ajs122
12-02-2004, 10:24 PM
As the proud owner of white frost Atlanta built up with Daytona I thought I had cured my bike lust. As good as the Atlanta is however it is not a trail bike that can take the broken pavement I ride with much ease. Lets face it the Atlanta like most of the Serotta line up is a throughbed. Its meant to be opened up on the road and driven to its limits. But at my age I'm like one of those old Jaguars, good for the hundred yard dash and then you have to roll me back into the garage for another overhaul.
My Atlanta doesn't venture onto the road very often and for good reason.Here we have drivers who like to ride their pickup trucks alongside unsuspecting bikers and nudge then off their bikes with their sideview mirrors onto the roadside or even the promised land. So I stick to the paved trail here in Plano TX better known as the Chisom Trail. Yes, its the same Chisom trail that the cattlemen used to hurd their steers on the way to an earlier Americas dinner tables. The trail has many trees providing shade from the summer heat. It follows a good sized creek which opens into a small man made lake filled with ducks turtles and Mamas' with baby carriages. The city has done a great job of creating parks along the way and there are many open areas for a sprint or two. My favorite pastime is letting young bikers pass me going downhill so I can smoke em going up hill. The Atlanta can climb.
As I have spent more time in this setting I began visualizing a bike to handle the broken pavement. It would be a frame made of steel. Nothing fancy with new age materials like carbon, ti, scandium, etc. Sorry Otrott fans. It had to be able to mount 700 X 35 tires for the comfort factor. I may not know a great deal about bikes, but if this size tire is good enough for Grant Person then its good enough for me. I also thought that a longer wheelbase could only help. Finally the most difficult part, it had to be inexpensive and the more inexpensive the better.
Well I spent months looking at manufactors web sites. There are a lot of new designs that provide a more upright riding position than what we 've had in the past. Two that come to mind are the Gunner Sport and the Soma Smoothie ES but they couldn't handle the 35mm tire. Then there was the IF Club Racer a beautiful design with an even more beautiful price tag. The Atlantis looked like a winner but with a $1300 price for the frame set it was dispached. It seemed like I was left with cross bikes as the logical style bike for the trail. Yes, but almost all of them had longer top tubes in stock sizes than I could be comfortable with. Picky, picky, picky. Two bikes came in with high possibilities and the best prices, the Trek 520 tourer but again in my size the top tube was too long, the Bianchi Volpi which had the right sized top tube but too short a wheelbase. Maybe I should open my wallet a little wider and seek the wisdom of new custom builder going off on his own.
I laid out my requirements for a new trail bike to a unnamed bike designer who had recently gone off on his own. I could tell he really liked the idea. It fit his independent spirit.It all sounded great until he gave me the price. I ran in horror. Your right, I never should have bothered this man in the first place.What was I thinking? Now I was getting desperate and there was only onechoice for desperate people, Ebay. Where else can you buy a Lexus for the price of a Chebee?
There is something fasinating about looking at thousands of bikes in all kinds of sizes, types, colors and makes in whats got to be the worlds biggest flea market.I never knew there were so many people who bearely road their bikes. Must be some kind of bike desease. But the experience of looking was also inspiring. The more I looked the more I was refining my requirements and what I wanted from a bike. Then when I was about to stop I came across a bike I had never seen before. It was a steel cross soft tail with compact geomertry made by KHS called the CX100. It had a thingmagig on the seat stays that aborbed the bumps. I knew KHS had made some very nice bikes years ago and was also building bikes for other brands such Bianchi. Obviously a good builder or the other brands wouldn't use them.
I checked out RoadbikeReviews and found only 5 reviews but all very favorable especially when it came to comfort. There was only one problem, they didn't make it anymore and the one on Ebay wasn't my size. So I called the manufactor.
Yep, said the polite young man, everybody loved it. Excuse me, everybody loved it so you stopped making it, I asked? Yes thats right, he replied, if the volume isn't high enough we drop it. You wouldn't happen to have one hanging around in one of your warehouses would you, I asked? Yes as a matter of fact we do but you wouldn't want it, he replied. Why is that, I asked? Its a return under our 25 year warrenty we have on all our frames, he said. Oh, a defective frame, I said? No not when we made it, it was run over by a truck and has some blood on it. Yea, your right I hate bikes with blood on them. I understand, he said. I thanked him for his time.
Well I had come a long way to be left out in the cold. Next stop, Google. Wherein I plug in KHS CX100 and up pops a list of all kinds of stuff on the CX100. One in particuliar is a LBS by the name of Quad Cycles in Arlington MA owned and run by a very fine gentelmen by the name of Rustem Gode. He had one left in my size and its a custom upgrade made with Ture Temper Tubing built with Ultegra at his close out price of 1K.I asked Rustem if he would change out the STI for a monkey bar with Rocket grip shifters, cross wheels with Victoria 35 Randonneurs tires. He graceously agreed. So if your looking for a bike, you really ought give this man a call. He has some great deals and I really liked dealing with him. 781 648 5222
What about the ride? Well, all I can say is, its as smooth as a babies' ***. Drum roll please for your viewing pleasure, The Trail Master. The pictures will be posted under a new tread entitled " The Trail Master Pictures" once I figure out how to post pictures.
