Bicycling

Earlier this year, I bought a new gravel bike. YT was having a very good sale and I was really coveting a new bike. I ended up buying a Szepter Core 3. Although I was a little on the fence about suspension on a gravel bike, I was very curious about SRAM eTap AXS and the reviews of the bike were solid so I went for it. I ordered it in mid February and it took about ten days to arrive at my door.

I love to ride my bike. If I could, I would ride everyday and everywhere. It seems this is no longer that strange especially among the young. The Economist has an article on how young people are turning away from driving. The reasons seem to be economic (cars are expensive), climate related and cultural. I don’t expect the US to become The Netherlands anytime soon, but even just a slight tilt away to providing safer and better places to ride would be great.

We’ve lot a few good bike shops in Roanoke over the past few years. It’s a tough business and the pandemic didn’t help. One of them (Starlight) stopped selling bikes for a very good reason: the owner found a better business. Two of them found new homes with bigger stores in the area. I’d bought bikes or various services from each of them and it was nice to have the variety of stores each with their own feel and focus.

I was pretty excited to order a couple of State Bicycle 6061 Black Label All-Road bicycles from a LBS in April. At the time, they said it would be the end of June for delivery. That seemed OK to me. I’ve got plenty of other bikes and that leaves plenty of time for summer riding. Then the date slipped to July…then to late August. It’s a First World sort of problem, but still annoying.