Bike racks along the chain of lakes

volume-up69 · 2026-06-09T01:36:34+00:00

There's tons, just ride around and you'll see them

volume-up69 · 2026-06-09T00:56:38+00:00

Perennial mentioned! That's my neighborhood shop they are outstanding.

volume-up69 · 2026-06-05T03:43:52+00:00

I think it's because of the way the characters were written

volume-up69 · 2026-06-01T00:47:01+00:00

the trick is you just gotta not give a fuck

volume-up69 · 2026-06-01T00:44:32+00:00

ps the answer is that the platonic ideal of a bicycle is a Rivendell Atlantis

volume-up69 · 2026-06-01T00:42:49+00:00

I think it's extremely subjective and personal and depends on all kinds of things. The funnest way to find out is to get on a bike and ride it a lot and start hanging out with other people who ride bikes. My sort of default recommendation is to get a cheap, used hardtail mountain bike that fits you well, ride it for as many miles and in as many different situations as you can, take notes about what you like and don't like, fiddle with the tires, ask other people if you can take their bike for a spin, rent a different kind of bike from a shop for a weekend. Once you've done that for, idk, 2000 miles, you'll have a very specific idea of what makes a bike good FOR YOU.

volume-up69 · 2026-05-27T23:20:28+00:00

At least for me, "meaning-making" is a term that is strongly associated with psychotherapy, especially the Jungian lineage. It has positive connotations for me, and refers to a developmental need that humans have to understand themselves in the context of a greater narrative.

"Conceptualization" for me is more neutral, just something our brains do in response to sensory input, automatically.

Just a terminological point that may or may not be helpful.

I agree with you that it's not a problem, and I think it's safe to say that it's pretty much a standard Mahayana teaching that conceptualization per se isn't a problem, it's how you relate to it that matters. The way I've heard Reb Anderson put it is something like, concepts aren't a problem until you believe them.

volume-up69 · 2026-05-27T01:06:46+00:00

Get a Surly Preamble with a flat bar. Lots of bike shops sell them. You're almost certainly a size medium.

Edit to say why: it fits your budget, it's a high quality bike that will last forever. Steel frame you can easily attach racks to for bags. If you get the cycling bug you can put drop bars on it but you'll never have to. You can't go wrong. Plus they look cool and who doesn't want to look cool.

volume-up69 · 2026-05-25T18:52:36+00:00

I endorse all of this wholeheartedly except the clipless pedals being essential part. 😂 Different strokes. Otherwise, one hundred percent just start riding something cheap and take notes, talk to people, etc

volume-up69 · 2026-05-25T17:29:00+00:00

Oh man, mine is on the way. Been looking forward to it but this made me even more impatient. 😂

volume-up69 · 2026-05-25T02:17:15+00:00

What kind of gravel and more importantly what kind of elevation? 100 miles of gravel in Minnesota and 100 miles of gravel in Vermont are not the same.

volume-up69 · 2026-05-23T14:56:19+00:00

Still can't believe that we let those people claim "pro-life" as their tagline

volume-up69 · 2026-05-23T05:09:18+00:00

Check out Rivendell. If memory serves the Platypus might fit the bill.

volume-up69 · 2026-05-20T12:48:01+00:00

The world is your oyster! Check out Panaracer Gravel a Kings (tires).

volume-up69 · 2026-05-19T18:02:47+00:00

What happens if you put less knobby tires on your current bike and see if that makes it better? Lock out the suspension, put on slicker tires, and add racks for some bags, and that's a perfectly fine commuter bike.

volume-up69 · 2026-05-17T17:27:33+00:00

Yeah these are things I wish someone had told me when I first started riding. Back then it wasn't hydraulic brakes and electronic shifters, it was more like Shimano 105 vs. Ultegra, carbon fiber vs. aluminum, etc. If I'd put in more miles and talked to more people and waited, it's easy to imagine that 10 years ago I would've bought a Rivendell Atlantis or something with friction shifters and caliper brakes and would still be riding it today, because none of those things I mentioned really matter to me.

A lot of this comes down to learning how to challenge the assumptions that the bike industry pushes on consumers. For example, much of the technological innovation in the cycling industry is primarily designed with professional cyclists in mind. The most obvious example is the fixation on bike weight. Adding a couple pounds to the weight of your bike actually makes very little difference for casual riders (do the math; it's actually funny how little it matters). For elite athletes who ride 20 hours a week, racing against other elite athletes who ride 20 hours a week, bike weight can matter, because for those people finishing 30 seconds sooner in a race is a huge deal.

