You may have noticed in the pics lately a different bike. I picked up a 2009 Cannondale Bad Boy Disc in the fall mainly to commute on, but it has been even more versatile than I had thought.
I had gotten rid of my commuter and my single speed to commute just on my Seven Mudhoney. But my buildings changed at work and I could not bring my ride in any more. I work in a city, so I can’t lock up my Seven out side. Not to mention once the salt started coming out with the snow I would have died a little bit every day that an new part rusted on the bike.
Well my local bike shop had a blow out on this bike and I picked it up. I really was geeked on the fact that it comes with 700c wheels, but uses discs and was designed to swap back and forth with 26″ knobbies or 700c wheels.
Although the first week of January it was so snowy I used my 26″ studded wheels and tires from my mountain bike
I got rid of the triple and front derailleur in exchange for a Paul’s Chain Keeper.
I tried to go sans front derailleur, but the Sram x7 rear derailleur was not strong enough to keep the chain from falling off or the wider triple spaced BB spindle was the cuplit.
This bike is great, I have a mixed commute of gravel, single track and city streets. The mountain bike is a fine bike to ride, with the cx tires for dry conditions, and well disc brakes are just amazing to have in the snow and ice.
When the weather gets nice I might commute with the 26″ knobbies on every once in a while to get some more single track time in before work.
Although I did ride it for 3 hours at Raystown Lake over the weekend and got a little beat up… A front fork would have made all the difference.
The subdued graphics and lack of shocks makes it less noticeable on the bike rack too, which is nice.
As a side note, it is becoming pretty hard to find a decent 26″ hard tail or rigid mountain bike these days. It was either this or a Salsa, but aluminum made more sense for a commuter.
I would recommend this to anyone who is looking for a nice commuter. No need to ride a junk bike as a commuter, I mean you have to ride it every day after all.
