered with them, too?
Post-Sandy, the earth is particularly soggy, and temperatures are dropping. Basil and I took a short ride to check out a new bridge that a local city has put up so that people can get between several small parks without crossing a busy street.
The street crosses a creek on the stone bridge in the background; the rusty bars belong to the new bridge. It’s “finished” in rust, which I guess will prove labor-saving over time. Does it matter if the iron-y run-off flows into the creek?
Basil and bridge:
I rarely see pedestrians here, and almost never see other cyclists, but on this day a dad and his very young son came down the path and over the bridge together — the little guy on training wheels. This may be a case of “if you build it, they will come”.
I’ll need to work on my layering now that the weather’s changing. Today (46 degrees) my torso and legs were fine, but my arms were cold.
