The last bike I'll ever need

By the time I decided to get my own bike, I had already bike commuting for 3 years.

Strasbourg had (and probably still does) a great tram system, but I still couldn't bear the wait. It didn't matter that the wait at the stations were rarely more than 3 minutes or that the tram could outpace any cars thanks to its reserved lanes and priority at traffic lights. Something in me didn't like the idea of waiting to wait some more. You waited for a tram at the station, only to wait on the tram for the next station, and waited for the people to get on and off... For some time, I would read during the ride, and it would pass instantly, but I had lost the habit along the way and now I just grew restless.

Thankfully, the local bicycle-sharing scheme had the option for long-term rentals where you would take the bike home. This meant you would never need to find a station, the bike came with a lock, and you had it with you at the ready, you never had to wait. The ride to work was just as long the tram ride, but I felt relieved doing it in a way the tram couldn't match.

The bikes were pretty good too. The day rental bikes were heavy duty, but since the long term could only be exchanged in shops, and they could bill you the damages, the long-term bikes were mostly normal. I say mostly because they still had some interesting features. First, these bikes had a read hub gearboxes, something I didn't know existed until that point. The second was the shaft transmission, which is very clean and probably not as fiddly as chains. Third was hub dynamos, another one of those features that existed by I hadn't seen until then.

The problem with these shared bikes is that, even if you are the most careful rider in the world, eventually something needs to be fixed or otherwise maintained. And when that happens, and you go into the shop, they don't fix your bike, they take it and give you another one they have. If you are lucky, the replacement is seamless, not all the bikes were made equal, and sometimes you would get one with a battery light or worse a bike one size too small. Eventually, I decided I didn't care for the lottery, I wanted my bike with all the features, all the time, on which I could do the fixes I needed instead of having it replaced every time.

I mostly showed up to bike the shop and looked at what they had there.

Strasbourg was also known (and probably still is) to be really bike-friendly. So the shop I went to was really towards the need of everyday commuters. I took note of what they had and then went online to figure out what were the merits of the different choices. I remember two things I thought were really important, I wanted all the bells and whistles, and I wanted a bike I could learn to fix entirely myself. This would be the last bike I'll ever need.

Chief among the bells and whistles was the dynamo hub-powered lighting, I never wanted to have to deal with a dead battery or a forgotten light fixture. Then the mudguards for riding in all weather, and the back-rack and pannier-bags so I wouldn't need to carry anything on my bike.

The repairability argument was somewhat misguided. The principle is good, but in truth there's not much on a bike I couldn't eventually learn to fix anyway. At the time, I used the idea of repairability to exclude bikes with front suspensions. I was an additional point of failure that I didn't know if it would be easy to fix or maintain. I couldn't tell you today whether this was the right choice, only that I didn't have any suspension problems thanks to that. I certainly don't regret making that choice.

With the suspended bike out of the pictures, I had managed to decide on a bike. However, the entry-level bike I had set my heart on, with it's dynamo-light, entry-level transmission, and cable actuated rim brakes, was out of stock in my size. And so the vendor showed me the mid-level version with its dynamo-light, a better transmission, and hydraulic rim brakes? I knew hydraulic disk brakes were a thing, but this was my first time seeing hydraulic rim ones. My repairability criteria was skeptical about the idea, cable actuated brakes are supposed to be easy to fix and maintain by oneself, but hydraulic ones require specialized equipment.

In the end, with on precise timeline on when the entry-level bicycle would be back in stock and with the vendor's reassurances that hydraulic brakes are "a closed system that require little to no maintenance", I took the up-sell. And I cannot say I regret it. The hydraulic brakes acted as a perfect closed system for 5 years, and by the time I actually needed to do anything about them, I had done enough repairs on the bike that I was confident I could do it. Yes, I needed to buy specialized tooling, but I had needed bike-specific tools for a bunch of repairs before. The hydraulic stuff didn't come in the 36 bike tool box-set I had gotten during the pandemic, but they also weren't any harder to find. So brought them, watched a how-to video or two about brake purging, spilled oil everywhere, and did it. All in all I don't regret getting the bike with hydraulic brakes.

The problem with the last bike you'll ever need is that it's not the last bike you'll ever want.

For the three years I used the bike-share bike, I commuted exclusively by bike. I used it to go to work, to see friends, to go to the swimming pool or to go shopping. But once I had my on bike, I started going everywhere by bike. I would go places just for the pleasure of going on a ride, and suddenly riding had become something of a hobby. Something I can do to occupy my body while my mind wanders, or to deal with the restlessness.

For the most part, the bike has fulfilled its original promise. In the six years since I got it, I have ridden around 9 000km on it. It has gotten me to work and back, carried my groceries without fault, and taken me on adventures. With my father, we rode two days to get to, and spend a weekend with, his parents, only to ride back for another two days right after. The same bike got me to the top of Mont Ventoux, a regular fixture of the tours de France, just much slower than any road cyclist would manage.

There's a saying in biking/cycling circles around the net that the perfect number of bikes to own is one more than you already have, often expressed as N+1. And so I'm often torn, looking at nice frames and cool components, imagining a dream bike or sometimes just a cool bike, but being unable to justify to myself getting these oh so alluring N+1 bikes. Because they either match my current bike, or exceed it in one use case, but at the cost of being useless otherwise. The later feel like toys to me: fun to have and enjoyable to use for their stated purpose. But I can't convince myself that the expense, or the logistics, of having a second bike that can only be used in specific conditions or for a specific purpose is worth it. I left feeling somewhat like a kid refused by their parent, even though the parent is also myself. Maybe I ought to try being the cool parent in the future. Maybe I do regret, just a bit, making my first bike the last one I'll ever need.

Without further ado,

VSF FahrradManufaktur, as the name implies, is a German bike builder geared mostly towards everyday riding and touring. These bike usually made of steel and come with all the components one would want for long rides in any weather. I have a 27 speed version of the T-300.

VSF FahrradManufaktur T-300

Weight 16,3kg;

Frame: CroMo Steel;

Braking: Magura HS-22 (hydraulic rim brakes);

Transmission: Shimano Deore 27 speed (3X9);

Cassette: 11-32;

Chainrings: 48-36-26;

Dynamor hub: Shutter precision;

Rear-rack: Rack-Time;

Additional equipment: Front/Rear lights, Front/Rear mudguards.

Over the years I have added the following accessories:

Quadlock phone holder (for navigation/music);

Rear frame lock, for securing the bike;

U-Lock, sometimes accompanied by a flat lock;

Fidlock bottle holder, often with a bottle;

Small saddle bag with equipment for roadside repairs;

Sometimes a small barbag for food and a phone battery.

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