Whose Streets? Their Streets!

The pedal-shearing incident was as good an excuse as any to invest in some new rolling steel. I share this only because by this point in the story, you should realize that a bike is a fashion accessory, just like anything else. I had to determine what I was going to say.

Like many commuter cyclists (and I’m enough of a Johnny-come-lately to remember how annoying cyclists can be when viewed from either the sidewalk or behind a windshield), I’m lazy but impetuous, perhaps even selfish. On the one hand, I will lock my bike to a pole if the pole is ten feet closer to the door than the rack; on the other, a fifteen-minute bicycle commute is more attractive than a fifteen-minute bus commute because I don’t have to wait fifteen minutes at a bus stop. Bottom line, I’m a convert to the technology simply because of its slothful elegance—5 steps = 100 feet. It should go without saying that coasting is an important part of my lifestyle. So a fixed-gear was out. And I’m a commuter, not somebody who wants to qualify for the next Life Time triathlon. I wanted something reliable and sort of light, but it didn’t have to be too light. I liked the way a classic steel frame looked—those high-tech bikes make you look like a NASA dork. But I still wanted something cool enough to impress my new peers while asserting my individuality. I decided on a single-speed.

It came down to a Surly Steamroller or a Bianchi San Jose. They’re both beautiful single-speed bikes built in the same Taiwan factory—the former a twitchier racer, the latter a cushier crossbreed. I could buy either bike at One-on-One, and Gene Oberpriller seemed to be enough of a grouch to be trustworthy.

He exceeded my expectations. He actually tried to talk me out of buying either bike. Neither would be that much lighter than my Schwinn, he said. I could convert my Schwinn into a single-speed. He seemed to be taking his pious DIY ethos to an unreasonable degree. Was this the gambit of a brilliant salesman? Then I remembered another one of Sjoquist’s stats: Most independent bike shops with less than $500,000 in annual revenue (surely Oberpriller’s sales strategy yields at least that modest a number), take home only $30,000 annually. In a final moment of self-doubt, I asked Gene if I was good enough to ride a single-speed. “It doesn’t matter,” he replied. “It’s the way everybody used to do it.”

I bought the Bianchi because I’ll never be able to afford an Italian sports car.