Bad news, good news

[dreamshark]

BAD NEWS:  my beloved old bike was stolen on Thursday from outside a hair salon on Nicollet. It was locked, but not particularly securely - they left the seat behind, chained to an iron bar. I'm not sure why anyone would steal a battered 30-year-old bike that they couldn't even ride away. The bike luggage was certainly more valuable than the bike and would have been easier to steal without the bike attached to it. Hell, the SEAT (which I had just replaced a year ago) was more valuable than the bike, and they left that behind.

Here's a picture of good old Esmeralda from 2021 (without the pricey new bike luggage). She was the first new bike I ever bought and the difference between just riding any old bike that came my way and a bike that actually FIT me was a revelation! I bought her at Erik's Bike Shop, which back in 1995 still carried a variety of bike brands, including Univega. This one was the only one in the shop that felt right. I bought another bike in 2007, because even then I could see that Esmerelda was getting a little weak in the knees, but I kept coming back to her. 



GOOD NEWS.  Now I get to buy a new bike! Poor old Esmerelda was really past her prime, but I didn't have the heart to get rid of her, and didn't really have room for more bikes in the shed. So I spent the next two days doing pretty much nothing but bike shopping. As I feared, this has gotten a lot harder in the last 18 years. A lot of bike shops have closed their doors (tragically, including the magnificent worker-owned Hub Bikes on the West Bank). Most of the ones that are left have narrowed their focus to one or two brands, and half of those are e-bikes (looking at you, Erik's). Smaller bike shops mostly do repairs and sell a few kid's bikes, mountain bikes and "comfort cruisers" to the neighborhood. Some of them don't even know what a hybrid bike is (follow the link if you don't know, but are curious). Most of the major brands still carry one hybrid model, but finding even ONE in my size that was actually in a shop available for a test ride was a real challenge.

I spent a lot of time online trying to learn the new terminology and looking for leads. ChatGPT turned out to be surprisingly helpful. If there's anything ChatGPT loves, it is shopping! The guy at Freewheel Richfield was as helpful as he could be without having a single size Medium hybrid bike in stock. Little Tangletown Cycle turned out to have an impressive range of brands along with another friendly and helpful salesperson. But I didn't find quite what I was looking for until ChatGPT sent me off to Mendota Heights to an all-Trek shop I had never heard of (One Ten Cycles).  By that time I suspected that my best option was probably one of the bewilderingly variable Trek FX models if I could just find one in my size to try out. And sure enough - a match was made! minnehaha was right - sometimes you just know.

The Trek Verve had some interesting features, but was too upright with big mushy tires, and just felt cumbersome.  The Rolls was a helluva bike for $900, but felt a little too much like I was riding a restive stallion that just wanted to run. The Jamis was okay, but a little too traditional - by that time I was on board with the idea of the new disc brakes and simplified gearing system. But the medium Trek FX just felt balanced and compact and nimble, even with those terrible straight handlebars on it. It's still a Trek, and Trek isn't really happy unless their riders are leaning into their ride, but I feel confident that with an adjustable stem and back-swept handlebar, this little honey will be perfect. The guy at One Ten (David) spent at least 45 minutes combing through product listings on his computer to find me the right combination of stem and handlebar, which they will install when the parts arrive. So I don't have a picture of the final bike, but it should look something like the picture below.

Comments

[minnehaha]

It's going to be great. I love my Trek Pilot 1.0, and if I can unearth it in my project-filled garage, I will ride with you!

K.

[dreamshark]

Aha, so that's what it is! You've had that bike longer than you think (since I am now firmly in bike-shopping mode I immediately looked it up). It was made only in 2006-2007. I believe that you have the women's model (aka WSD), which was a concept that Trek abandoned almost as soon as they took it up.

You should definitely dig it out so we can go riding. Or just so I can look at it, since I am now intensely curious to see the bike that Trek admitted was designed for women and see how different it is from the "stagger" frame (which Trek takes great pains NOT to call WSD, but which everybody seems to assume is a girl's bike anyway).

[quadong]

Oh man, the Hub is closed too? I mean, I hardly ever went there, because I was a loyal customer of Varsity Bikes until they closed, and then I switched to Illinois bike shops.

I have tried several shops near my in Illinois:

Sammy's: I really wanted to like them, because they look most like my idea of a good bike shop (i.e. not too clean), but they absolutely suck at repairs. After paying twice to fix the same thing and it not being fixed, I swore them off.

Bike Rack: It's a bike shop that you can't safely bike to, which is a real bad start. They're fine for buying accessories from, but they only sell Trek bikes, and those start at too high a price point.

Mill Race: Bikable, friendly, and so far haven't done me wrong. This is where I recently bought a bike, and a new (very overdue) helmet this last weekend.

I'm also frustrated by all of the electric "bicycles". And conflicted. On one hand, if people use these to get around instead of cars (and by "cars", we mostly mean SUVs and ENORMOUS pick-up trucks), that's a big win. On the other hand, I hate hate hate being passed on the bike path by someone riding a motorcycle disguised as a bicycle.

[dreamshark]

At the moment my main peeve with e-bikes is all the space they are taking up in bike shops. I also suspect that the rise of e-bikes is subtly affecting the common aesthetic of what a bike should look like, leading to more and more bikes with BIG TIRES for no particular reason.

But in terms of who can ride what where (aka, exactly what IS an e-bike?) the chaos is just beginning. There seems to be an increasingly seamless continuum between a lightly motorized bicycle and a full-fledged motorcycle that is leaving everyone confused. The little e-bikes that I saw in most of the bike shops I visited weren't noticeably bigger than their non-motorized counterparts, although of course they can go faster and are probably heavier if they run you down. They don't particularly bother me in a real-life setting, since most bikers go faster than me anyway. But what I do find intimidating is the ones with tires half the size of a motorcycle tire, tearing along at 25 mph. I don't think those belong on bike paths.

What kind of bike did you get? Having just finished an intensive shopping process I am now fascinated by bike comparisons.

[quadong]

I got a Marin Kentfield 1, or maybe it is a Kentfield Marin 1. I did not do anything like an intensive process for buying this bike. I went to one shop, and they only sell Trek for $1000 and up. I went to the other shop, described what I wanted, and they pointed me at this one, and it was a reasonable price. I think it comes in "1" and "2" variants, and it was pretty clear I wanted "1". It's a basic road bike, or hybrid, or whatever it is called. A bike that is sensible to commute on city streets with.

[dreamshark]

Oh, it looks lovely. My backup bike is a Marin Muirwoods (2007), which is the other type of hybrid - one that is based on mountain bike instead of a road bike. Oh, look, they are still selling it!! The sign of a company that stands by its design work instead of just chasing after new trends.
https://www.marinbikes.com/bikes/2025-muirwoods

I bought the "urban bike" because I still had the Univega (classic hybrid) so I thought I'd try something a little different. The Marin is a good bike, but I eventually decided that I liked the other style better, with the 700C wheel and more upright stance. So once the "new" sheen was off the Marin I drifted back to riding the Univega.

I might have bought a Kentwood this time round, but the only shop in Minneapolis that sold Marins has gone out of business.

[davidwilford]

Sorry to hear your old friend was stolen, glad you found a new ride.

[maruad]

In Winnipeg, many of the stolen bikes either end up in chop shops or in scrap yards where street people take them to the few dollars they can earn for selling them as scrap.