<https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-cHbGGgxiNk4/V0UEREUNE2I/AAAAAAAAGug/prQkvy00OGYltC-xv1M1GFTJU5rf1Q0wgCLcB/s1600/IMG_2092.JPG> Or, Le Tour Redux
My main commuter & around & about bike before the Clementine was my Schwinn Le Tour, doing its impersonation of a Cheviot. Its chainstays are not as long, and it only takes a 35mm tire with fenders, but a super fun ride. When C came to town, the Le Tour was unceremoniously stripped of its Back-o-bike bags and the Piccolo Moose rack and left with fender stays dangling, looking forlorn and forgotten in a corner of the bedroom. But while the Clementine gets most of the miles these days, I wanted to keep a few other bikes in the rotation. Last Saturday I road the Noodled Kuwahara to work, and I wanted to compare the Albatross to the Boscos after giving the Bs a few months (The Riv upright handlebar ABCs: A=Albatross, B=Bosco, C=Choco), so I dug around for a rack and found some hardware and a pannier and pumped up the tires. I really dislike the asymmetrical pannier look, may be forced to buy a match. Monday is my day off and I went for a ride on my favorite little loop around town and diverted off to the one mile Dennings Point trail. Some photos here: https://goo.gl/photos/ZE7TtQbt1dt4Nctn9 Everything was popping spring green. I startled a family of geese at the trailhead to Dennings, and they swam off, with the Gateway to the Hudson Highlands in the distance; that's Breakneck on the left, Storm King on the right. Dennings Point was the site of a brick works, and it supplied the blocks of hardened clay used in building the Empire State Building. A few stretches of the path feature embedded bricks with the DPBW appellation protruding somewhat hazardously. Not just industrial history here; Alexander Hamilton wrote early drafts of the Federalist Papers on this spit of land. Toward the farthest point out, I took the shot of Mount Beacon, with the towers on top. Late May and the showy flowering trees and the gaudy early bloomers of spring are gone and the mid-summer wildflower extravaganza is not yet here, but there are lots of species of smaller white and yellow and purple flowers tucked in the woods and fields. Along the Hudson, another goose eyed a mylar balloon with a threatening stare, as geese are wont to do. Riv content: Literally, at the moment, the German mirror. But the Le Tour is of course inspired in some measure by Rivendell Bicycle Works (and was knocked out of the top spot in the rotation by a RBW bicycle.) And reading Petersen's latest post just now, it dawned on me that in some ways, Rivendell could be seen as the spiritual successor to the Schwinn brand when it was at its apex of quality. In terms of quality bicycles built to last, of what one imagines the ethos of the company might have been in its earlier days, not sales or ubiquitousness or popularity--obviously we live in a different time. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
