After a ton of fun biking on Europe and seeing a new tightness in my legs, I decided it was probably time to pick up a road bike. I have a blue beach cruiser I used for a few years in college. My campus was fairly easy to bike around on a cruiser and it has a basket and it’s generally a pleasant ride. Cupertino on the other hand has some funny inclines and my cruiser is a bit heavy to lug about on weekend trips to the city or Shoreline. 

So today, I picked up this vintage blue touring bike for about $95 off Craigslist. I didn’t want to spend much on something that wasn’t essential so the price was right. Size wise, it’s perfect. I have a lot of problems finding bikes because my legs are just so stupidly short. And I love that the handlebars aren’t the funny curved ones that force you to bend over-these I can ride while sitting up comfortably. It’s light and quick and the seat is nice.

On the other hand, because it is vintage (guessing early ’80s), it has these funny knob shifters that I have never seen in my life. So far I haven’t gotten them to work successfully. They’re positioned in the middle of the downtube so I have to take my hands off the handlebars to change them, which is somewhat annoying. I’ve only gone on flat road so far so it hasn’t been an issue but I would really like to be able to change gears. I’m getting rid of my single speed cruiser for a reason.

Tomorrow, some girl is coming by to check out my old bike and hopefully haul it away so I can break even on this bike purchase. I’ll kind of miss my easy ride but hopefully once this old thing starts cooperating, I won’t miss it at all.