This Space for Rent

Is it just me, or are non-longtail bikes starting to look a little bit, um, truncated?

TwoBikes

the yellow Schwinn 10-speed is very pretty, but it’s kind of short.

Even though my bicycle is the only xtracycled bike I see for days and days, I find myself having to force myself to remember that the shortened version is what safety bicycles are supposed to look like. And it’s not as if the Trek has the elegant stretched out look of the showroom models that Xtracycle and Surly offer, either; the short twitchy wheelbase on the Trek probably gives me a bicycle as short as the Kona Ute is.

The Trek has now been outfitted with an oh-so-important accessory for winter trips; during winter, a single water bottle is good for at least 100km, but the new yellow bottle cage is so I can fit an insulated thermos containing enough tea or coffee to jumpstart my central nervous system on these cold and bitingly damp autumn mornings. Now all I need to do is arrange some sort of scheme where I leave the thermos at a local coffeeshop where it will not be filled and handed to me in the morning unless I roll up on the bicycle, and then roll away immediately after paying for my dose of piping hot stimulants.