a visit to DBC in boston: test-riding the 'swift'.

It's taken me a month to get to this post.  On one hand, it's about sloth-- here and there I've been busy, but for the most part I've settled into a state of mild but ambivalent productivity that is appropriate to my status as an underemployed summering graduate student.  On the other hand, however, this is about my inability to explain things that move me in a certain way, moments of pure joy and freedom.  Like when I played in the Pacific Ocean last summer in San Diego-- the bliss was inexplicable and vast, hard to put my finger on. So I don't really talk about it, because it feels kind of sacred.

Ok, now that we've established that, you can be aghast:

"You felt that way test-riding a bike?!?!"

I know, I know.  It's a little superlative.  

When I visited my best friend in Boston last month-- every Philadelphian should have a cleaner city nearby to escape to from time to time-- I found myself with a morning to myself while she worked.  In the interests of "doing things right" and "getting some blog material" and also, duh, "my interests," I looked to see if there were any Dutch bike shops in Boston.  When I go to Boston, I actually spend most of my time in Cambridge, and let me tell you something-- Cambridge bicycle culture is the jam.  People tend to ride functional, sometimes beautiful bikes with helmets and lights; the bike lanes are plentiful, and (by MIT) sometimes even separate from traffic; there are oodles of folding bikes.  To a spectator- it's orderly, pragmatic, pleasant, plain clothes.  Riding in Boston, I hear, is a bit more aggressive, but let's not get too far away from my impressions of Boston as bike paradise.

So all of this in mind, I made my way out to Somerville, sort-of near Tufts, to City Bikes (lest they be confused with other Dutch Bicycle Companies, though I think they go by DBC).  All I knew going in was that they were Dutch bike dealers building their own bikes.  I expected a traditional bicycle showroom, but it's a little more casual than that-- which I think gets at the practical sensibility at the heart of the City Bikes program.

City Bikes started out with the desire to solve some of the problems of the Dutch bicycle-- the incredible weight, the sometimes wobbly steering, the increasingly cheap components used on bikes for American import.  They recruited an army of MIT engineers (ok, maybe not that many) to come up with a host of frame designs that looked just right, to get a geometry that felt just right, to make a bike ideally suited to the rigors and challenges of American urban riding.  Anywhere they could've cut corners, they didn't-- they used American materials (like Pennsylvania steel!), rebuilt headlights, and selected the very best components.  What they got surprised them: they hadn't expected it to be so perfect.

If you're surprised that you haven't yet heard of City Bikes, that's kind of on purpose-- they are doing everything they can to meet demand as it is.  We all know the demand that's faced other custom builders, like Sweetpea or Vanilla.  When I visited, the only City Bike in the showroom was the men's prototype and an unbuilt women's frame.  

ladies frame

As it is, you can order a bike to fit your measurements with the paint job you want for ~$2400.  For Boston residents, City Bikes is offering lifetime maintenance because they believe in the quality of their bikes.  For people living within 2 hours, they're offering an installment payment plan.  

What can I say about test-riding the Swift?  It's a bike-riders' bike.  It's responsive, easy to recover when you pitch yourself sideways.  The posturing is perfect, the bike is not heavy, it's elegant.  The time I spent on that bike may have been some of the best ten minutes of my summer-- they were lucky I left my purse in the office, I might not have come back.  Riding this bike-- it was my playing in the ocean moment. I can't really explain it. It was how riding bikes ought to be. You could have never ridden a bike before and get on this bike and think it's nice, but I think it might take someone a little more seasoned to appreciate what's going on here in terms of craftsmanship and deliberate design choices.  If I could afford one, I would buy one.

Obviously, if you find yourself in Boston, a City Bikes visit is mandatory.  Dan and Maria are gracious bike enthusiasts who you'll want to spend some time with.  I can't do justice to how excited I was when I left.  Make sure you bring an extra couple grand when you visit-- you'll want to buy one of these beautiful bikes before everybody else finds out about them.  

Dan and Maria, if you see this-- please feel free to make any corrections in the comments!

This video is found on their website- it includes a teensy portion of what I learned during my visit:

escalating equipment demands.

This afternoon I find myself staring out the window, wondering if I'm really willing to bike it to my evening social commitment this evening.  I have great rain gear, but it is raining so hard.  Like tons-of-standing-water-on-the-road-hard, drivers-hitting-huge-puddles-that-would-leave-me-soaked-to-the-bone hard, I-can't-really-see-myself-journeying-into-unfamiliar-territory hard.  It's not that I'm unwilling to ride in the rain, I tell myself.  It's just that I need a poncho.


A poncho? Really?  What have I become?


It hit me that my experience as a car-free adventurer has been marked by the steady acquisition of increasingly sophisticated equipment.  Arriving in Philadelphia, I owned the Old Dutch Treat, a basket, and a seldom used Blinkee light.  Then I bought the Dahon so I didn't break myself doing the stairs with the ODT every day.  Then I realized doing so many miles probably mandated a helmet, so I bought the Nutcase.  Then I got rain gear because I realized it was going to be a long wet winter.  Then I found I needed a better headlight for all the night riding I wanted to do on the Dahon. After the bike-deprived onslaughts of blizzardy, I found myself plotting how I might build up a snow bike for next year (I don't know that I ever blogged that fantasy, but I sure felt it) (ha... back in Utah I thought I was so cool for riding in the snow).  And the good lord knows that I would always like a road bike.  


