Bicycles: The Ultimate Excuse Machine

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Getting a package is always exciting (well, usually, I guess receiving an at-home urine testing kit isn’t that exciting), but it’s exponentially more exciting when that package is from Richard Sachs:

And no, the package above is not from Richard Sachs, it’s from when Paul from Classic Cycle sent me the Eye of the Tiger, Jr. bike back in 2021.

Had you going for a minute, didn’t I?

Though I did receive a package from Richard Sachs yesterday, and while considerably smaller than the one depicted above, it was no less exciting for it:

And it contained his most recent “Arrange Disorder” volumes, as well as a t-shirt:

There was even a sticker, which I was glad to receive, because years ago I used to have a Thule roof rack, complete with fairing, on The Car That I Used To Own Before The One I Currently Own Which I No Longer Own Because It Rusted Out. (I still miss that car.) On that fairing was a Richard Sachs sticker. For years and years of parking on the street that bike rack sat atop the aforementioned vehicle, completely unmolested, until one day about 15-ish years ago I went to use the car and found it gone.

Then, maybe a week or so later, I was driving home from the pediatrician with my son, still more or less a baby, in the back seat. (I’d have put him up on the roof rack, but it had been stolen, you see.) As you can imagine, with my own loss still fresh, I was acutely aware of how many other cars out there still had bike racks on them, so every time one passed by I’d look at it and feel crestfallen, like Pee-Wee after his bike was stolen:

But then I saw a car coming the opposite direction that had a rack exactly like mine, fairing and all. Not only that, but the rack had a distinct dark patch exactly where the Richard Sachs sticker had been, and in the exact same shape. Clearly this was either the brigand himself, or else a customer of said brigand. Adrenaline coursed through me. What should I do?

Well, what do you do when you’re driving with a very young child and you pass a car with a bike rack on it that might be yours? Do you execute a u-turn on a very busy four-lane arterial and give chase, potentially causing grievous injury to yourself, your young child, and other motorists–and then, assuming you make it through, confront him? Or do you keep driving, seething as you try to convince yourself it was a grief-induced hallucination?

In this case, I opted for the later.

Well, I never did get that roof rack back, but I’ve finally got a new Richard Sachs sticker, so in a sense my life has come full circle.

As for the books, you can order them here, and I’m looking forward to reading them:

I enjoyed the first one so I expect I’ll enjoy these too.

Speaking of life coming full circle, that baby in the car is the son who would later dub Richard Sachs the Karl Farbman of Bicycles (hereafter KFOB), and I’m glad to see he’s leaning into it:

This is me when anyone in the family goes anywhere near the Richard Sachs:

Which my wife once mistakenly called an Oliver Sacks, conflating the KFOB with the noted author of “Awakenings:”

See, it’s an understandable mistake, because if you’re a bike person your go-to Sachs is obviously Richard Sachs, but if you’re not it could easily be Oliver Sacks, even though it’s spelled differently, or even Andrew Sachs, who played Manuel in “Fawlty Towers:”

Sometimes life comes full circle, and sometimes it’s just a Spirograph of whimsy.

Speaking of whimsy, I needed a few things from the grocery store yesterday, so instead of taking a short walk to the store like a normal person, instead I got on the Platypus and rode to the Trails Behind The Mall about eight (8) American Freedom Miles away:

This is more proof that the bicycle is the least efficient conveyance ever devised, because what should have been a 10-minute errand turned into a joyride of at least two and a half hours.

To the uninitiated, the step-through frame and the upright position might suggest the Platypus is a mild-mannered bicycle. However, this is not the case. Yes, it is quite comfortable, but it’s also quite sprightly, and it’s every bit as good a “gravel bike” as your run-of-the-mill Industry Standard Gravelling Appliance, probably even better. Hey, what do you think they used to ride on that Kansas gravel, anyway?

And while it’s not a mountain bike, nor marketed as such, it handles trails pretty well too. No, this climb wasn’t happening, mostly for lack of pedal/ground clearance:

But this sort of thing is no problem at all:

The key of course is that it can accept mountain bike tires–or at least what used to be considered mountain bike tires, though 2.1″ is a little over 50mm, which we’re now calling a gravel tire, I guess:

Eagle-eyed readers may also spot the prototype Silver derailleur:

Don’t worry, they didn’t use any of my feedback, so you can order with confidence:

I do have a brand new Silver derailleur for this bike:

But it’s way cooler to use a raw-looking one that says “prototype” on it.

Anyway, all of this was ostensibly about running an errand, and there’s a grocery store at the mall behind which the Trails Behind the Mall are behind. I’m not saying which grocery store it is, but I will say that you cannot get partial foods there. So on my way home I loaded my basket with entire foods and felt smug about not using the parking lot, even though I parked my car in that exact parking lot just a few days ago: