Back on the road with the Bike of Doom
by Steve ~ April 13th, 2008After a month-long hiatus during which I did not even look at the Bike of Doom, never mind ride it, I started cycling again this week. The spring melt is over, the roads relatively clean again, temperatures survivable. I also took the Giant Boulder out this week, but it was not a pleasant experience. Although the equipment on the boulder is superior to the SuperCycle, the geometry leaves a lot to be desired. Mike and I did a 30 Km evening ride on Thursday and I experienced testicular pain soon afterwards. It was very uncomfortable. I don’t know if it was the bike, my riding position, or the gods, all I know is that my balls hurt.
Today, I took the SuperCycle out on a Sunday ride with Mike, Brian, and Bill. This is the first Sunday morning ride of the season, and although these will end up being mostly 80 to 100 Km rides as the season progresses, they are traditionally short at season start. Today, however, for reason’s I can’t quite fathom, we did almost 80 Km in a grueling ride into the wind, out to St. Adolphe. I was glad to get home and off the bike.
Mike wrote about it at Bike With Mike. There maybe a picture.
Related posts:
BOD on Holiday — August 5 –- 7 Km
The first, 
Both posts made me realize why taking a stance against Department Store Bikes is the wrong approach. Most cyclists get their first taste for cycling when they’re children. Most children ride Department Store Bikes. Without Department Store Bikes, which provide a low-cost entry into cycling, most kids would never start cycling. You can talk all you want about the poor quality of department store bikes but without them, and I mean without the cheapest of them, the DynaCrappiest of them, there’d be a lot less cyclists on the road today. If I had to shell out a few hundred bucks every time my kids got a bike, or had to search for a used bike, I would never have bought them bikes. I’d have bought them skateboards instead.
This is the same recruitment model that exists in amateur astronomy, by the way. Amateur Astronomers are forever complaining about the poor quality of Department Store Telescopes. Essentially they’ve got flimsy mounts and poor optics, which means any serious amateur astronomer won’t use one. Like cycling, however, Department Store Telescopes are the entry point into the hobby for most astronomers, and most have fond memories of using their cheap ass telescopes. When I was a kid I had a 60mm Tasco tabletop refractor — similar to the one pictured on the left — the ultimate department store telescope, on flimsy tripod legs. I used it well into adulthood, and developed my interest in amateur astronomy because of it. Would my parents have been able to purchase a “good” telescope back then? Heck, no. I’d have gone without. It wasn’t until I was well into adulthood that I got my first really good telescope, when I made my own — pictured below in mid-construction.
Unlike the field of cycling, however, amateur astronomers seem to have come to an accommodation with Department Store Telescopes. While nobody recommends you actually buy one, there’s very little of the strident anti-department-store posturing you often see in cycling. Instead, the astronomy approach seems to be, “Don’t buy one, but if you’ve already got one, here’s how to make it useful.”
