Perhaps a symptom of advancing age, but I think many here have come to appreciate touring bikes more in recent years. Since taking up commuting 8 months ago, I've worked on and ridden mostly bikes with racks, lights, mudguards, triple or very wide range double cranks, long cage RD's and yes Carradice bags. Sort of a whole new outlook on the sport. This is aided for me by the fact that West Texas, while cold compared to Houston or SoCal, is certainly a lot warmer than Ottawa, so one can ride almost every day of the year here, although one needs wool socks, gloves and caps, plus winter jackets, much of the winter, at least in the early morning when temperatures can be 50 deg F lower than at midday.
Carradice bags, especially the traditional waxed canvas models, really do epitomize classic touring cycling. I have two pairs of Carradice panniers, plus a front bag on a Nitto mount. One pair and the front bag have graced the Romic tourer I've been commuting on the last two weeks.
Regards,
Jerry Moos
Big Spring, Texas, USA
> From: Dr. Paul Williams <castell5@sympatico.ca>
\r?\n> Subject: [CR] This past summer I bought a Carradice saddlebag - am I going CTC? FRIDAY NIGHT REFLECTIONS (long as usual!)
\r?\n> To: "Classic Rendezvous" <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
\r?\n> Date: Friday, February 20, 2009, 8:40 PM
\r?\n> I write this while sitting here, doped up with cold meds and
\r?\n> fighting a
\r?\n> nasty virus caught from our youngest. But, my reflections
\r?\n> for this
\r?\n> Friday night take me away from the depths of despair of
\r?\n> Winter illnesses
\r?\n> and cold unforgiving weather ....
\r?\n>
\r?\n> It is funny how one's relationship with bicycles
\r?\n> appears to follow
\r?\n> different paths with the passage of time. One day last
\r?\n> Spring, I found
\r?\n> myself out on the wrong bike! We had gone away for the
\r?\n> weekend to see my
\r?\n> folks. Before leaving Ottawa, I had decided to put two
\r?\n> bikes on the car
\r?\n> - the 82 Bob Jackson and the 81 Raleigh - one a more
\r?\n> relaxed day-tourer
\r?\n> the other a pure race bike kitted out in Campag SR with a
\r?\n> straight
\r?\n> six-speed, corn-cob block. Whether it was bravado, machismo
\r?\n> or just
\r?\n> plain stupidity, I chose to ride the Raleigh the first
\r?\n> morning out. No
\r?\n> problem, I thought, I have been pounding the trainer all
\r?\n> Winter and have
\r?\n> been out a few times in Ottawa on various bikes. About
\r?\n> twenty minutes
\r?\n> out on a regular one-hour ride that takes me out onto
\r?\n> Eastern Ontario
\r?\n> country roads, I felt muscles begin to burn and I was
\r?\n> busting it trying
\r?\n> to fight both the gearing and a stiff headwind on the
\r?\n> return portion of
\r?\n> the ride.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> In truth, it was way too early in the season for such a
\r?\n> ride (made worse
\r?\n> by the autoshifting which still haunts this bike). Moreso,
\r?\n> I had been so
\r?\n> caught up in trying to "ride" the bike that I had
\r?\n> missed the glories of
\r?\n> a late-Spring morning.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> The next morning I rolled out the Jackson with its Brooks
\r?\n> Pro saddle,
\r?\n> mudguards, and mostly NR equipment. The Jackson has a
\r?\n> relaxed Maillard
\r?\n> Course block on NR hub and Weinmann - bomb-proof - concave
\r?\n> clincher
\r?\n> rims. The geometry is more forgiving than the Raleigh. It
\r?\n> has the feel
\r?\n> of a bike for a long ride in the saddle in relative
\r?\n> comfort.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> The sun was just coming up and there was a beautiful soft
\r?\n> mist across
\r?\n> the fields and portions of the road. Spinning along in more
\r?\n> comfort and
\r?\n> with a different sense of purpose, I had time to enjoy the
\r?\n> overwhelming
\r?\n> smell of the lilacs which were dotted along the country
\r?\n> roads.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Ahh, this was the right bike!
