Ride Me Hard, Baby!

Yesterday I picked up the telescoping seat pillar for my Dahon bike. As Stefnee knows, it was always just a bit too short for my just a bit too long legs so the riding pleasure was diminished. I have been trying for several years to find a solution to this issue that has decreased my folding bikeriding pleasure.

FINALLY I got a call from Y's Road Shinjuku telling me that the telescoping seat pillar, my last possible option, was no longer available from the distributor and that Dahon had stopped selling the part. This was of course after a few years of attempting to find a seat adaptor for the silly i-Beam system they used on the seat/pillar of this model. If I could get a nice cushy thick seat that might be enough to do the trick, but the proprietary clamping system prevented that.

Then I found an adaptor for the i-beam which would allow clamping regular saddles onto the pillar. When I went to buy it, all excited and uki-uki I discovered that Dahon had changed the i-beam system so that this adaptor was not designed for MY i-beam. Argh!

That is when I saw the telescoping seat pillar in their latest catalogue. There wasn't enough data in the catalogue to know if it would fit my bike tubes or not. Makers constantly change designs and use different diameters of tubing so I could be out of luck.

They researched and said it would fit, so I ordered it. A few days later I got a call saying it was not available. That's when I started checking the internet stores. I found several listed but every one, when I checked, said that the product was unavailable.

On Saturday night while enjoying a bath at my gym, Y's Road called and said that they found one at one of the other stores!!!!! So on Sunday, in spite of the rain I rushed down there and got it. Yes!

Before picking it up, I was at Tokyu Hands getting a new deck of cards for my cribbage game. The game is nearly 25 years old now and the cards, although worn, soft, looked fine; however they stunk so badly of mold that I couldn't stand playing with them anymore. That is how humid Fukui is... playing cards go all moldy (invisible mold)! I got the cards, but as I love Tokyu Hands I wandered the other floors.

There is a great sporting goods floor and I found the saddle that I wanted to put on my new telescoping seat pillar IF it fit my bike... So I went to Y's Road and got the pillar. It was raining too hard to go back for the saddle and I knew I could go today on my wAy to Kobuchizwa. So I did.

And this is it!

It seems I'm riding my folding bike a lot more in Tokyo than my other babies... but it's just easier to open up, ride, fold up, park, etc. I miss riding Grey and Mikan-chan and Grey is getting rusty outside all the time (in spite of being covered up and under a lean-to parking area) but there are no easy access locations to ride here and serious city riding or road riding has absolutely no appeal to me when all you get to enjoy is cars, buildings, traffic lights and people. I'd rather just toodle around in my jeans on Dahon than get all suited up for Grey. I sure miss Fuui mountains for that reason...

But now the Dahon should be perfect for even me to ride and I won't have to over-extend the seat pillar into the "Do Not Insert Less Than Here!!!!!! Zone" just to keep my knees from hurting but potentially damaging the bike due to the leverage....

See how The Universe always gives you EXACTLY what you need as long as you make your need perfectly clear by doing everything in your power to obtain your needs on your own?

Thank You Universe!

Cam

P.S. Now if only I could use the line in the title of this thumb-typed-on-cellphone blog with a really sexy woman dying to have sex with me! Hmmmm.... I hear the Universe giving me a hint.... I better get to proving how much I want that, eh?