More New Numbers

It's time for some additional numbers.

1 and 29: As in 1 speed and 29 inches. I finally gulped down the last of the Kool Aid and got myself a big-wheeled singlespeed. I already had a 29er full-suspension trail bike and an XC-ish hardtail, leaving my Chameleon SS the sole 26er in the quiver. For my riding style and the rocky desert trails on which I roll, the big wheels just do it better. I also went back to a rigid fork and, for the first time in about a decade, I'm on a steel frame.

I took the bike - a 2011 Kona Unit - out for a spin this morning and just could not stop grinning. It handled, not surprisingly, like a Kona. My first SS was a 1999 Kaboom and that old bike was just plain right in terms of ride quality and fit. The Unit takes my old bike's intuitive handling and adds short stays (for a 29er), the new-school long top tube/short stem combo, and, 28-effing-inch-wide bars that have a bigger wingspan than what's on my KLR650. My only reservation is that I worry I won't ride the gearies often enough now that I have this thing.

2: The number of flat tires I've had on my new bike since picking it up on Friday. Mind you, these happened on the test ride, well before I ever hit a real trail. You'd think I would know, after having lived in Arizona most of my life, that the fastest way to get a puncture is not to ride around in the desert with all of the thorns, spines, glochids and occasional piles of broken glass. No, the quickest way hear to a hissing noise is to go off the sidewalk right in town. I evidently rolled through some puncture vine - which thrives in the highly-disturbed environs of the city - because I picked up about a dozen goatheads between my front and rear tires. On the plus side, the new bike uses sliding dropouts and a QR on the back, allowing me to get the back wheel out (and back in) without bollocksing up the chain tension and disk alignment.

24: The approximate length, in inches, of the last snake I came across. BeanSS and I were walking around the block a few nights ago when she called out "SNAKE!" After what happened last week with the rattlesnake, I was more than a bit motivated the get out of the way. I just barely saw it in the moonlight, and let me just say I haven't moved my feet that quickly since skanking at a Toasters show in the late '90s. It turned out to be a bullsnake, so the biggest risk would have been me stepping on him, not getting bit.

1: The number of beers I've had since November of last year, up from zero at the end of March. There were two bottles of beer in the refrigerator: one of my Steinlagers and one of BeanSS's Czechvars. And while I'm still on a somewhat-disciplined diet and a variety of meds, I'm also a cheapskate who just couldn't bear to pour out a perfectly good beer. Anyway, long story short, we each drank our respective beers and then went on with our lives. I guess it seemed more meaningful at the time.

100 and 1,000: To review, these are my annual goals for the number of round-trip bike commutes and the miles I hope to cover in the process. I buried them both a while ago and am still rolling up the miles.