It’s mid-September, and there’s an autumn crispness within the air, like piercing the pores and skin of an apple or cracking the binding on a brand new college textbook. Sure, this bracing sensation confirms what you already knew, which is that summer season’s over and also you’ve obtained to begin carrying pants once more, which is form of unhappy, nevertheless it additionally means peak driving season is upon us, and that you may lastly put on wool and climb hills with out sweating your [insert your preferred genital way here] off:

By the way in which, can you notice the wildlife in that picture?

No?

Right here’s a better look:

I don’t know something about searching, however is it the time of yr when you’ll be able to shoot these fuckers but?

By the way in which, shortly I took the picture above (and completed urinating–you’ll be able to safely assume most pictures on this weblog had been taken throughout pee stops, sorry if that makes you uncomfortable), the deer and a accomplice galloped into the street and into the trail of an oncoming automobile behind which I used to be carefully following.

Only one thing more to be cognizant of while driving street bikes, I suppose:

Yikes:

Good factor the bike owner was carrying a helment…and the deer was carrying antlers.

That’s why I by no means journey a motorcycle with out first placing on antlers.

Talking of driving street bikes, and the Cervino specifically, I’m not virtually sure that my one-handed shifting concept is appropriate, as a result of it’s virtually beginning to really feel pure to take action:

It was tougher to take that picture than you’d suppose…and no, I used to be positively not urinating on the time..

Certainly, the whole bike is beginning to really feel fairly pure, and I’m rising very keen on it. However do I prefer it as a lot as I ended up liking the Vengeance Bike?

I by no means anticipated to fall for the Vengeance Bike after I acquired it principally for ironic functions within the spring of 2022, and it did take me a while to heat to it–however by September of that very same yr it had turn out to be my favourite street racing-type bike, which I do know as a result of that’s after I determined to take it to Switzerland with me:

I believe the story will lastly seem in a sure mainstream publication shortly, however mainly I obtained invited on some massive journey in Switzerland final yr, and by that point I’d turn out to be so keen on the Vengeance Bike that of all of the bikes I personal* it was the one I wished to take with me–42×21 low gear and all.

*[Actually, the bike I really wanted to take with me was my A. Homer Hilsen, but I knew everyone else would be on road racing-type bikes and that I’d need the extra speed.]

Now it’s virtually precisely a yr later, and as I climb up the deer-infested hills of suburbia on the Cervino–which additionally has a low gear of 42×21–I discover myself questioning, “Would I take this bike to Switzerland proper now?”

I dunno. By that point I’d had the Vengeance Bike for like 5 months, and whereas I didn’t fall for it instantly, I ended up creating a bizarre and admittedly disturbing affinity for it that troubles me to at the present time. (Once more, I wound up liking this ridiculous hunk of historical plastic a lot that I took it with me to Switzerland. With out altering the gearing. And I don’t even remorse it.) In the meantime, it hasn’t even been two months since I took supply of the Cervino, so maybe it’s untimely to attract any conclusion at this level. It could possibly be that come January (that’ll be 5 months because it arrived) I’ll have turn out to be equally connected to the Cervino–definitely among the many very best classic bicycles to have come below my purview. Or perhaps the Vengeance Bike merely touched my internal Lone Wolf in a approach no different bike has or ever will once more:

We don’t at all times select our bikes. Typically they select us.