Traveling and riding

My mother-in-law is getting married early this summer.

And while that's a big deal, that's not really what this is all about. Call it a catalyst, if you will.

With my wife's family living all over central Illinois, we make a good two trips out per year, sometimes for long weekends, sometimes for a week or so at a time. I've run out there many times, but with my running having been put on the back burner this year, I wanted to be able to ride in the flat-and-windy state. What to do...

There was a recent thread on Velocipede Salon about this very conundrum. The question was asked whether it was better to have a travel bike made using the S&S couplers, or to have a cheap-ish bike stashed at the normal destination to use. The answer is, as in a lot of situations, "it depends".

It depends on how often one travels, whether that travel is mostly to the same destination, and how much one is willing to spend to have a bike there.

NOT this kind of CL special!

Rental can get pretty expensive, if it's available. Traveling with a bike incurs hefty baggage fees, unless one gets the coupled bike (which isn't cheap by any means either), and can be a major pain just in the extra large bag. Add in traveling with a (then) 9-month-old and everything that goes with that, and you can guess that hands would be beyond full in short order.

In my case, since the travel is normally to a single destination, and I probably won't be doing much other traveling, along with the above mentioned issues, it makes sense to pick up a Craigslist special in good working order and have it stored in Illinois. That then limits my luggage to shoes and riding gear only.

This is MUCH better, if it were only about 5cm smaller.

Let the search begin. I saw a couple decent-enough rides on Craigslist yesterday, but one was way too big, and the other didn't include wheels. Maybe I'll end up borrowing a bike from a friendly local...

Anyway, if you like to ride and hate having to hang it up when traveling to the rellies, finding a cheap bike to stash there might not be a bad idea.

And I SWEAR this isn't another fit of N+1. It just makes sense, really. My wife even agrees.

All that's left is that place to store the bike.

Hey mom! You know that spare room? Yeah, can I turn that into a bike room?

I kid! I kid!