Yesterday I commuted to Brooklyn and back on the re-singlespeeded Roaduno:
After 18 years of pointless blogging and many more years of simply riding bikes I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t understand bikes at all, because I positively flew to the office faster than I have on all my other previous commuters, those being:
The Homer
The Eye Of The Tiger Bike
[Now under the stewardship of Jersey Cycles]
The Faggin
[Would it be faster now with the Super Record? Maybe. Or maybe not!]
So what is it? To paraphrase the Haggadah, why is this bike faster than all other bikes? In attempting to wrap my head around this I have considered the following possibilities:
Favorable Weather Conditions
It wasn’t a particularly nice day yesterday, but there wasn’t the brutal headwind you sometimes encounter on the Hudson River Greenway. Maybe I had a tailwind? I didn’t think I had a tailwind, but then again when you have a tailwind you never think you do, you just think you’re awesome. That’s why you grin idiotically the whole time, and the riders going the opposite direction into a headwind want to smack that stupid smile off your face.
Less Resistance In Drivetrain
Theoretically a singlespeed has less resistance since the chain doesn’t need to wend its way through all those pulleys, so maybe that’s it. Also, maybe I nailed the chainline so precisely that I’m experiencing levels of smoothness I’ve never experienced before, and I nailed the gearing so utterly I’ve inadvertently created The Ultimate Singlespeed, one that is exponentially more efficient than any of its geared counterparts.
“The Singlespeed Factor”
The whole resistance thing notwithstanding, I believe that the true advantage of the singlespeed is that it forces you to maintain a certain speed, especially on hills. With a geared bike you keep downshifting until you’re comfortable, but with a singlespeed you need to stay on top of the gear and often climb faster than you would ordinarily. Then again there are not too many hills on this route, so I’m not sure how much it applies here.
Physical Conditioning
Am I finding spring fitness or something like that? I highly doubt it. However, I did undergo a colonoscopy recently, and I can’t rule out the possibility that I’m simply lighter and faster for having emptied myself out so profoundly in preparation for the procedure.
Biopace Power!
You really can see and feel the Biopace chainring Bio-pacing when you’re riding a singlespeed, and maybe those ’80s computer nerds at Shimano managed to create some sort of perpetual motion machine:
It could be any of the above, or it could be none of them. Nevertheless, I think I’ll push the narrative that it’s the colonoscopy and the Biopace, because I would like nothing more for my Biopace chainrings to increase in value exponentially, and for the power meter set to start obsessively flushing themselves out before rides. Before you know it Stan’s will start selling bowel prep and Pas Normal Studios will offer enema kits:
Tell me they’re not 12 hours into a cleanse.
In any case, all I know is that I left my home, and next thing I knew I was at Golf Tee Island:
The commute was also almost entirely free from annoyances, with one major exception. At one point at around where the Fairway used to be I slowed in order to yield to a pedestrian, at which point I was chided by someone behind me. I turned only to find a wildly clownlike woman attired in a riot of rainbow hues like some sort of 1960s hippie by way of Raggedy Ann, standing on one of these goddamn things:
She was wearing a motorcycle helmet and ski goggles like they all do, and she was vaping. I explained to her that I was stopping for a pedestrian, and couldn’t help adding that her choice of conveyance was “fucking ridiculous.” This didn’t seem to phase her, possibly because she already new, and with that she sped off in a whirr of servos and a lingering scent of psychoactive vapor.
Otherwise, my commute was lovely:
There was a bit more volume around Hudson Street than there has been but I’m not sure if that’s the traffic bouncing back despite congestion pricing or if there was some construction going on, and otherwise the streets were notably calm. (In the congestion zone, that is. Uptown it’s the usual shitshow.) So is congestion pricing still working? And if so, is the revenue going towards massive bicycle infrastructure upgrades like this?
This 16-square foot bike lane renovation is the very model of government efficiency, as it’s taken a mere six years so far and in that time it’s only gone over the contractor’s initial $300,000,000 estimate by 20%.
Obviously I’m kidding, and it’s already over three billion.
Otherwise, some things never change, like shoaling:
See how he puts himself all the way out into the intersection so that turning vehicles can hardly get around him? Like a human traffic cone? That’s good shoaling.
But yes, from the time I headed out in the morning until I arrived home that night I positively marveled at the Roaduno’s preternatural fleetness:
Thanks for reading, ride safe, and enjoy the weekend.
