Originally Posted by
chicbicyclist
For a forum nut, 15 miles is routine. For everyone else, it's not.
For a bike commuter, I'd say 15 miles is on the longish side of average. The article was nominally about bike commuting, not about non-bike-commuting. In the real world, people cover real distances.
And I'll give you the flat argument (but even then, many already sport the heavy thorn resistant tires), but if you have chain problems, you got a crappy bike. The dutch bike is designed entirely to be ride and go, and even sports a full chain case so you don't even have to bother with them apart from the yearly or twice yearly trip to the lbs.
You know as well as I do that there's no such thing as a trouble-free bike. You really want to fix minor problems in $798 of overpriced clothing, in summer, in New York?
(And the "chain problems=crappy bike" thing is very silly.)
If it breaks down, just walk 3 miles and call your boss. It's no different than if your car breaks down or if the transit authority stops service for a couple of hours.
Of course it's different.
When a car transmission pukes its guts onto the pavement, you're stuck until the tow truck comes. There's nothing you can do.
When a subway train stops because somebody committed suicide on the A line, you're stuck until they mop up the lymph. There's nothing you can do.
When a bike has any little dumb issues--let's say, since you've conceded they have flats sometimes that that's what's happened--it takes a couple of minutes to patch or replace it, and then you keep going.
You really think the most attractive options when a tube blows are either getting tire grunge on your $500 linen pants or walking your 46-pound 3-speed three miles and being late to work? I don't. I'd rather get tire grunge on my $95 black rain pants (in the winter) or my $0 hairy kneecap (in the summer) and arrive at work on time, as though nothing happened. That's one of the beautiful things about bike commuting. The chain comes off, you don't wait for a tow truck. The tube goes flat, you don't sit trapped underground.
Anybody who's been doing it for more than, oh, let's pick a good-sounding time period...ONE YEAR knows how to deal with a flat or put a chain back on.
In those clothes?
On those bikes?
Fahgeddaboudit. They're for bike commuting in Narnia.