After a number of consecutive days of sporting attack-themed clothes and people varieties of footwear the place they connect themselves to the pedals it was time to vary gears–utilizing friction thumb shifters and a low-normal derailleur, after all:
So I packed a small lunch, loaded it into the basket of the Platypus, and headed out clad within the newest technical biking attire:

Together with the very newest in footwear expertise for optimum energy switch:

The cutting-edge cleatless rubber sole grips the pedals, and the open-source “lacing” expertise distributes strain evenly throughout the foot:

The Platypus feels sooner and handles extra spiritedly than you’d assume on paved roads and trails:

Although a experience on it feels incomplete in case you don’t get just a little naked earth beneath your tires:

The tires I’m utilizing are what we used to name “2.1-inch 29er mountain bike tires” again once I purchased them, however at this time would most likely be thought-about “55mm gravel tires:”

I don’t even know what a mountain bike tire appears to be like like at this time, since “slim” mountain bike tires are actually gravel tires, and plus-size tires went out of favor by the top of the final decade, when apparently 29ers got here again to switch the 27.5-inch wheels that had changed the 29-inch wheels within the first place:

Received that?
In fact you don’t.
And it doesn’t matter anyway, as a result of now after all we’re on the cusp of the 32-inch wheel “revolution,” and the one factor I do know for certain anymore is that mountain bikers are probably the most fickle and annoying cyclists on the planet.
Anyway, no matter these tires are, and no matter sort of bike the Platypus is, it carried me swiftly and in consolation over diversified terrain to my lunch spot:

That’s known as “goal-oriented biking.”