Friday, October 31, 2008


And here is the finished ride. The kanji on the down tube and seat tube read, Ichi go, Ichi e, which is a Japanese saying that translates roughly into, "you have one chance in life, so make it your best," or alternately, "every instance is unique and valuable." Honestly, it sounds a lot less corny in Japanese. I first heard this term on a sake brewery tour when we were in Nagano in which our host's actions truly exemplified the idea of ichi go ichi e.
As for the bike, I put it together at Trophy Bikes and took it for a quick test ride earlier today. The ride quality is TOTALLY SWEET! I realize that I have a bit of a bias, but truthfully I have ridden very few bikes that felt nicer. The bike seems to float over bumpy road surfaces, almost as if it were on giant baloon tires, but nope, they are just 700x23 clinchers pumped hard as rocks. My big worry was that I had not gotten the frame alignment right, but that seems dead on too; riding no-handed is no problem. Oh yeah, and it corners like a fricking roller coaster and it accelerates as fast as anything I've ever ridden. Maybe that's due to the fact that it weighs only 16.5 pounds! I had no idea that it was going to be so light and honestly did a full on "YESSSS!" complete with double fist pump when I hung it on the scale.

Despite my bias, I think that my claims are somewhat well founded. I had as many people as I could test ride it earlier today, mostly to show off, but everyone was suitably impressed, and I don't think that they were just doing it to be nice. I am SUPER PSYCHED, as was Jennifer. She insisted that I take pictures of the bike and post them as soon as I could, and then proceeded to put the bike in the bedroom so that she could take pictures of it. I think that she likes it.

Here are some shots:




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