A Bike for Leaving the Beaten Path

Posted August 10, 2008, 7:51 p.m.

So last fall I bought a Trek 7100 hybrid bicycle (right), which has served me very, very well over the last year or so. I’ve put quite a few miles on that bike and have enjoyed [pretty much] each one of them. There’s just one small problem.

The Trek is a hybrid, which means it has elements of a mountain bike and elements of a road bike. Its geometry, tuning, and tires (300c) are all designed for traveling primarily on pavement—roads and paved trails—and very, very limited off-road use when absolutely necessary. That makes it similar to a road bike. The main difference between a ‘hybrid’ and a road bike is that the general shape is more like a mountain bike and you sit more upright—helpful if you have back problems, like my scoliosis. That makes it slower than a road bike, but much more comfortable.

Anyway, you don’t want to be riding very far off-pavement on a hybrid with its smooth, narrow tires and comfort-oriented geometry. That rules out some of the major unpaved bike trails in the area: many segments of the Cross County Trail and the entire C&O Canal Towpath are two prime examples.

So yesterday I bought a relatively inexpensive low-end mountain bike—the Schwinn Mesa (right)—for when I feel like a shorter, rougher ride than the on-trail excursions I’ve been doing on my Trek. I rode about 5 miles on the Cross County Trail yesterday (the northernmost segment) successfully, though my mountain biking reflexes are a little rusty and I did manage to take one impressive spill (you should see the colorful bruise on my knee). All-in-all, it was fun. I’ll probably aim for about 70 percent road/trail riding on my Trek, and about 30 percent off-road on my Schwinn.

I also figure the Schwinn, being quite a bit less expensive than the Trek, can be my project bike for learning how to do all my hard-core bicycle maintenance and make sure it works before touching the Trek ;-). If I can avoid taking either to the bike shops, I figure it will cover its own cost within a year or two of heavy riding and regular maintenance/repairs.

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.

Quotes

All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called ‘facts.’ They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain.

We do what we must, and call it by the best names we can.

Success is simple. Do what’s right, the right way, at the right time.

Being absolutely right and being spectacularly wrong feel exactly the same.

We tend to think that humans distinguish themselves from animals by greater knowledge and awareness, but the most typical difference is that, unlike animals, we are almost constantly tormented by a lack of knowledge.

An original sentence, a step forward, is worth more than all the censures.

Never explain: your friends don’t require it, and your enemies won’t believe you, anyway.

Although you perform many works, if you do not deny your will and submit yourself, losing all solicitude about yourself and your affairs, you will not make progress.

Under this authority, Congress may mortgage any or all the revenues of the union, . . . [and] create a national debt, so large, as to exceed the ability of the country ever to sink. I can scarcely contemplate a greater calamity that could befall this country, than to be loaded with a debt exceeding their ability ever to discharge.

Do not take life too seriously, you will never get out of it alive.

If we think it is impossible to love stupid, ugly, selfish, bothersome people, we are wrong, because there is one stupid, ugly, selfish, bothersome person that we do succeed in loving all the time: the one in the mirror.

You could compile . . . the worst book in the world entirely out of . . . passages from the best writers in the world.

And, above all, don’t lie. Don’t lie about anything, ever. Lying leads to Hell. It was the great and the small lies of the Nazi and Communist states that produced the deaths of millions of people.

Jesus’s acts of compassion and his call for others to do likewise were never to be done by compulsion, but voluntarily, by free-will choice.

The safeguard of morality is religion, and morality is the best security of law and the surest pledge of freedom.

An idealist believes that the short run doesn’t count. A cynic believes the long run doesn’t matter. A realist believes that what is done or left undone in the short run determines the long run.

We should recognize how in a culture where each person wants to be bearer of his or her own subjective truth, it becomes difficult for citizens to devise a common plan which transcends individual gain and personal ambitions.

Love consists not in feeling great things but in having great detachment and in suffering for the beloved.

Besides being complicated, reality, in my experience, is usually odd. It is not neat, not obvious, not what you expect.

When I die, I want to go peacefully like my Grandfather did, in his sleep—not screaming, like the passengers in his car.