Since we had kids I hadn’t had time to care for my fully-faired HPV, so last summer I sold it.
Darn, I miss it.
The other day I went to town to do a bunch of errands on my road bike. Maybe it was a 20 mile round trip, with several stops. It seemed to take an eternity. I was out there at least 2 hours. Back in the days when the WISIL Missile was dialed in it would’ve been only an hour and I would’ve felt fresh at the end. Instead I felt bedraggled and parched. Saving an hour makes a lot of difference! I spose it’s partly because I carried my goods in a heavy shoulderbag.
I know that most of my jaunts these days are with box-filled trailer to the PO, but darn I don’t want a loop of town to feel like it’s too much. But it is! —With a regular road bike, even a fast one. And I’m even in pretty good shape. For multi-stop suburban erranding, an HPV is hard to beat. And a regular bike really takes too much time.
The old Missile would carry groceries and still average 27mph. And be a cush ride. And a calm ride—cars passed me slowly on that rig—a very comforting way to ride.
I spose I got greedy. I started trying to use it with the full canopy instead of the more convenient, if slower, head-out canopy. Just to get that tasty 30mph average. But the rickety old full canopy took too much maintenance. I started lusting after a full carbon HPV. Lighter, faster!
Someday, that’s what I’ll get…
