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I got hit by a car last night - her fault completely and admittedly. I was on my 09 Globe Carmel 2 (26" version of that one). I landed on my butt just slightly and rolled across my backpack. I'm no light weight even though I bike including BMX, I'm 260 lbs. I don't know what happened, but my entire body was on my backpack as some point, even my legs were a bit up in the air. My Kindle and the netbook I mentioned were in my backpack along with a ceramic coffee mug I didn't want at my apartment anymore so I brought it to work. NOTHING was broke in the backpack, it was all just fine. Both of the wheels on my bike got bent, but get this, I already had a replacement rim at home, the spokes that came with the bike from the factory sucked balls and due to so many of them being snapped on the rear I bought the rim with the intent of tearing down the back wheel, having the gear hub serviced, then building it back up without the crappy spokes. I tore down both wheels, I'm having the gear hub serviced, I already build the front one back with the new rim and I have another rim ordered for the back now, both 36 spoke.

The netbook has now survived three bike wrecks, on three of my four bikes. I'm wondering if the universe is telling me not to ride the race bike I built, especially with my netbook in my back pack since it's the only one I haven't bit it on.

What kind of car do you drive and where do you drive?

I used to live in New York City. Didn't own a car. Didn't want to own a car. Saw no good reason to own a car.

Then I moved to south Florida and suddenly "needed" a car. I bought the cheapest thing I could find: a three year old Hyundai Excel GL. It was pretty durable and reliable, but absolutely no fun to drive. I really didn't enjoy driving and, other than to-and-from work, didn't drive. Which is kind of a shame because there's interesting things in south Florida that I never got a chance to see.

When I moved to California, I discovered that Hyundais and Hills don't mix. So I traded it in for a brand new Jeep Wrangler. I grew up driving an old Jeep and I loved it. Suddenly, driving was a lot more fun. I enjoyed going places and driving around. Years later, I sent that Jeep to my father and bought an Audi TT Roadster and had a great time driving that around.

It's a similar story with bicycles. I have a Huffy that I use for quick trips to run errands. But I didn't really enjoy riding it. So I bought a nice Specialized Allez Elite for longer rides (I'll usually go for 30-40 mile rides on the weekends) which I enjoy.

So, yeah, get a crappy old bicycle and you probably won't enjoy bicycling. Get a crappy old car and you probably won't enjoy driving, either.

If you built it into the bicycle's hub, it might not cause nearly as much resistance.

My wife has one of those. Specialized brand made the "Vienna Deluxe" line last year. You can feel the drag when you hit the switch, but it's very subtle.

sounds like you need one of these.

Seriously, I got one about a year ago and would never use a normal saddle again. You don't get the same "numbness" after a long journey with one of these.

Tomorrow, I shall be piloting my pizza/beer fueled vehicle to work.
Proven design, minimal (but not zero) emissions, zero fossil fuel use, low initial purchase price, decades long lifetime.

Although I agree that mountain biking is a lot of fun, it doesn't have to be "tricky and exhausting in the begining". I started out "trail riding" where you're far enough off the beaten path to need something more than a 10 speed or a BMX bike.

You could easily walk these trails but you can cover so much more distance with a bike. You end up finding things you wouldn't find walking because you never would have gotten there on foot. I'm talking about everything from the landscape to hidden streams and ponds. You can always progress to the more rugged terrain later on if you want. I do that now but more for exercise than for enjoyment.

A decent GPS will cost you about $200-$300, whereas a decent mountain bike will cost you around $600-800. I would not suggest going to Sports Authority or similar sporting goods stores. Find a bike shop that sells decent bikes ( like Gary Fisher, Specialized, Iron Horse or K2 ). Go in knowing what the bikes cost on-line. I find that the people that work at the little bike shops know what their talking about. Also, if you can afford it, don't buy a cheap bike. Cheap mountain bikes aren't mean for really rugged terrain. It may also cost you more in the long run in maintenance.

I plan on integrating my photography hobby in with the trail riding eventually. You can get photographs of things that most people never see.

I looked into using a Palm for a bike computer, and concluded that I wasn't very interested. I live in the Seattle area, and I ride in the rain. The BikeBrain solution comes with a plastic protector for your Palm, but it isn't really waterproof.

The good thing of course is that a Palm can capture a lot of data. But just capturing wheel spin data to show speed and distance isn't enough to make me buy either of these solutions.

Last autumn I bought myself a Specialized P.Brain computer. I love it; it collects wheel turn data (like the two Palm solutions) and also altitude and heart rate data. A PC interface lets you capture your data and make pretty charts. You can get a graph showing your speed, altitude, and heart rate plotted against either time or distance. Read more about it here.

The PC download software is for Windows; I'm planning to try to get it working under WINE if I can. The data is stored in some opaque binary format, but you can get the data out with Dan Connelly's Perl script (get it here.

The P.Brain isn't the only data-collecting bike computer. There are other brands. I have heard good things about the Polar XTrainer. There are even computer systems that directly measure your power output; you have a wheel built with a power-measuring hub, and the computer keeps track of power. Pro riders (including Lance Armstrong) use these. For example, the Power-Tap.

steveha

I first saw that Brittney Spears page as a link from Specialized Bicycles home page. It's part of a flash animation that says "Innovate or Die." If you click on the innovate link, it takes you into their site. So of course I clicked on the Die to see where it went. I thought it was a joke that they put together. The fact that it's "real" is even funnier. God, when will this world run out of crack?

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...I can't find anything on Specialized's or Sun's websites that mention a word about Sun-purple bikes. Very disapointing. They had a picture of McNealy being presented with a custom-made bike that was sun purple. But, according to the press release, the co-branding ACTUALLY involves putting a logo saying 'Desgined on Sun' on all the bikes and helmets. Oh well. Too good to be true, I guess.