Day one in Austin

At least I got my miles in.

I probably rode 12 or 15 miles today. That's not counting the 811 aboard a DC-9, the forty or so of Laurie driving me to the airport, or the trips scurrying around in the truck this morning, mailing mail and accumulating the ephemera that any trip out of town seems to require.

Being a bike geek, and in town for a bike show, I would have felt foolish renting a car. THat would be like hiking the Grand Canyon on a Segway, or buying a ticket to Carnegie Hall and keeping your earphones in. It would have marked me as a faker, a charlatan, and even more of a loser than God made me. ANyway, the books aren't balancing so well on this trip, and parking at the convention center was roundly scorned online. So I brought a bike.

SO you think you've got it tough, bunkie? 'Cause it costs extra to check a suitcase, and Pan-Am discontinued its Clipper Service? Bicyclists have been taking it up the ass for years, and it's got nothing to do with those narrow saddles. Domestic flights charge as much as $250 each way to carry a bicycle as checked baggage, and they require it to be disassembled and boxed. Most of my bikes aren't worth $500, and like I said, the books weren't balancing too well to start with. So I brought the Dahon.

Dahon bicycles are a triumph of design over manufacturing, ideals over reality. Designed for Asian commuters, these Korean clown cycles feature 16" wheels, a band brake and a hinge in the middle. WHen the seatpost is telescoped, the bars turned down and to the side, and the frame catches opened, it folds into a package small enough to fit in the kneehole of a salaryman's desk. Or in a suitcase.

I had to buy a slightly bigger suitcase, after all, and sit on it to make the zipper zip, but it went in, along with a U-lock, patch kit, tube and pump. Delta body slammed it enough times between Atlanta and Austin that on arrival, the frame was tweaked just enough that the hinges wouldn't seat fully. Anyone who has ridden a Dahon for long knows that eventually it comes unlatched in flight. I generally try to slam it shut with a couple of hard turns, like you might with a car door that opened at high speed, except that it never works.

Bed time. To be continued