New Bike: Vaast A/1

In the middle of the summer, I got an itch for a proper gravel bike. I have several bikes that are perfectly adequate to ride on gravel roads, of which there are none near me, but you know how marketing works. Some random googling found the Vaast A/1 over half off online, a bike that recently got a positive review from those picky folks at Bicycle Quarterly--they compared the Vaast's unique magnesium frame favorably to their boutique steel frames. I'm not one to ignore these overlapping signs.

I clicked buy, and a few days later there was the giant box on the porch:

Zizzo Liberte for a Tall Guy

I mentioned in my previous post that I recently hopped down to Cincinnati to pick up a nearly new Zizzo Liberte folding bike. I already have a folding bike, my Bike Friday Crusoe, but I was wondering if a different folder would put me in a sweeter spot on the folding bike continuum. 

I didn't even test ride the Zizzo when I bought it, but a quick spin down the street told me it was much too short for me. Zizzo claims this bike is good up to someone 6'3" tall, my height, but I think they base this on the seat height--it was almost tall enough. But reach-wise, the bike was much too short. I set the bike aside while I ordered up some parts from Aliexpress and waited for them to arrive. The parts arrived this week and I got to work, giving me this:

Old Bike Meets Old Trail

I've purchased two bikes in the last week or so (the Rockhopper, and a new Vaast A/1 that I will write about soon). So I certainly don't need to be be checking FB Marketplace, but there I was Friday, checking again, and came across this ambiguously labeled ad:

But I could see it was a Zizzo Liberte, a lightweight folder that normally costs about $400. I hesitated a moment or two, but I couldn't pass up the price, and so found myself on Saturday morning driving down to Cincinnati. Since I was going right past Caesar's Creek State Park, I threw the Rockhopper in the trunk to get a ride in on the way home.

Cheap Bike Challenge: Another Rockhopper

Over on the iBOB list, there's a summer challenge to buy a bike for less than $200, spend less than $200 fixing any issues, and then ride it at least 200 km. I had an idea to pick up a '90s hybrid for this, but a lack of choices in my size combined with unresponsive sellers left me at a loss. I didn't really want another old mountain bike, but sometimes you have to go where the market takes you:

New Bike: my $100* Jones LWB**! (2012 Specialized Expedition)

 * The frame was $100 on ebay. I probably could have found a complete bike locally for not much more if I wanted to be patient, but this came up at the right time when I was looking for a winter project.

** Not really a Jones of course. But after owning two Rivendell Clem Smiths and two Jones LWBs, I guess I felt like trying another long chainstay bike.

This frame as envisioned by Specialized is an old man's comfort bike:

New Bike: Brompton, and the Folding Bike Continuum

Round about four years ago, I stopped on the way home from Detroit to buy a Bike Friday I'd found on Craiglist. I was riding a Dahon, my first folder, and I was hoping the Silk I bought that day from Roger would be a nice upgrade. I didn't care for the Silk, and ended up driving to Indianapolis to meet a guy from Chicago and trade it for a Crusoe, which I still have and enjoy.

Which is a long intro to leading up to another CL search, another meeting with Roger on the way back from another trip to Detroit, and another new folding bike. This time, a Brompton:

New Bike: 1982 Specialized Sequoia

I've had my '84 Trek 610 for about two years now. It's set up as a geared/fendered/650B bike right now, which had me missing a nice 700c fixed gear. I put up a wanted post on the iBOB list and ended up meeting Andrew to buy this old Specialized Sequoia frameset. I quickly got to building and set it up in an image of what my Trek used to be, a 700c Albastache-barred fixed gear: