Arrival

November 18, 2022

It's here! It's here!

CHRISTMAS HAS COME EARLY this year.

The long-awaited, much-anticipated announcement arrived by email just after 0900 this morning.

The day I've waited for and dreamt of since mid-September when I placed the order has finally arrived, at long last. It's been an Odyssey worthy of the name to get to this point, both in the narrow sense of the shipment and in the wider sense of the journey through identifying and weighing the alternatives, making a selection, and dialing in the final options.

Yesterday afternoon, after having stalled around for a month and knowing the Rodriguez would arrive today, I listed Odysseus (my Bike Friday New World Tourist, if you are somehow unaware of that by this time) for sale on the Yak List, Bike Friday's interest and discussion forum on Google Groups. As much as I'm ready to make the switch, and as eager as I am to have the Rodriguez at my disposal, it wasn't without a slight wrench of feeling that I clicked the "Post message" button and released the "For Sale" announcement into the ether.

I won't be disappointed if it doesn't sell immediately- it's the start of the slow season, for one thing, and for another I'm secretly still hoping to have an airline-friendly bike if I'm ever lucky enough to go cycling in Europe on a non-tandem excursion- but on a more practical level it'll likely have to be disassembled and stored in its suitcase in order to make room for the new upstart.

It's here! It's here! The 3:15 PM "At delivery" is a red herring: the driver went to a similar address a few miles away. There was no Keith Adams there, of course, so he rechecked and discovered his mistake. We get mail and delivery attempts for the other address routinely so I knew the score right away.

The box arrived with superficial scars but nothing serious, and the bike inside is pristine.

Just a minimal bit of battle damage outside...

The next hour or so was consumed by me happily puttering: align the handlebars, install some pedals, remove the foam... and of course, photographing all the details.

It is with pleasure that I unveil to the world, my new ride. I still haven't settled on a name but that will come in good time.

Overview. I'm not sure about that saddle, but I have others waiting in the wings if it should prove not to be viable.

Front hub, from White Industries XMR series.

Rear hub (also White Industries XMR series) and cassette.

The essential option. I'll verify its functionality tomorrow.

I'm unfamiliar with this brand of crank but that doesn't mean much: it's been years since I last paid attention to such things.

The maker's mark. There are several details that make it clear where the bike came from.

An indelible imprint of the bike's lineage. I particularly like this touch.

Tomorrow I'll take the bike up to my favorite shop to have the steerer cut down and make whatever twiddling adjustments are needed. I'll also pick up some fenders- they have a bamboo set that I think would be a smashing addition- and see what I can do for front and rear racks.

I have several rear racks on hand (including a vintage Blackburn) but they're way narrower than the spacing between the dropouts. I also have a venerable Blackburn low rider front rack. For sentimental reasons if nothing else, I'd like to put those on. They hark back to the days of Scout, and in fact the front lowrider is the same one pictured elsewhere in this journal so there's that bit of continuity.

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