Changes

I have an unfortunate tendency to get bored - when things stay the same too long, I get itchy.  So it is with happiness I report changes are afoot in my biking and non-biking household!  A new member of the family will be arriving in a few weeks - Guinness and I are getting a puppy!  I've decided to get a significantly smaller dog this time, as the size and energy of Guinness can sometimes be a bit of a job to manage.  This also means I get to bring my dog on my bike!

In that effort I'm going to be modifying the Surly to accept a front rack and a basket.  The big issue is what while the bike is totally made to accept a front rack, I'm really short and as a result, my bike is really small.  I don't have a lot of head-tube "real estate" to mount a basket, especially without messing up my cable housings.

So I'm going to make the leap and swap out my drop bars for le moustache!

I've already purchased the basket and am demo-ing it on the back rack until I somehow come up with the money for handlebars and a front rack.

I've decided to use the Soma Moustache bar as it will not require getting new brake levers or shifters.  It is with great sadness though, that I realized this change will require new bar tape.  Now, the bar tape I have on the bike now is the Velo Orange Perforated Leather Bar Tape, which isn't exactly cheap at $70 per box, and I'm fairly sure there's no re-using what's on the bike now.  But it matches my saddle and feels like a baseball glove, so I've gotten pretty attached to leather bar tape.  So the bike is going to look less than coordinated for a period of time while I save up for another roll of leather, and will possibly go through a series of wacky color configurations before I can re-leather myself.