Category: Gear

  • Buying a bicycle as a spiritual journey

    I pedal quickly, practicing my spinning. The road has a gentle decline and the trees are a dingy orange-brown, typical of the early spring after the snow is gone but before the green buds begin to take over the landscape. I remind myself to take a deep breath, smell the fresh air, and experience the…

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  • And the winner is …

    After lots of analysis we’ve decided the HP Velotechnik Streetmachine Gte is the best bike for our needs. Peter worked hard to not influence our decision, but in the end he did tell us he agreed with us given our plans. The HP Velotechnik Streetmachine Gte won for us because: It fit Becky better (seat…

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  • What bicycle? Propulsion

    Our other major debate was Shimano XT groupo vs Rohloff Speedhub for the gear train. In one corner we had Keith (go with a derailleur!), Bryan in the other corner (the Rohloff is really nice, and virtually maintenance free!), and Peter somewhere in the middle. It wasn’t quite that black and white, with Keith enthusing…

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  • What bicycle? Analysis and more analysis

    Friday was dreary, wet and intermittently rainy, so we didn’t end up test driving any bikes. We did spend many hours at the BicycleMan shop though, looking at options and discussing. Since it was a grey, dreary day we pretty much had the shop to ourselves, and were able to take a lot of Peter’s…

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  • I want to buy a bicycle …

    I want to ride my bicycle I want to ride my bike I want to ride my bicycle I want to ride it where I like by Queen Change the word “ride” to “buy” and you’ll have the song that has been going through my head for the last day and a half. We have…

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  • Accepting the kindness of strangers

    I woke up this morning and was trying to visualize how we would camp during our shakedown cruise around Lake Ontario in June, and I couldn’t quite see it. It will be difficult (not to mention expensive) to find campgrounds every time we want to stop, since we’re planning on riding about 80 km per…

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