My bikes and why I love them: The Bianchi Volpe
This is my least favorite bike. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love it, because I do. But I just don’t love it as much as all my other bikes.
This is a stalwart, determined ride, and I probably spend the most time with it. It is a Bianchi Volpe. Bianchi is a terrific iconic brand; Volpe means fox in Italian.
It is not really fox-like, which is what I was hoping for when I bought it from a friend many years ago. I think I paid $600 for it, which is a lot more than I typically would want to pay for a used bike. But I knew that he paid maybe double for it, and rarely rode it. When he did, he took care of it.
I wanted something quick and lively, maybe even a little wily, you know, like a fox. It didn’t have to be the fastest bike, but I wanted it to have a bit of Italian spunk to it, you know what I mean?
Instead of a fox, is is more like a mule. It is quite heavy, and it is not the most responsive of bikes in terms of agility. But it is stubborn, versatile and surefooted.
I call it my SUB, my sport utility bike, because it has so many iterations and I use it as a working steed. I can easily put a rack and fenders on the thing. I have put heavy-duty Schwalbe Marathon tires on it, and haven’t had a flat since.
I ride it in the city, on gravel roads and have even done a little single-track on occasion.
I most often take it on my travels, because it has center-pull caliper brakes on it. They make it easy for me to take the tires on and off. The downside is that the brakes are usually out of adjustment, which means they aren’t the most effective at stopping the bike. They get the job done, though, even in emergencies. And since braking is overrated, they are just fine.
I’ve just recently re-installed the stock seat, which is the famous Bianchi “celeste green.” When I first got the bike, I did not find the seat very comfortable, and quickly swapped it out for several other kinds.
I put the seat back on the bike because I recently bought new wide randonneur-style handlebars, and I found some celeste-green handlebar tape, and I thought that it would look cool with the seat.
After receiving it, I realized the there can be different shades of celeste green, which is understandable, I guess. I put the tape on anyway, because I figured if I’m riding the thing I won’t see the seat anyway. But I’ll know it looks cool. As I’ve gotten used to it, I think it works, and I like the way the bike looks very much. And I really like the comfortable, wide handlebars.
The photo above was taken last weekend when I took the bike with me to Minnesota’s Twin Cities for a family gathering. I rode the Volpe to the Minnesota State Fair and discovered that riding a bike to the fair is more fun than the fair itself.
The path where the picture was taken was on the Gateway State Trail, part of a tremendous system of paved bike/ped trails that spiderweb Minneapolis and St. Paul. The Gateway starts in St. Paul and stretches northeast to Square Lake in Washington County. I almost always ride on the trail when I go over to the the Twin Cities. This ride was a couple hours, I think, and was about 25 miles. I don’t know for sure because my Garmin gave up the ghost halfway through.
