Punctures, like buses (or sagacious oriental apes), appear to visit themselves upon me
in batches of three, so I was more put out by the prospect of sustaining further
damage than I was about fixing this singular perforation. It was your run-of the-mill sort of
puncture: a small, almost central intrusion – just one of those things. I hadn't expected it to be anything else, but
was glad to know that it hadn't been caused by the bicycle itself: an errable spoke or suchlike.
It was Tuesday before I finally
had the opportunity to conceive what this Carlos was really made of, and it appeared
to be good stuff, save for a few entirely corrigible concerns. Before departing on my test-run, I had raised
the saddle by a couple of inches. It’s a
deceptive exercise, raising a saddle, and it soon became clear that I had not heightened
it nearly enough. Having not thought
to take a spanner with me on that maiden voyage, I was obliged to spend a fair
bit of time out of the saddle. This was
a basic error that I admonished myself for.
The handlebars
were angled a little awkwardly, too – another minor quibble easily remedied. At worst, I envisaged having to remove the
bar-tape and adjust the position of the bake levers to invoke a more relaxed
geometry, but I wasn't going to rush into anything.
The
optical illusions that had plagued me now gradually shifted into
focus. The bottom bracket was lower on
the Carlos than it was on the Jamis Beatnik, accounting for their apparent –
but inaccurate – similarity of stature. I concluded that if the stand-over of any given bicycle
is correct, and the top-tube sits the requisite couple of inches below the
crotch, then the bike probably fits. The
saddle, seat-post and handlebars are designed for adjustment, it’s simply a
case of playing around with them until one feels comfortable – crises over. I couldn't complain. Indeed, I was content with what my £295 had
delivered and looked forward to taming my steed over the coming months.
It’s been cold of late but the
wet weather has abated. The wind continues to be an irritating presence - it is
autumn, after all - but there's been nothing to stop me from getting out there
and riding my new bike. The sun has even
been moved to put in a few appearances providing the perfect
conditions for a spot of bicycle portraiture. (At this time of the year, the
sun sits quite low in the sky, allowing for good pictures throughout much of
the day.) I don’t expect such clemency
to hold out for much longer, and it won’t be long before Carlos is retired for
the winter, whereupon I shall be running instead.
So sit back and relax, then, and
take a look at these pictures, taken in far from ideal conditions, but tweaked
in Picassa to make them just about passable:
[Images: author's own]
No comments:
Post a Comment