Interesting that today I got one of those "X years ago today" photos from Google of the 5-day trip I took across Missouri on the Katy Trail on my brand new 2013 Crosstrail -- the high-end model in the first year they came out. It looks so clean and shiny!
This bike has been my go-to bike ever since and has accompanied me on rides like the Great Allegheny-C&O Canal route (a couple of times) plus rides on 100s of miles of rail-trails and such around my home state of Michigan.
What makes this semi-ironic is that I think I've finally found the replacement for all of the things that I currently do with it, which at 75yo has become somewhat less ambitious. My new bike is a Specialized Vado SL 5.0. That's right -- I've gone over to the Dark Side
. But in my defense, I've already determined that on mostly flat terrain and when I'm feeling strong, the bike is not that much more effort to pedal
with the motor off than the Crosstrail. As I've equipped it, it weighs 38lbs, which is much more manageable than the 60lb e-bike I've had the last two years. The geometry is very similar to the Crosstrail, including 700x38 tires. This particular model comes with a carbon FutureShock fork and SRAM 12-speed 11-50 cassette, and with the Redshift Shockstop seat post it rides very smoothly on rough pavement, gravel roads, etc. I'll be sorry to see the old Crosstrail go, but it sure looks like I'm heading in that direction...
