Bike Hugger 

Everywhere I go, I try to bring my travel bike, specially made for me by Sycip Designs. I actually didn’t sleep the night before I flew down because I went psycho cleaning bikes before I packed. As I parked the now gleaming bike on the rack outside the convention hall, I got a chance to size up the adjacent bikes.

A genre of bike that stood out to me in Austin was the BMX cruiser, in both 24in and 26in. You don’t see too much of those in Seattle. But since Austin is relatively flat (compared to Seattle but not to… say…Miami), I could see that a BMX cruiser would make a stout yet quick choice if you weren’t faced with a lot of climbing. I personally don’t care for that kind of bike for sustained climbing; it’s a lot to do with the positioning.

How does a BMX 26in cruiser differ from a single-speed mtb? Well, usually 110mm rear spacing, 3/8” front axles front and rear, and no suspension. I wonder about the exact genesis of single-speed mtb…seems to me that the technical similarities are more an example of convergent evolution rather than ss-mtb being a offshoot of the bmx cruisers.

Otherwise, I saw a number of smartly modified mid-80s to late 90s road bikes. Like this sharp Specialized Allez.