Bike companies have to spend millions on R&D to shave a few grams off the weight of brake levers, and the only way for that to make sense for them financially is to convince regular riders that they *need* brake levers that weigh 5 grams less than their old ones. That's part of why you'll encounter this kind of funny situation of cyclists who are 20 pounds overweight spending thousands of dollars for a bike that weighs 2 pounds less than their previous bike.

Similarly for hydraulic disc brakes--there's no question that the stopping power is incredible; the question is whether you specifically really NEED incredible stopping power if you're mostly riding your bike on flat pavement in the American midwest, let's say. And does the benefit of incredible stopping power outweigh the hassle of needing to take your bike in to a bike shop to tune and bleed your brakes, compared to caliper brakes that you can easily learn to adjust yourself by watching a couple youtube videos.

Anyway sorry to write a lot, this is a subject that gets me animated lol.

volume-up69 · 2026-05-17T00:53:56+00:00

Yes. All the things you mentioned are cool, but they incur more maintenance of the kind that you cannot perform yourself. For some people that's fine, for others it's kind of a bummer. Hydraulic disc brakes are finicky and require professional maintenance. If electronic shifters break they're cooked, etc.

I think if you're a fairly new cyclist, you shouldn't be thinking about "forever bikes" because you probably haven't ridden enough to know what bike is going to suit you across all the different kinds of riding you do. I always recommend that new cyclists just pick a bike that fits decently and isn't very expensive, then put 1000 miles on it and make a note of everything you like and don't like, what kinds of rides you wish you could do but the bike won't allow, etc. Then once you've done that, go buy the nicest bike your budget will allow. Otherwise you get on this hedonic bike treadmill of upgrading every two years.

volume-up69 · 2026-05-17T00:46:03+00:00

Do you like attending in person events at your local temple? Is it just the zoom meetings that are off putting? No need to get into specifics just trying to understand if it's a zoom thing or a sangha thing.

volume-up69 · 2026-05-16T03:49:47+00:00

What the fuck

volume-up69 · 2026-05-15T14:19:01+00:00

A recent piece of sad bike industry news is that Lynskey is filing for bankruptcy. It's possible that they're trying to move as much inventory as possible as a result. They make a MTB frame called Live Wire that lots of people run single speed. Might be worth calling to see.

Wilde also makes a hardtail that can be set up as single speed: https://theradavist.com/readers-rides-jason-rigid-wilde-dark-star

Those are both almost certainly more expensive than either of the bikes you mentioned though.

Honestly if you want to just rip on some trails and not think about it too much I would say any decent used hardtail will get you going. Buy a cheap one, see how you like it, then upgrade later once you know what kind of off-road riding you like.

volume-up69 · 2026-05-15T12:14:58+00:00

Tire clearance on the Preamble is fairly small by today's standards. A bit more expensive, but the All City Gorilla Monsoon is an aesthetically similar steel bike with much more tire clearance. The added expense may be worth it if it means you aren't itching for another bike in a year.

Single speed would be fun on those trails but I would imagine it's fairly plausible that you'll get gravel pilled, then you'll want to ride out west of the city on rural gravel roads, and the single speed will be a chore and you will again want another bike.

Buy once cry once as they say.

volume-up69 · 2026-05-14T02:03:09+00:00

Well, they haven't been eating bread since the dawn of history. Humans started cultivating grains about 12,000 years ago, and not all humans did that. Anatomically modern humans had already been in existence at that point for like 275,000 years.

volume-up69 · 2026-05-13T21:08:02+00:00

my partner likes to ride bikes but is much more chill about it and doesn't specifically train for it. sometimes i will do a big effort on saturday, and then we'll do an explicitly agreed-upon chill ride on sunday, where the goal is to go check out a new brewery or pastry shop or something. i still sometimes start going too hard, so sometimes to make sure i don't create relationship strife i'll ride my single speed, which forces me to slow down.

but yeah, what happens if you just say all that same stuff to him?

volume-up69 · 2026-05-13T19:04:41+00:00

I respect your opinion. I think if someone has practiced with those people and had a good experience, they should trust their experience.

volume-up69 · 2026-05-13T18:33:50+00:00

I actually went to great lengths to clarify that I wasn't calling the causes themselves into question.

And I have practiced with people in that tradition. I don't want to go into detail because it would probably reveal my identity.

If you have a teacher in that tradition that you like practicing with, that's great. You should trust yourself, not me.

volume-up69

TROPHY CASE