She is British. She lived her entire life in England before I brought her over in July. So it makes sense that Vera would be accustomed to weather like we had last night.
Upon leaving work, I encountered the densest fog I can recall having seen in New York. I literally could not see from one corner to the next, a distance of about 150 metres. Yet, I didn't feel I had to make much of an effort to get home: She seemed to be able to find the way. All I had to do was pedal, and that wasn't so hard.
It seems that the debate about wheel size won't ever go away. I'm not talking only about 650 vs. 700: I'm thinking about those sizes vs. 20 inch or smaller sizes.
There has always been a contagion of cyclists, bike designers and marketers who've maintained that smaller wheels are actually faster. Alex Moulton went so far as to "break" records with his bikes. (As it turned out, he rode against records that hadn't been challenged for years, or even decades.) Whatever you think of his bikes, recumbents or other small-wheeled bicycles, they do have loyal followings, particularly in Japan and a few other countries.
My experience with smaller-wheeled bikes (apart from what I rode early in my childhood) is limited to a couple of folding bikes. Perhaps I'll have the opportunity to ride others and, if I'm feeling ambitious, make a comparison with my own and other 700C bikes.
Or I could borrow this bike:
I've just stumbled across another bike site I like: #BikeNYC.
It's photographer Dmitry Gudkov's series of portraits and profiles of New Yorkers who ride bicycles to work or simply to get around.
Included is a portrait of what I'd like to look like, on and with my bike, in my next life. And there are lots of images of attractive, stylish people who ride. But Gudokov's photos aren't just "fashion shoots" with bikes as props. His subjects work in diverse fields (lawyers, janitors and everything in between) and live in a variety of neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs. One of my favorites is a guy named "Jamaica," who lives in the eponymous neighborhood in Queens. I think I've seen him; I work not very far from where he lives.
I haven't replicated any of Gudkov's phots here; he doesn't allow anyone to copy and paste them. Given that he is a photographer, I can understand his wish (and, possibly, need) to do so. So I'll just encourage you to visit his site. While you're there, check out this portrait of Hal, the longtime mechanic of Bicycle Habitat. He's the one who turned me on to Mercians, and who built the wheels for the ones I ride.
