I ride my bike to work everyday. For years, until I moved to Albuquerque, I commuted on the train from Santa Fe and then rode a bike up the hill from downtown to the campus of the University of New Mexico where I work. It’s not a particularly steep hill, but it’s long; and Albuquerque’s hot most of the year. Sometimes it’s scorching. I’d often arrive at work in a lather of sweat. I had to keep extra shirts in my office for those really hot days.
I blamed my mountain bike. It was old and heavy and constantly in need of minor adjustments or replacement parts. I saw a fancy new road bike as the only solution. I wanted some super lightweight carbon bike that I could pick up with my pinky and tell my friends, “Hey, look how light this is.” Or maybe a fancy collapsible bike like the Hampsten Travelissimo that could make my daily train trip super convenient.
But, of course, one reason I was commuting with my stone-age bike was because I couldn’t afford a fancy one. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining all that much. Commuting by lousy bike is better than driving by fancy car. Everyday I cruised past people driving in circles looking for parking spots or standing in the sun waiting for the bus. Riding a bike, even a clunker, was way better. But a really nice bike would have been best.
Unfortunately, a carbon whip or the Hampsten were out of the question. I needed an affordable way to get me up that hill and out of the sun. And so I posted my mountain bike on Craigslist looking for a trade. A scientist from Los Alamos responded. He wanted to ride the trails in the mountains around his house and he offered to trade me his old Sekai road bike. Sekai was a small, family business in the 1970s that made solid road bikes and high-end racers in Japan. They imported most of them to the U.S., where they sold them out of their Seattle bike shop, Velocipede, now called Velo Bike Shop.
That’s where the scientist bought his in 1979. Bike makers still make frames out of the same chromoly steel that Sekai used. It’s strong and surprisingly light. I stripped off the old components and converted it to a fixie, making it even lighter. For the cost of a set of Mavic Aksium wheels that I found on sale at my local bike shop, I got a durable, light-weight commuter bike. And it’s a blast to ride, whether I’m charging up the hill on my way to work or cruising over to the taproom to meet a friend. That fancy carbon bike might be better, but for now, I don’t need a new bike.