Commuter Bike

I'm working on campus again as of June 15, and really looking forward to alternate transportation. I've been driving 25 miles to Louisville for about a year and a half after the advent of the A-line changed the bus options available.  I started riding the 4 miles to campus on the fixie and found it was a big sweaty morning effort. I wanted some thing that could be easy to ride when I didn't want to work out to get to work. I also wanted something that had a riding position that made it easier to see traffice. Fenders, good lights, and a rack would round it out. I saw nice bikes in this regard at REI, and was mildly tempted at $650.

Budget-wise, I wanted something that would allow me to replace a $64/month parking pass. I wanted to be able to ride most days, year round. Since the marginal  cost (the car is paid for and insured) of driving 8 miles a day is about $0.75, I knew as soon as I got a parking pass, I'd drive all the time and not ride. So I didn't want to buy a parking pass. $500 means I could catch the bus or drive a few times paying $5 for either parking or bus fare, and still come out even with the parking pass.

I left the house with the intention of ultimately looking at a $600 Specialized at Wheat Ridge Cyclery, but started at Bicycle Village. I rode a few different bikes including a comfort style and a dual sport that had a suspension. I kept going back to a simple commuter bike with no suspension and cantilever brakes instead of discs. I wanted to avoid cheap disks with a mechanical linkage.  I got $40 of accessories for free with the bike, and had a pair of fenders from a neighbor who was moving and needed to get rid of them. As you see it, less the cost of the bungy cable, was $508.

Here it is:

My cousin read some facebook posts about the bike and wondered what I meant by skiiny tires:

23mm on the road bike 2.4 inches (61mm?) on my 29er and 38mm on the commuter.