Tomi spice to the work shuffle.

New to young families, I didn’t realise they would demand on my time so heavily immediately before & after work, which was previously my little piece of ‘me time’ clocking up some interesting bike kms in & around the various meanders of Melbourne’s byways as I rolled along my daily commute.

But yes, now it’s a straight burn to & from work, no time to waste, and no interesting diversions, the commute now has the clock ticking.

This has brought me onto the more direct on-road bike routes, amongst the traffic lights & the forever LEDs flashing, panniered , mudguard ensconced 700c Schwalbe Marathon tyres of hub-geared hybrids & the ‘bar-end shifters of the steel framed grey beards.

Jamis Exile 2009 s/s 42/16.

This is a world where disposable shopping bags are deployed as wet weather gear & florescence mixes with wool & work slacks. Where the red glow of traffic lights are a place of close, intimate groupings & the change to the green light begins the slow motion wiggle con-go as most set off in a way too tall a gear & try to find their opposing pedal as if it’s their first time.

I’m still riding my Jamis Exile: a MTB single speed (freewheel) running 42/16 (don’t ask me, I don’t ‘do’ gear inches). This was a real nice fit for my previous rollings through the riverside bike paths & byways I used to do in the past, but in this new environment I was left a little wanting.

Being Melbourne there are obviously the dappled menagerie of fixed geared bicycles ridden by all sorts of people; from the reclaimed ‘70s roadracers, to next years carbon Olympians & also girls on colour coordinated handbag accessories. The concerted, & in some people’s eyes – conceited - effort the average Melbournian with a laptop & Twitter account go to in their quest to have the right sort of bike to prop against their outdoor café table while having their macchiato alfresco is almost stupefying. But alas, I look & am enticed.

Oh sure, I’m way to tight to drop more than a few lobsters on anything of late, especially on a lifestyle that which may offer: “that intrinsic symbiosis of man & machine as one” , but comes with one of the biggest prices that can be paid in bicycledom - that brakeless car bonnet somersault & bitumen faceplant with the added bonus of taking your knees to an early grave in the lead up.

But I still wanted to try it. I wanted the easy cheap option. OK, the 2nd cheapest option (a local Velodrome offers track bike hire/try/ride) was to pick up one of these Tomi-Cogs.

You see, I have single speed, but it’s a MTBer. I can’t [really] get a regular fixed cog for it (in place of the single freewheel cog), but these Tomi-Cogs bolt onto the disk brake rotor mounts. It just means that I’ll be running my rear wheel swapped around & I will also lose a rear brake.

I’ve got the cog, but I haven’t tried it yet. Waiting on the accidental misplacement of the ‘husband To-Do list’, & a bright starry night when all the kiddies are safe in bed before I let the devil loose...