Bike envy - breathe deep!

[ZenSojourner]

Zen, which terry bike is that? From the pic I would guess one of the newer madeleines, 17.5" (or maybe 19" hard to see headtube length in the tiny picture)? Am I right? Why don't you show us a bigger pic???

It's a 17.5" Terry Madeleine. They've stopped making it.

I guess I shouldn't be too sad since I got one before they quit.

It's a touring bike. I could get a Symmetry or an Isis to fit (actually the fit would be a tad better), but they're not touring bikes. And the new bike they're replacing the Madeleine with is really designed for cyclocross, they have a "tourist-y" version but it won't fit me, top tube's too long. It's called the "Valkyrie".

I am VERY happy with my Terry! I've heard people (many of whom have never even seen a Terry, let alone ridden one) call the steering "squirrely" because of the smaller front wheel (only on the smallest sizes, all the larger Terry's have 2 700c wheels). But it's never been squirrely for me, it handles REALLY well. If you want to talk about squirrely, you should ride something right on the edge of fit like my old Trek was (I think it was a 420, I gave it away). With the Madeleine, I understood for the first time what cyclists mean by "leaning into the curve" to steer more with your body than just by turning the wheel. On my Trek, I'd have fallen over if I tried that, VERY unstable.

I think some of the early Terry's may have had some problems with steering, but she's got the design down pat by now! With the head tube angle and rake on a lot of the WSD bikes (even with 650c wheels), steering is likely to be more sluggish or not as responsive as I would prefer. But it's just fine on my Madeleine. Very stable and about as responsive as you could hope for from a touring bike.

And I can actually reach the brakes! First time I went for the brake levers I almost catapulted myself out of the seat, it stopped so fast! That's the difference between having to stretch and barely reaching your brakes, and having them right there where they belong and being able to really get some torque on them like you should.

And yes, there's a kickstand on there. I don't remember the details anymore, but it took a bit of finagling to get it on there. There's a mounting but there were some clearance issues. The first shop I took it to stuck it on there, handed the bike back to me, and when I hopped on, you couldn't rotate the peddles, LOL! So I took it to a different shop and he figured out how to get it on there right. I think Ms. Terry about had a cow when I e-mailed her about how to get a kickstand on there, she doesn't believe in 'em. Personally *I* won't have a bike without one.

WHEW! I almost launched into a long-winded discussion of bike geometry, aren't we lucky I got distracted!