Springfield Sunrise Coffee & Bicycle Club - Downtown
It's been a couple months since I've been on a bike. Had some health stuff that kept me from riding. Today, I rode the 1950s Hercules Churchill DeLuxe 3-speed to coffee on a downtown parking garage rooftop. Not much of a sunrise, but had some ominous looking clouds and a light sprinkling of rain.
The three speed needs a lot of work, but is still a blast to ride. Braking is somewhat limited and needs a serious upgrade from the single rear rim brakes, so I slowly single-speeded it 9.5 miles round trip from my house to downtown and back.
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I turned my Surly Cross-Check into a three speed. A few years ago I put Albatross handlebars on it from Rivendell and needed a new longer cable to reach the rear derailleur. I thought about it for a bit, and then I remembered that my Dad pretty much lived his whole life with a three-speed Raleigh (still have it) and so I locked the rear derailleur and just kept the three speeds up front. Never looked back. 27 down to 3, even though all the vestigial hardware is still there minus the cable. And no more screwing around with the barrel adjuster!
I'm off of my Masi CX for a bit, at least until I can get a new saddle that is more friendly to male anatomy. Had some health stuff a little over a month ago related to cycling and I don't want to go further down that route. Only riding the old 3-speed upright bike for now.
Surlys are nice bikes. I nearly got one back when I picked up my Masi. The Masi was a couple hundred cheaper, though. I sold my 1982 Sea Pearl 21 to buy it. I had just enough money into it that not all of it went to the bank and I was able to get the bicycle.