\r?\n>
\r?\n> As I have mentioned before, on many occasions, I never
\r?\n> raced and yet
\r?\n> from my teens had a passion for the racing machine. I liked
\r?\n> the idea of
\r?\n> pushing myself somehow (I have mostly always been a
\r?\n> solitary rider as it
\r?\n> is my time for contemplation and escape from the world). A
\r?\n> sense of
\r?\n> spinning at speed on a road machine. But, as I have got
\r?\n> older ,the joys
\r?\n> of that experience have diminished. I have nothing to prove
\r?\n> to anyone
\r?\n> (indeed there are few who would actually get up with me at
\r?\n> 5:00a.m. for
\r?\n> a ride), but feel unworthy to ride such a beast without
\r?\n> letting it go
\r?\n> through its paces.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> But, things would really change in August of last year when
\r?\n> the '49
\r?\n> Carpenter hit the road. Although a club racer in its own
\r?\n> right, it is
\r?\n> far from a thoroughbred with its mudguards, single-speed,
\r?\n> Marsh bars
\r?\n> (raised a little higher), and saddlebag. Yes, I bought that
\r?\n> archetypal
\r?\n> piece of British cycling history - the Carradice Longflap
\r?\n> saddlebag! The
\r?\n> need to ride at a comfortable cadence as a consequence of
\r?\n> the
\r?\n> single-gear had me feeling much more basic - I felt like I
\r?\n> was out on
\r?\n> one of those wonderful British cycling films of the 1950s
\r?\n> or that I had
\r?\n> just stepped out of a Paterson print. Could it be? Was I
\r?\n> going CTC
\r?\n> (Cyclists' Touring Club)? Was it taking me over? I had
\r?\n> bought a
\r?\n> Carradice! Almost instantly, I had put away my more flashy
\r?\n> team related
\r?\n> jerseys, left the HRM and the cyclocomputer in the drawer.
\r?\n> I had bought
\r?\n> baggy shorts and a pair of Sidi touring shoes and had gone
\r?\n> back to clips
\r?\n> and straps!!
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Moreover, my EBay searches and watch lists were now full of
\r?\n> the delights
\r?\n> and eccentricities of the 1940s and 1950s - both British
\r?\n> and
\r?\n> Continental. Where past searches would have focussed on
\r?\n> five or
\r?\n> six-speed, alloy or titanium, Campag or Stronglight,
\r?\n> clincher or
\r?\n> tubular, names like TA and Williams, Chater Lea and
\r?\n> Brampton, GB and
\r?\n> Burlite, excited me much more. Most of these names have a
\r?\n> place in
\r?\n> British racing circles, but they were also equally at home
\r?\n> on club rides
\r?\n> and country rambles.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> For the last three months of the season - right into
\r?\n> late-November - the
\r?\n> Carpenter was my bike of choice. And when passed one
\r?\n> morning by a young
\r?\n> chap, dressed in skinsuit and astride a C-F bike, I nodded,
\r?\n> wished him
\r?\n> the time of day. He looked down at my steed with a look of
\r?\n> curiosity and
\r?\n> amusement. His bike clicked and creaked, but my "old
\r?\n> girl" just whirred.
\r?\n> As he disappeared ahead of me, I had absolutely no
\r?\n> inclination to take
\r?\n> his wheel - why waste a perfectly good ride, I thought to
\r?\n> myself, and
\r?\n> why spoil the enjoyment of that special air that is part of
\r?\n> a Summer's
\r?\n> morning?
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Was I truly going CTC?
\r?\n>
\r?\n> After all, I had a Carradice behind the saddle!
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Paul Williams,
\r?\n> Ottawa, ON, Canada
\r?\n>
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Paul B. Williams, BAH, MPhil, PhD
\r?\n> Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
\r?\n> castell5@sympatico.ca