My Atlanta doesn't venture onto the road very often and for good reason.Here we have drivers who like to ride their pickup trucks alongside unsuspecting bikers and nudge then off their bikes with their sideview mirrors onto the roadside or even the promised land. So I stick to the paved trail here in Plano TX better known as the Chisom Trail. Yes, its the same Chisom trail that the cattlemen used to hurd their steers on the way to an earlier Americas dinner tables. The trail has many trees providing shade from the summer heat. It follows a good sized creek which opens into a small man made lake filled with ducks turtles and Mamas' with baby carriages. The city has done a great job of creating parks along the way and there are many open areas for a sprint or two. My favorite pastime is letting young bikers pass me going downhill so I can smoke em going up hill. The Atlanta can climb.
As I have spent more time in this setting I began visualizing a bike to handle the broken pavement. It would be a frame made of steel. Nothing fancy with new age materials like carbon, ti, scandium, etc. Sorry Otrott fans. It had to be able to mount 700 X 35 tires for the comfort factor. I may not know a great deal about bikes, but if this size tire is good enough for Grant Person then its good enough for me. I also thought that a longer wheelbase could only help. Finally the most difficult part, it had to be inexpensive and the more inexpensive the better.
Well I spent months looking at manufactors web sites. There are a lot of new designs that provide a more upright riding position than what we 've had in the past. Two that come to mind are the Gunner Sport and the Soma Smoothie ES but they couldn't handle the 35mm tire. Then there was the IF Club Racer a beautiful design with an even more beautiful price tag. The Atlantis looked like a winner but with a $1300 price for the frame set it was dispached. It seemed like I was left with cross bikes as the logical style bike for the trail. Yes, but almost all of them had longer top tubes in stock sizes than I could be comfortable with. Picky, picky, picky. Two bikes came in with high possibilities and the best prices, the Trek 520 tourer but again in my size the top tube was too long, the Bianchi Volpi which had the right sized top tube but too short a wheelbase. Maybe I should open my wallet a little wider and seek the wisdom of new custom builder going off on his own.
I laid out my requirements for a new trail bike to a unnamed bike designer who had recently gone off on his own. I could tell he really liked the idea. It fit his independent spirit.It all sounded great until he gave me the price. I ran in horror. Your right, I never should have bothered this man in the first place.What was I thinking? Now I was getting desperate and there was only onechoice for desperate people, Ebay. Where else can you buy a Lexus for the price of a Chebee?
There is something fasinating about looking at thousands of bikes in all kinds of sizes, types, colors and makes in whats got to be the worlds biggest flea market.I never knew there were so many people who bearely road their bikes. Must be some kind of bike desease. But the experience of looking was also inspiring. The more I looked the more I was refining my requirements and what I wanted from a bike. Then when I was about to stop I came across a bike I had never seen before. It was a steel cross soft tail with compact geomertry made by KHS called the CX100. It had a thingmagig on the seat stays that aborbed the bumps. I knew KHS had made some very nice bikes years ago and was also building bikes for other brands such Bianchi. Obviously a good builder or the other brands wouldn't use them.
I checked out RoadbikeReviews and found only 5 reviews but all very favorable especially when it came to comfort. There was only one problem, they didn't make it anymore and the one on Ebay wasn't my size. So I called the manufactor.
Yep, said the polite young man, everybody loved it. Excuse me, everybody loved it so you stopped making it, I asked? Yes thats right, he replied, if the volume isn't high enough we drop it. You wouldn't happen to have one hanging around in one of your warehouses would you, I asked? Yes as a matter of fact we do but you wouldn't want it, he replied. Why is that, I asked? Its a return under our 25 year warrenty we have on all our frames, he said. Oh, a defective frame, I said? No not when we made it, it was run over by a truck and has some blood on it. Yea, your right I hate bikes with blood on them. I understand, he said. I thanked him for his time.
Well I had come a long way to be left out in the cold. Next stop, Google. Wherein I plug in KHS CX100 and up pops a list of all kinds of stuff on the CX100. One in particuliar is a LBS by the name of Quad Cycles in Arlington MA owned and run by a very fine gentelmen by the name of Rustem Gode. He had one left in my size and its a custom upgrade made with Ture Temper Tubing built with Ultegra at his close out price of 1K.I asked Rustem if he would change out the STI for a monkey bar with Rocket grip shifters, cross wheels with Victoria 35 Randonneurs tires. He graceously agreed. So if your looking for a bike, you really ought give this man a call. He has some great deals and I really liked dealing with him. 781 648 5222
What about the ride? Well, all I can say is, its as smooth as a babies' ***. Drum roll please for your viewing pleasure, The Trail Master. The pictures will be posted under a new tread entitled " The Trail Master Pictures" once I figure out how to post pictures.