The place I journey, within the wild lands instantly north of the town, you might be liable to see all kinds of animals. There’s the deer:
The hawk:
And naturally the Platypus:
I’ve been doing a whole lot of bicycle fine-tuning recently. Nonetheless, the Platypus was one bike I felt was…nicely, you by no means prefer to say “excellent,” as a result of nothing’s ever excellent, so I’ll use the extra irritatingly colloquial adjective “dialed.” I’d given it fatter tires, I’d rearranged the cockpit, however now it was dialed, I used to be finished futzing with it, and that was that.
However then I modified the bars on the A. Homer Hilsen the opposite day, leaving me with a superbly good Choco bar–which I occur to essentially like, even when I feel the drops do convey out the Homer’s full potential. This bought me fascinated about how the Choco would really feel on the Platypus instead of the Tosco bar I used to be utilizing:
[Photo: Rivendell]
I like the texture of this bar and haven’t any complaints about it…although I do use the portion of it in entrance of the brake and shift levers pretty usually (I fitted it with a second pair of grips for simply this motive), and as you possibly can see, is curved to present the bars their rise:
In the meantime, the Choco is equally formed (roughly talking) whereas providing each a flatter ahead-of-the-levers part and a usable bend, corresponding with the cloth-wrapped portion:
It appeared to me that swapping the bars would possibly improve each climbing and sooner driving on the flats. Furthermore, because the bars have been of comparable proportions, and because the Platypus has an open-face stem, I wouldn’t must mess with the cables or cable size or something like that. All I’d must do was slide off the grips:
[Pour a thimbleful of rubbing alcohol in there and they slide right off.]
And pop the highest:
For all two of you searching for detailed Rivendell bar comparisons, right here’s a barely higher comparability shot:
Each bars have a number of sweep, however the Choco is somewhat narrower and fairly a bit flatter. Rise is nice if you happen to want it, however since I don’t want any assist getting the bars excessive sufficient on the 60cm Platypus, it appeared just like the swap can be worthwhile if it netted me simpler hand positions in the long run. Right here’s how all the pieces seemed once I was finished:
First I spent somewhat time driving round and fidgeting with the lever positions:
Then I hit the native greenway:
On the Homer, the beneficiant sweep of the Choco made driving with my arms the place the grips are really feel somewhat cramped. Nonetheless, on the rather more generously-proportioned Platypus, I’ve bought room to stretch out, and the flatter cloth-wrapped portion does certainly facilitate climbing and encourage extra spirited driving–and I can guarantee you that regardless of the flowery lugs and valuable paint and all the remainder of it the Platypus is a full of life bike that’s more than pleased to throw down. In truth I’m usually tempted to ditch the rear bag and the lobster lure basket to lighten it up and actually give the Platypus its head (that’s an equestrian expression, to not be confused with giving a platypus head, which you actually shouldn’t do as a result of they sting), however I the easy truth is that I take advantage of them an excessive amount of, and even once I don’t have stuff to hold or errands to run I’m usually very blissful for the basket since I can dump layers in there with out even getting off the bike:
Talking of the greenway, the north Bronx is the shared micromobility capital of New York Metropolis:
They don’t permit shared scooters and stuff elsewhere within the New York Metropolis, however the DOT is working varied pilot applications within the Bronx, so whether or not it’s Veo:
Or Lime:
And even good old school Citi Bikes:
You’ll find all of them up right here, strewn alongside the roadside.
Anyway, the times now are shorter than a mountain biker’s stem, so night time fell as I used to be driving:
And by the point I emerged from the woods it was Christmas:
I used to be fairly happy with the bar swap, however issues look lots totally different at night time:
Even if you use a flash:
So as we speak I headed out for one more, longer journey within the blinding mild of day:
This solely served to reaffirm the bar swap labored out in my favor, and now each the Homer and the Platypus are all the higher for my tinkering.
