Optimus Prime

UPDATE: A few pictures of Jeremy surfaced and I added them to his page, here.

It's pretty nifty. It has two headlights. Both are powered by a generator and one strobes all the time, while the other only comes on at night. J-Pop dragged us to D2 (kind of like Wal-Mart and Lowes combined) and declared this was the bike for me.

I sat on it in the store and everything seemed ok. Noriko pleaded with him to let us shop around a little and try to do some bargain hunting but he would have none of it. It was this bike and it was that day. It's designed to fold up and it fits into a carry bag. You can ride to the station, fold it up, hop on a train, and roll away at your destination.

There are just a few things wrong with it:

1. It's really heavy. I guess to make it small AND sturdy, they had to thicken up the walls of the tubular pipe that make up its frame. Despite its very low gear ratios, I usually have to walk it up hills.

2. I have the seat at its highest setting and it's still too short. The seat position in relation to the height of the handlebars also causes sever back pain.

3. The sleak, sporty seat is a little too sleak. It feels like a dull splitting wedge covered in leather. The longer I sit on it, the more painful it becomes. I usually end up halfway on the bike, perching on the seat with one of my hamstrings.

The seat also does something to nerves in my seat region. Usually after I stand up, I have trouble walking. I can't help but think of those "ergonomic" racing seats that were causing bicyclists to become impotent.

So, I'm taking offers if anybody would like to make one.

Until next time, as Optimus Prime would say, "Transform and roll out!"