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COMMUTER_BIKE
November 23, 2013
A few year back, in 2011 or so, I was
doing some heavy bike-train commuting again,
and I was very interested in a new bike
design on display at Valencia Cyclery,
the Trek Soho.
It's more than a little annoying that a typical
bike is designed with sports or exercise in mind
rather than for something really strange like
"transportation", but this was clearly a commuter
oriented bike...
It used a belt-drive rather than a chain
(apparently an adaption from motorcycle
technology), with 8 gears in an internal
hub in the rear wheel.
A disk brake on the front wheel with a
coaster brake on the rear, integrated
with the hub.
It came standard with fenders, a chain
guard (even though it had no chain),
a rear luggage rack, and a bottle cage
with a thermos-cup with a screw-top lid.
Some thought went into this bike...
from my point of view it had a number
of selling points:
o The label on the front said it
was made in Taiwan.
o Bike derraileurs are a serious pain:
always in need of adjustment, and
when out of adjustment, always grinding And the iron rule
the gears down to nothing-- of bikes is that the
gear train can not be
o The hub gearing was very interesting: economically replaced.
you could shift-down while stationary.
It dropped down fast enough to shift
while going uphill.
o The belt-drive did not need lubrication,
and that plus the chain-guard meant it
would not be decorating the cuffs of all
my pants with bike grease.
o The fenders turned out to be more useful
than I thought they'd be, during the
rainy season-- in particular the
*front* fender, which you need to keep (A rear fender helps to keep
from drenching your shoes. from shooting rain water and
road grit up your butt, but
sticking almost anything on
the rear luggage rack works
about as well).
This bike worked pretty well, but it also
had some drawbacks:
o The model I actually got was the second
year's version, which was no longer "Made
in Taiwan", but mainland China.
o The brakes were a little wimpy, certainly
not good enough to stop going downhill
in San Francisco.
o The metal fenders were heavy-handed and
prone toward denting and rubbing against
wheels (just like I remembered them from
when I was a kid).
o The belt-drive didn't need lubrication, in
theory, but would occasionally start squeaking
terribly-- by experimentation I figured out
that it needed to be throughly hosed down
periodically, or else accumulated road grit
would be a problem.
o The gearing in the rear hub started wearing
down and slipping after only being ridden a
few years. I took it in for adjustment, but The manufacturers
that didn't help much-- and replacement would apparently claim they'll
cost over 2/3rds the price of the bike. last 30 years...
not when I'm doing
o The frame developed a crack in one of the the riding, apparently.
drop outs-- perhaps from my habit of banging
down off of curbs on occasion? The frame
might've been under warranty, but it wasn't
the biggest problem...
So, essentially the bike was ready to be trashed after
only a little over a two years of riding. That's
actually not such bad going in the world of commuter
bikes, but a bit dissapointing after spending a thousand,
when you can get decent bikes for around half that.
And so, I'm back to riding a hybrid, this
one a little closer to the Mountain Bike
side, albeit without any shocks.
A recent buy from "Bay Area Bikes"
in Oakland, which definitely seems I also maintain a "spare
to understand the "daily-use bike" bike", an old Univega
concept... 10-speed I got from
West Oakland's own
"Bikes4Life". A much
nicer ride than I
thought it would be,
I must say... the lack
of indexed gears is
a slight problem, but
when you've got some
straight-away cruising
to do, road bikes definitely
have their advantages.
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