I often find myself thinking that the only thing keeping people of their bikes is having a bike, or the only thing that it takes for me to ride successfully in the rain is a little bit of waterproof mascara.  It irks me a little to realize the reality of my lifestyle-- and the roadblocks that it might present to others wanting to make the change-- is that it is marked by consumerism.  I'm ok with that for myself-- I have no qualms about spending some of the proceeds from my car's sale on bike paraphernalia or, to cast it in even holier terms-- supporting bike related companies that I think are doing good things for the world.  I have no problem sleeping at night because I have a good raincoat or a folding bike.  But when I think about making cycling accessible and appealing to everyone, how to mediate the goods issue is quite the quandary.  I'm glad there are programs in Philly like Neighborhood Bike Works that help to improve bicycle access, but I'm curious as to what other solutions to that issue might look like.  Sure, you can bicycle commute on a bike-shaped-object, but it probably sucks not to have fenders or to be invisible to motorists without lights.


Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go back to meditating on how I might acquire a poncho without getting soaked.

a random sampling.

I don't usually do this kind of stuff, but I found it kind of entertaining. This is based on my iPod's holdings, which is closer to my master iTunes library on my desktop at home than my laptop here. Laptop iTunes was consulted in spots due to the limitations of the iPod.

Number of Songs: 2841 (I'm guessing 100 or so are unchecked on the home computer so they didn't make it onto the iPod)
Number of Albums: a mystery! do people really listen to albums anymore?
Most Recently Played Song: Pachebel Meets U2- John Schmidt (cheesy much?)
Most Played Song: Feel Flows- The Beach Boys

Most Recently Added Album: Tiny Cities - Sun Kil Moon and Ten - Pearl Jam

Most Recently Added Song: Ain't Nothin' But a G Thing- Dr. Dre

First Song Alphabetically: ABC- Jackson Five
Last Song Alphabetically: Zvezda Rok-n-Rolla (artist's name in Russian) from the Everything is Illuminated Soundtrack
Smallest Song Numerically: #1 Crush- Garbage
Biggest Song Numerically: 8675309- Tommy Tutone

Shortest Song: Pagoda's Theme- The Royal Tenenbaums soundtrack (I'm guessing my desktop would bring up something from Gone With the Wind's soundtrack) (:23)
Longest Song: A version of Dvorak's New World Symphony No. 9 mixed with nature sounds, by The Relaxation Company (24:33) (a Buzzard's $2 special)

First Full Album Alphabetically: Affirmation - Savage Garden (this is getting embarrassing)
Last Full Album Alphabetically: XO - Elliot Smith
First Full Album Numerically: 13 Going on 30 soundtrack
Last Full Album Numerically: 100% Funk

First Five Songs That Pop Up On Shuffle: Leaving on a Jet Plane- John Denver, These Days- Nico with The Velvet Underground, Hawai'i 78- Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, Wonderwall- Oasis, Save Me From Myself- Christina Aguilera

packing completed, i turned to other avenues of procrastination.

I'm a freak for icons. Here's a cool Mac app that allows you to make your own when no ready-made icon will do. It is quite possibly the easiest program to use ever. Nerdy, yes-- but you have to admit that this is the perfect iconic picture for the folder for that American West class I took:

Oh who am I kidding? I just needed an excuse to post a picture of Ronald Reagan. To shake things up a little, yah know?

UPDATE: After putting up that post, it occured to me that there was an opportunity for greatness in this post that wasn't apparent to me the first time around. Redo:


Glitter Graphics



Ah. That's better.

P.S. This is entertaining!

proof that netflix is stalking me.

Ok, yah, I see how I could get this:

Or this:

But really? This?:
I think Netflix is reading my blog.

100% funk.

Yah, yah, yah, the Mac is here, with its freakishly large screen and ridonkulously fast processing. See? I can do this now:


It's been a little overwhelming because I am pretty demanding of my machine and have little patience for learning the ins and outs of a new operating systems. One of the hitches has been the file transfer since I happen to have a Windows formatted external hard drive (that was a fun 40 minutes on the phone, Apple support!). I'm taking care of it tomorrow since moving my computer over GIG by GIG on a flash drive turned me into a homicidal little monkey. Anyways, the unexpected outcome of all this was that I wound up with only the early part of the alphabet on my iTunes, putting the album "100% Funk" right at the top of my playlist.

I don't know how I overlooked The Gap Band, but I'm pretty sure this is one of the most badass songs I've ever heard. It might just be that I'm fried from churning out twenty pages and a hefty edit as of late, that my mind goes crazy when I come in contact with anything not related to parents rights, the gay agenda, or, god forbid, having to wait until you are SIXTEEN to get married (really Gayle? REALLY?!)-- but really, methinks that this song is just awesometown no matter what one's immersed in. The Mac is bumpin' and really, who doesn't want to start looking for a new lover AS SOON AS THEY GET UP?!

The Gap Band - Early In The Morning @ Yahoo! Video