It's a sickness, really...

even though I have less-than-zero cash, it's a month before Christmas, and I just built a bike 2 months ago, I've been entertaining myself during slow times by window-shopping for my 2nd bike. You know, the do-everything one that will eliminate my need to buy any bikes anymore ever! (*cough*)

See, as dearly as I love Ms. Keiko, her functionality is a bit limited. She goes fast on the road. Period. Gravel road? No. Rail-trail? No. Slow cruise to the grocery store and back? Not really, mostly because I don't feel comfortable leaving her unattended on a bike rack. Besides which, riding the Orca in shorts and a t-shirt feels like sacrilege. Though she is comfortable with long distance and my more leisurely speeds, she's still a race bike through and through.

So now what I've started looking for is a bike that will do everything else. A workhorse to go with my racehorse, if you will. I still really love the ride of a road bike over a mountain or a hybrid, though, so I started looking at steel frames/tourers. For a month or so now, I've been drooling over the 08 Salsa Casseroll. It'll take bigger tires and fenders, maybe a rack or two. You can put gears on it or go single-speed (no fixed-gear for me, though...can you imagine? I'd bite it on every downhill.) I looked at pictures, wondered about what size to order, what I would put on it. I had mostly decided on a build almost identical to the triple complete, except I'd try an antique brown Brooks saddle, maybe some matching bar tape, or perhaps a deep red, if I could find that somewhere. 28c tires instead of 32s. I was still waffling over whether really I wanted to spend the money on the triple or do single-speed for simplicity and cost's sake. I mean, on a commute or bike path run, how often do I really change gears?

So, this was what I was daydreaming about when I decided to go look for the name of the Raleigh mountain bike I had in 1992. It was my first real bike-shop bike, and it was my favorite mtn bike ever...stolen off campus my freshman year, alas. I was thinking about maybe dropping the budget, see about getting another one of those next year instead of waiting until I had a Casseroll budget.

Unfortunately, Raleigh's archives don't go back that far, so I wasn't ever able to figure it out. It didn't really matter, though, because while I was there I saw the new 2008 One-Way. Sweet mercy, that is gorgeous.

The only reservations I have about this bike (other than that I haven't seen it in person) is that it might not be as versatile as the Casseroll. Am I really sold on single-speed? What if I miss having gears? I suppose it could be outfitted with some kind of Frankenstein setup if that were the case, but I like the security of knowing that the Casseroll will definitely do it. And adding gears to a bike that was born to be single-speed seems like kind of a dorky thing to do, besides.

So I don't know. Luckily, it'll be 6-8 months before I can even start thinking seriously about buying, so I guess I've got plenty of time. :)