I’m an old Southern boy, and I like my cars, but 20 years in California starts to mess with you.

My bad knees are a testament to lots of hard biking over the years – road and mountain. But I’ve never been a great commuter. I’ve been watching electric and electric-assist bikes for years now and never been really impressed by anything. The examples have either been bulky mo-ped like “scooters” or completely underpowered kits for regular bikes.

About a year ago I first heard that Trek was considering a “bespoke” electric-assiste bike. In other words, they wanted to take a great commuter bike and custom design an electric solution. They went to one of (if not the) electric motor sources out there (Bionx) and ended up collaborating on a great new form factor.… Read the rest

Our perception of refinement – a product or product category’s ability to incrementally improve – seems to be on some type of accelerated (if not exponential) curve like we’re used to with Moore’s Law in the tech world.

But some products seem to defy wholesale refinement on a fast track – and these objects tend to be what we often call “classics”.

Take the bike seat (or “saddle” as they were first called).  Weird I know, but stay with me.

I ordered a new bike recently to use as a commuter.  It’s somewhat special, and I’ll be writing about it after it comes in (it looks like it may be the first in Marin County, which is interesting given how bike-crazy this place is), but that’s not the focus here.… Read the rest