sun down sun up
hammer down and throw it out
g’won get yer head up
this is what it’s all about
feel the jam and beat
shake your bones like you’re alive
get up out your seat
dominate, reverberate the hive
we’ve all got dancing sins
kick it out, this time with soul
hello again, to all my friends
together we can play some rock and roll
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Thursday, August 11, 2011
A review I wrote about my bike for MinimalBike.com
My Windsor Clockwork is my first road bike. I’ve ridden fixies and complex, multi-geared road machines belonging to friends before and, at the time I was riding those bikes, I didn’t actually enjoy them at all. The way the bikes forced you to lean forward and place the weight of your torso on your arms seemed awkward to me, having been brought up riding BMX style Huffys and beach cruisers. I didn’t like the narrow seats. I’ve got a skinny butt with no padding and the stiff, almost iron hard seats I associated with road bikes gave me goosebumps when I imagined riding on one. Also, the wire-thin wheels gave me serious pause. I couldn’t see something so dainty handling the punishment I typically dished out to the bikes I rode. So it wasn’t until recently that I considered purchasing a full-on road bike.
I suppose I came to the decision the same way anyone who buys a bike like this does. I wanted a new bike. Something I could ride both leisurely and for exercise. Something cool and fast that would work well with an urban environment. An image kept resurfacing in my head: I wanted an AK-47 for a bike. Something that wouldn’t break, that would perform, and that could do whatever I wanted it to on the roads of my home town. I decided immediately I didn’t want anything with multiple gears. They were too high-maintenance for my taste. My past bikes had all been multi-geared and after a week began to shift incorrectly. I hated that. Eventually a ghostly concept of what I wanted began to appear in my head. However, I wasn’t sure of anything until my little brother introduced BikesDirect to me.
Both of my brothers had used BikesDirect to purchase a pair of road bikes they were enjoying intensely. And by intensely, I mean every morning at the crack of dawn for 12 to 24 miles. I saw how much fun they were having, and how great a work out they were getting, and I decided I needed to pay the website a visit. Scrolling through the pages of single speed bikes I began eliminating everything that didn’t quite suit my tastes. It wasn’t long before I’d narrowed everything down to a few Windsors. The Hour, the Timeline, and the Clockwork. Knowing my brother had already purchased the Hour, and that it came as a fixed gear and not the free gear style I was favoring, I eventually chose the Clockwork out of the remaining two bikes due to the slender frame and classic lines. At $299.99, it was precisely at my $300 budget. Within a week it was on my porch in a box.
My younger brother, having already gone through the assembly procedure for a bike from BikesDirect, helped me assemble my Clockwork within an hour. On the first test ride I noticed the wheels needed some serious truing, they creaked and made popping sounds for the first few minutes I was on the bike, but the bike rode well enough for the initial test ride. After a $25 visit to the bike shop for some truing, my Clockwork was ready to run flat-out. I had been warned by my brothers that BikesDirect keeps cost down by using lower-quality parts and expected trouble with my bike within the first few weeks of riding but I was pleasantly surprised. It’s been a full summer season since I bought my bike and I have not needed to replace a tube, true the wheels a second time, or repair anything on the bike. The chain creaks and clicks occasionally, but that’s nothing that can’t be fixed with some chain lubrication. Admittedly I don’t ride as hard or as often as some cyclists, but 24 to 48 miles a week is enough for me to say the Clockwork can hold its own.
Essentially, it’s exactly what I wanted. An AK-47 of a bike. Classic lines, durability and reliability, and it performs well. I can out-sprint traffic down town, climb uphill without coming out of the saddle, and handle minor bumps and potholes without breaking a spoke. The chromoly steel frame is not as light as aluminum or carbon fiber and the free-wheel cog is too big for the kind of speed a fixed-gear rider might enjoy, but I wouldn’t trade my $300 Clockwork for any of the other bikes in the same price range.
I plan on making a few small modifications to really turn this bike into the machine I feel best suits my riding style. A back rack with some panniers to hold my school books when I ride to class down town, a pair of tough wheels and some durable, hard compound tires, and a leather saddle to finish off the classic look are the primary mods I’d like to make. Other customizations, like colored grip tape, compact, drop-angle bars and possibly a custom airbrush paint scheme are all secondary changes I may consider in the future. As for now, I’m content to leave the bike exactly as I received it from BikesDirect; A classy Windsor Clockwork that does what I need it to do.
I suppose I came to the decision the same way anyone who buys a bike like this does. I wanted a new bike. Something I could ride both leisurely and for exercise. Something cool and fast that would work well with an urban environment. An image kept resurfacing in my head: I wanted an AK-47 for a bike. Something that wouldn’t break, that would perform, and that could do whatever I wanted it to on the roads of my home town. I decided immediately I didn’t want anything with multiple gears. They were too high-maintenance for my taste. My past bikes had all been multi-geared and after a week began to shift incorrectly. I hated that. Eventually a ghostly concept of what I wanted began to appear in my head. However, I wasn’t sure of anything until my little brother introduced BikesDirect to me.
Both of my brothers had used BikesDirect to purchase a pair of road bikes they were enjoying intensely. And by intensely, I mean every morning at the crack of dawn for 12 to 24 miles. I saw how much fun they were having, and how great a work out they were getting, and I decided I needed to pay the website a visit. Scrolling through the pages of single speed bikes I began eliminating everything that didn’t quite suit my tastes. It wasn’t long before I’d narrowed everything down to a few Windsors. The Hour, the Timeline, and the Clockwork. Knowing my brother had already purchased the Hour, and that it came as a fixed gear and not the free gear style I was favoring, I eventually chose the Clockwork out of the remaining two bikes due to the slender frame and classic lines. At $299.99, it was precisely at my $300 budget. Within a week it was on my porch in a box.
My younger brother, having already gone through the assembly procedure for a bike from BikesDirect, helped me assemble my Clockwork within an hour. On the first test ride I noticed the wheels needed some serious truing, they creaked and made popping sounds for the first few minutes I was on the bike, but the bike rode well enough for the initial test ride. After a $25 visit to the bike shop for some truing, my Clockwork was ready to run flat-out. I had been warned by my brothers that BikesDirect keeps cost down by using lower-quality parts and expected trouble with my bike within the first few weeks of riding but I was pleasantly surprised. It’s been a full summer season since I bought my bike and I have not needed to replace a tube, true the wheels a second time, or repair anything on the bike. The chain creaks and clicks occasionally, but that’s nothing that can’t be fixed with some chain lubrication. Admittedly I don’t ride as hard or as often as some cyclists, but 24 to 48 miles a week is enough for me to say the Clockwork can hold its own.
Essentially, it’s exactly what I wanted. An AK-47 of a bike. Classic lines, durability and reliability, and it performs well. I can out-sprint traffic down town, climb uphill without coming out of the saddle, and handle minor bumps and potholes without breaking a spoke. The chromoly steel frame is not as light as aluminum or carbon fiber and the free-wheel cog is too big for the kind of speed a fixed-gear rider might enjoy, but I wouldn’t trade my $300 Clockwork for any of the other bikes in the same price range.
I plan on making a few small modifications to really turn this bike into the machine I feel best suits my riding style. A back rack with some panniers to hold my school books when I ride to class down town, a pair of tough wheels and some durable, hard compound tires, and a leather saddle to finish off the classic look are the primary mods I’d like to make. Other customizations, like colored grip tape, compact, drop-angle bars and possibly a custom airbrush paint scheme are all secondary changes I may consider in the future. As for now, I’m content to leave the bike exactly as I received it from BikesDirect; A classy Windsor Clockwork that does what I need it to do.
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