The Great Beach Adventure: Part I - Bike or No Bike?

It's summer time, so about a week back, we were heading out for a week on the Carolina coast. Lots of seafood, fishing, tanning, Jimmy Buffett, and the odd boat drink or few. Good times lay ahead. This trip, however, we started talking about packing all four bikes to bring on the journey. We could ride to the ice cream shop, to the pier or even on the beach! And, best yet, I wasn't the one making the suggestion!

Now,there's plenty of advantages to taking the family bikes to the beach. You avoid spending a bunch of dough for bike rentals, you are set with rides with which you're already comfortable. I provides new sights and adventures to the cycling repertoire. So, there's nothing unnerving about it. ...unless you're me.

You see, I couldn't get past how much sand I'd get in the drive train and how much damage the salt water would cause. These other bikes, SURE they could go. But the Steelman is a precision cyling machine with costly component and meant to run differently. I fretted and hemmed and hawwed.

And yet, here I was, with the entire family wanting to bike at the beach. And, as it turns out, while the bike is all that, I'm not a precision crafted cyclist, nor do I do much precision cycling. When I do go out, it's a lot like a monkey humping a football and equally frustrating. Moreover, the Steelman is a cyclocross bike -- meant to take in weird and wet conditions. In the end, there was no decision to make.

I loaded all the bikes in and on the van and headed East.

Next: Bike, meet the beach!