Posing on York Avenue, New York City:
Classic marble; classic Brompton!
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Category: My Brompton
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Basil’s Not
After the French Creek Iron Tour, I took a picture of Basil in front of this Specialized bicycle.
Because he isn’t; he does everything well!
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Basil, Incognito
I bought a large beach towel for Basil some time ago. It stays in the trunk of the car, not to keep the trunk clean, but so that I can flip it over Basil and keep him out of sight, particularly on road trips.
On general principle, I think it’s best to keep valuables under wraps. And what, after all, is more valuable than my Brompton? Basil’s bright towel ensures that I can open my trunk without advertising that he’s traveling within.
But, really, how often do I open my trunk while traveling? Typically I open it only once at night, when taking out Basil (and luggage, the first night), and then each morning, when I put Basil back into the trunk and we head out for the day, and then once again at night when Basil returns to my room with me. It’s not as if I spend my days shopping, and am popping open the trunk every hour or so to store stuff in it.
(What? Of course Basil stays in the room with me!)
This is probably one piece of “gear” that wasn’t strictly necessary. On the other hand, if I cared about my trunk getting messy, all that washable fabric would probably be an asset.
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Basil in the Garden
Back at the inn, after an early morning ride:
Williamstown, Massachusetts.
Basil and I have now ridden a thousand miles/1,609 km together since he arrived last October. Here he is, in Williamstown, Massachusetts, within a mile or ten of this rather thrilling moment in our mutual history:
Basil’s wheels have been on trails (dirt, gravel, and asphalt), on country roads, suburban streets, on highways in-state and out, on gritty Philadelphia streets, and all around Manhattan, including all five boroughs and across five New York bridges, and they’ve ridden through small towns in a host of Pennsylvania counties.
Basil has taken me far and near, and, in-between, brought the groceries home, attended farmer’s markets, run errands at the hardware store and hauled home basketfuls of all sorts of goods required in our home office and in my sewing room.
During his first thousand miles with me, Basil has traveled by train (both regional and Amtrak), in subways, in buses, on a ferry, in a tram over the East River, and in the trunk of my sub-compact car. (Also in the front seat of the car, until I worried about the effect of the air bag on him in case of a crash.)
We’ve ridden solo, and with the wonderful people we’ve met through the Bicycle Club of Philadelphia, as well as on a Tweed Ride, and with Mr. Diarist. We’ve done several small cycling events, and one of the largest in the USA.
Our shortest ride was 2.91 miles/ 4.7 km; our longest was not quite 62 miles/99.7 km. Thirty-four of a total of 74 trips were 10 miles/16 km or fewer (meaning that they were primarily errand runs); 40 trips were longer than 10 miles/16 km. Twenty-one trips were 15 miles/24 km or more and 14 trips were over 30 miles/48 km each.
When I stepped out of NYCeWheels that first time next to Basil I wondered how I could ever be worthy of the marvelous steed that is a Brompton. How thing have changed: It’s been an exciting journey from the first moment to the excellent serendipity that marks our current excursions. I may still not be worthy, but life without Basil? I can’t imagine it!
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A Matter of Definition
Guy in a business suit tosses briefcase — looks like freedom, no?
Heh, heh, but so does burdened little Basil!
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Taking Flight
Personally, I think the dragonfly looks more like a friendly cohort than menacing.
They’ve both got great lines, don’t they?
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Basil Gets a Repair and Tune-Up
Somehow, I managed to catch the brace of Basil’s front fender on the edge of his chainguard. It was easy enough to pop the chainguard back into place, but then I did it again . . . and again. High learning curve, it seems. (Peter, NYCeWheels marketing guy and star of their videos, told me that this is a newbie’s error, and that most people learn quickly to avoid making it. Gulp.)
After popping the guard back into place for the third time, I realized that the button holding it in place was never going to be the same again. I was going to New York, so I emailed NYCeWheels to see if they could do the repair for Basil when I showed up.
NYCeWheels doesn’t take appointments, and I was hoping not only to get the repair done, but also to have Basil’s nearly-thousand-mile tune-up accomplished, too. The new employee who took him in was dubious; NYCeWheels is always hopping. He checked with Izzy, the mechanic, though, and they said they’d do their best.
When NYCeWheels let us know that Basil was ready after I’d barely made it from the UES down to mid-town, I figured that they’d only had time to do the repair. But I was wrong; they’d done everything, and that meant that I got a good ride in before returning to my home state with Basil!
I shouldn’t have worried; I’m sure that there are glitches, and that sometimes routine repairs or maintenance can’t be done as quickly as customers like, but I’ve found NYCeWheels to be very accommodating, and helpful in any way they can be. That matters a lot, and even more for a customer like me, who comes from out-of-state. Thanks, guys!
Oh, I did eventually learn to check the placement of the fender guard wire when folding my Brompton: I make sure the chainguard button is well out of the way, so that if I unfold without checking, nothing is harmed. Paying attention: amazing how often that pays off!
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Basil Goes Fabric Shopping
I make my own clothing (with some exceptions, athletic gear generally included), and sometimes I run out of material in the middle of a project. That’s a great excuse for a quick trip to the fabric store — on my Brompton, naturally.
That’s a bolt of rayon bemberg lining in Basil’s basket. It’s easy to go all around the shop guiding Basil with the handle on his basket — and wonderfully refreshing to resume sewing after a lovely little cycling trip into town!
I didn’t see it when I first used my mesh cupholder with Basil’s Brompton “basket”
but Basil can’t be folded with the basket in place if the cupholder is folded down for use. The angles are wrong, and the basket frame hits the cupholder, so that the hook that holds a folded Brompton together can’t engage.
The difficulty is easily solved by simply removing the basket, but, when shopping, that solution’s not ideal. Of course, the other option is to simply put the water bottle into the basket, and flip the ring and mesh upward — or, in my situation, forego the water bottle altogether on these basket-enhanced trips, since I shop close to home, and can easily get water at the market.
It’s little details like this that make one appreciate how carefully a Brompton is engineered, and how neatly all the bits fit together. I, myself, hadn’t considered all of the ramifications of my water bottle/cupholder fix . . . not that the stakes were high, but it’s well to remember these little missed calculations, in order to avoid them in the future.