Bikes on boats...

One of the few problems I have with the CAL 34 is that there is simply no place to store a pair of bicycles. Bikes were a big part of our traveling style while we lived and cruised in Europe and the Med and Loose Moose 2 had a storage area forward where two full sized bikes, touring gear and suchlike could live quite happily. The bikes gave us a range of land travel and improvement in the quality of life that made all the difference. We used them for everything from shopping to hauling water from a natural water spring or visiting a winery we'd heard good things about or simply just riding for the enjoyment of it all...

Of course I have searched and searched among compact and various folding bikes trying to find the sort of bike that will work for our needs while being stowable and up to the marine environment but so far nothing quite makes the grade.

Now that we are laying the groundwork for building "Loose Moose 3" we are back to looking at full sized bikes but lately there have been some developments on the folding front that just may work out for "So It Goes"...

Bike Friday has a very interesting website that really has a hook for people like me as it concentrates on real people who ride their bikes. I'm always impressed about products that are so liked by their clients that they become a community of sorts... In Bike Fridays there is a very strong sense that buying into a Bike Friday bike is as much joining a community as buying a bike. This alone is enough to make me want to try out their bikes. People who have these bikes are our kind of people.

Of course I'll admit to being something of a conservative where bikes are concerned. Little wheels do make me somewhat uneasy for long distance touring which is just the sort of thing I like and doing a century on a Saturday with a double on Sunday used to be my standard weekend riding pattern. Whether or not I'll like the Bike Friday and its little wheels for an "only" bike is unsure. However, if they are half as good as their clients seem to think and I were looking for a bike to add to a quiver, the Pocket Llama would be a slam dunk.

Another bike that has got my attention is the Swiss Bike which seems to be better than most of the more or less full size folding mountain type bike. Montague has been making folders for ages and they seem to have it down to something of a science... well the folding part at least as the Montagues I have ridden in the past have not quite had the ride I was looking for. That said, I have heard some very positive noises about the Swiss Bike XO and it is very much on my list of bikes to try in the not too distant future.

There is an alternative to the folding bike which opens a lot of possibilities to the discerning rider/sailor and it is the neat Bicycle torque couplings (BTC's) built by S & S Machine which can be added while having a frame built for you or even retrofitted to most frames which will make your bike a take down rather than a folder... Two bikes of this sort on my radar are the Ultimate Travel Bike by R&E Cycles (it even has a bottle opener in the frame!) and the Retro Unleaded or the 29er Unleaded by SyCip designs which are available with the BTC"s and seriously WICKED!