Sun Spider reconsidered

This whole idea so far has been mostly a failure. And other bike nerds told me so. And I'll add that I''m impressed by the great restraint they've shown in not publicly saying so. Because, well, I wouldn't show that restraint.

Anyway. Let's try this.

The oft-carried-on-about "river place" is pretty perfect for this one-trick-pony of a bike. The quick runs to the "sandy beach," the fishing spots, and the "end of the road" are in a series on a flat dirt road.
So that works well for the gearing on this bike. But even better: it works for the braking, which I think the Sturmey Archer guys sort of blew off in their eagerness to get the 2-speed kick back gearing figured out. I bombed down Howard on this bike today. There's a section there between 23rd and 21st Aves where it gets sort of steep. Laying on this coaster brake was frightening: the hub did a lot of knocking and even a bit of squeaking/squawking.

Whatever. So, the main destinations at the river are flat, and that's a good thing.

There's some sand here and there and some pretty wide open, but bumpy fields. So those attributes sort of justify the tires.

There's also a scenario that could be interesting whilst and at the same time is sort of irresponsible and stupid: the boozer is 3 miles of flat railroad away (or 3 miles of twisty rollers on 395 with no shoulder -- think closing time to complete the scenario). I got no other rubber that could handle rail rock and railroad ties like this Spider can. Just saying.

The bars, obviously, are awesome. Thanks Glen. I got a bit carried away with pushing them out, so I'll need to remedy that, but otherwise, they rule. The Lil' Joe bag fits a growler and a sweater in an eerily perfect way. Don't tell me that kind of perfectness happens by chance.

The only fix I need to make before it lives, forever, at the river, is to remove those super ultra bitchin Suntour bear traps and replace them with something suitably plastic and cheesy.

Party on.