Toy Time: Specialized Langster

After a couple of weeks of taking the Underground to work, I'd had enough. The weather has been unfeasibly warm (anyone would think it was summer!), making it like an oven in the carriages, and tourists (pah! ;-) were everywhere. The entrance to Oxford Circus Tube was starting to resemble the inlet to a meat-grinder - I guess the full trains coming out the other side were the sausages.

As a bike-fan from way back, it seemed to me that a bicycle was the answer. Google Maps confirmed it by telling me it was 5.3km to work and that the biggest change in elevation would be the three steps down from our front door. After a few days of visiting bike shops, talking to colleagues and trawling t'Internet, I found exactly what I was looking for on good-old eBay:
The Specialized Langster in SR-71 Black. Eagle-eyed readers will note there's just one big cog at the front and one little sprocket at the back, rather than the usual proliferation. Yep, this is a one-speeder, and that means all the extra mechanisms, cables and levers can be left off, saving a heap of weight. And I'm sure any Tools reading this will confirm that one Sprocket is all you need!

To use the trusty car analogy, if a mountain bike is like a 4WD, and a road bike is a sports car, then this bike like is a Formula One car - absolutely everything non-essential is stripped away in the name of performance. Over here this machine sells for £400 new - with no pedals - but I found the deal of the year on eBay. I got the bike, as new - ridden 5 times for a total of less than 50km, plus clip-in pedals, the matching shoes (in my size), helmet (in my size), windproof jacket (in my size) and a bike computer (aka speedometer) - for £250. We've speculated that perhaps the previous owner bought all this gear while going out with a bike-mad girl, and just wanted to be rid of it when the relationship ended? Who knows - but one thing is for certain, I scored a sweet deal!

So what's it like commuting on the mean streets of London Town? Well, I was expecting the worst. Back in Australia I had given up on using the roads to bike-commute after a halfwit in a ute ran me off Burwood Road and I brought myself to a halt using my face. My Melbourne experience taught me that peak-hour traffic can be aggressive, unpredictable and intolerant - so logically London should be 3 times worse, right?

Wrong. I couldn't believe I was riding in one of the world's biggest cities! Perhaps because of the Congestion Charge, perhaps because driving in Central London is best left to professionals, the roads are quiet, and the drivers observant, courteous and patient. Taxis move across to let you slide to the front at traffic lights. Bus drivers flash their lights to let you merge in. And people understand that there's no point roaring past a bike when they'll be passed back at the traffic lights 100m down the road. It's a weird feeling trundling along at 15 miles an hour while an Aston Martin V12 Vanquish purrs quietly behind you, waiting patiently and leaving plenty of space!

So I'm hooked. Each day I ride in I save £4 in transport costs - this bike will pay for itself in no time. It takes 20 minutes door-to-door, plus 5 minutes of freshening up when I get there; so I can leave for work 10 minutes later than I did before. I'm getting good exercise, but it's actually less sweaty than taking the Tube on a warm day. The only question now is, can I bring it back to Melbourne?