Feaverish

L and I decided to do Christmas a little…how you say…differently this year. For starters, we’ll be buying gifts for ourselves, not for each other. Also, we’ll be walking around backwards for the entire day.

We realized over a martini luncheon the other day that, if left to tradition, we’d just spend a ton of money on stuff neither of us really wanted, or stuff that was the wrong size, or the wrong color, or the wrong breed, etc. Plus we’d have to act all grateful about it. Add to that the guilt of having to act grateful for something you’re not grateful for and you’ve got a pretty dirty diaper.

I’m gonna get myself a new bike. My current bike is old. Really old. Penny–farthing old. It’s also way too small for my Herculean Homer–Simpson physique, as I found out when I tried the following test I found on one of the internets:

When you straddle your bike, your genitals may rest on the top tube, but your pubic bone will easily clear it—as you’ll notice if you grab a handful of genitals and pull up.

My new bike will be a shiny, sleek — let’s just say seal–like — marvel of modern–yet–at–the–same–time–centuries–old engineering. Furthermore, it will have only one speed. You heard me right. One.

I’ve been reading about single–speed road bikes, and it seems to be the right choice for a daily commuter (that’s me) who doesn’t have too many steep hills (uh, that’s only sort of me) and who doesn’t want to worry about maintenance (that’s definitely me). What really pushed me over the single–speed cliff, though, was a compulsive desire to understand this:

Single speed cyclecross is a beautiful thing, as very little can go wrong. A good chainline makes chainsuck irrelevant and you never never ever stack because you missed a shift going into a barrier and forgot to get off your bike. With a 135 spaced rear hub built without dish, the probability of tacoing your wheel is extremely low.

I’ve pretty much worn out all the slang I know, and it sounds like I’ll get a whole new vocabulary with my new single–speed. Anyway, here’s what I’m going for, roughly. If you see a bike like this for sale and/or not locked up, let me know.