When I lived in Boston I was a year-round / all-weather bicycle commuter. Coming from a couple conversions and a mail-order track bike I never worried too much about my bikes getting messed up in bad weather—let alone the salt that gets put down at the hint of snow. When I got my Soma things were different. I had actually picked out the parts on it—and spent a good amount of money on it. After riding it in the first snowstorm of the season I decided I wanted to build a snow / rain bike. I scored a generic “track” frame for about $75 on eBay. I pieced it together pretty quickly with random, old parts in my collection. I rode it though quite a few rainstorms and snowstorms while generally neglecting it. At some point though, I started choosing to take the Soma out even when it wasn’t nice out, it was just a much better ride. I remember convincing myself that a bike is meant to be ridden—not babied. Eventually I broke the ironically named “Bulletproof” crank on the rain bike and never got around to replacing it. The Spring came and I ended up selling it.
Oh, and the nickname? The guys at Alphabet Arm wanted to know what the new bike’s name was. With little thought, I said, “Chubby Waters.” It was completely ridiculous, though it made sense to me. I thought muddy waters, because it was to be ridden in bad weather… but it was also terribly heavy—thus “chubby.” Okay, so maybe it doesn’t make sense.
Previously:
All My Bikes 19: Soma Rush
All My Bikes 18: Standard 125R
All My Bikes 17: Mercier Kilo TT
All My Bikes 16: Dawes
All My Bikes 15: Panasonic
All My Bikes 14: DK General Lee
All My Bikes 13: S&M Holmes
All My Bikes 12: Huffy TL-88
All My Bikes 11: Huffy MJ-12
All My Bikes 10: Specialized Fatboy
All My Bikes 9: Haro Group 1
All My Bikes 8: Balance AL550
All My Bikes 7: Lotus Cobra
All My Bikes 6: Schwinn Predator
All My Bikes 5: GT Interceptor
All My Bikes 4: Robinson SST
All My Bikes 3: Diamondback Viper
All My Bikes 2: General Hustler
All My Bikes 1: Huffy
