Switching Gears

There seemed to be a lot fewer bikes on the road today, National Bike to Work Day, than there have been earlier this week.  Is the threat of scattered showers enough to keep the amateurs inside their internally combusted boxes?

Massachusetts Avenue this morning, just before Porter Square.  School bus puts on its flashers, stops to pick up kids, traffic on both sides of the street does the right thing and stops.  Then the driver gets out of the bus and starts a little meet ‘n greet with the parents on the sidewalk!  With the flashers still on!  I’m all for community involvement and getting to know your public servants, but I don’t think the center of Mass Ave. at 8:30 on a weekday morning is the right time and place.

And Mr Gray Hair riding the newish Surley out of Brookline Village and on across the BU bridge this afternoon… Not good form to jump ahead of people waiting for the light to change and then ride so slow that everyone backs up behind you.  And yeah, I noticed you at each of the next 4 the intersections I was stopped at, and where you followed the exact same plan.  Not to mention your little detour going the wrong way down the one way streets of Brookline.

But the day wasn’t filled with scowflaws and miscreants.  I was stopped at a light in Cambridge coming home this afternoon with a real interesting bike next to me.  I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was certainly something different about the ride.  It was a mountain frame, with upright bars.  But it was clean, in the design sense of the word.  Nexus internal hub, front disc brake, and no dirt at all, anywhere.  Then I noticed it — no chain.  No chain ring, no cog, no freewheel.  It looked just like your bike would look if you took the chain ring off the cranks and trashed the chain.  Nothing to mar the view of the chain stays.  (Can you call them chain stays if there’s no chain?)  I talked with the rider and he filled me in.  Shaft driven, with internal gearing.  “It probably has a lot more parasitical drag than a chain so it’s less efficient, but I get a better workout and don’t have to worry about grease on my pants legs!”

Worries about parasitical drag — this is what passes for casual riding conversation for the commute out of MIT-ville.

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