Finalizing the Fleet review today which will close out this look at all the bicycles I have at Guitar Ted Headquarters. This post will cover my "utility fleet" of bikes. Bikes with different purposes and uses. The last Fleet review can be seen HERE. A link on that post will take you back to Part 1.
When I received the Singular peregrine Mk4 last year, I retired the Twin 6 Standard Rando v2 bike. The entire point being that the Singular had better tire clearance and an even more classically inspired look than the T-6 did. Then I got an idea....
I retired my old Shogun fixie conversion due to its limited tire clearances and built up the T-6 Standard Rando as a disc brake fixie. I could run fenders with 37mm tires, and this was perfect for what I needed to get around in the city with.
It has become a great commuter bike and errand bike. If anything it is too nice, as people might want to make it their own, whereas the Shogun looked old, and not very desirable. But be that as it amy, I do like the T-6 as a fixed gear bike.
2012 Surly Big Dummy:
Back several years ago I obtained an Xtra Cycle long tail conversion and bolted it to a late 1980's Schwinn Sierra. My goodness! I was hooked, but I found the limitations of the set up rather quickly. The donor bike attached to the Xtra Cycle longtail conversion made for a flexy, not super-capable rig. I had cantilever brakes which weren't good enough, and the drive train was old as well. The purpose-built Surly Big Dummy sure looked a lot more attractive to me!
Well, along about 20 16 I posted a "Wish List" all about wanting a Big Dummy. The post was read by a local, Mike Johnson, who just so happened to have a Big Dummy which he was willing to pass along. We negotiated a price, and by the middle of the Summer I had a Big Dummy!
I use it most to do our recycling and to pick up items for the Cedar Valley Bicycle Collective. Once in a while I use it for another errand, but those are its main uses these days.
The bike probably needs to have parts upgraded or replaced, since I haven't touched anything on it since I got it ten years ago! Better get on that!
2013 Singular Cycles Buzzard:
Well, this one came out of nowhere, seemingly, as I had not ridden this bike in years and, in fact, it had been retired for quite some time. I had zero interest in bringing it back into the fleet until an idea popped into my brain one day back in 2024. "What if I had a bike which had front and rear identical wheel axle widths which could be swapped out like a Surly Pugsley's?
I had a Salsa Cycles Enabler fork, the early fat bike fork in steel which was made to accept a 135mm quick release rear hub. This was an influence of the Surly Pugsley, which had swappable wheels in case your derailleur got whacked. The idea being that you had either a fixed cog on that front wheel, (really a rear wheel mounted on the front), or a free wheel single speed cog, and you could bail yourself out of a tight place.
The Buzzard was just early enough that still had a quick release rear drop out. Perfect! So I got around to lacing up a new front wheel out of the old Buzzard front wheel. I used a thread-on rear hub for a single speed and there ya go! I had a swappable front wheel bike packing bike!
Not that I've actually used this bike for anything. Well, anything other than testing. My intentions are to use it for an actual sub-24 event this year yet, So, stay tuned!
Pieces and Parts:
No pictures,but I do have four frames sitting around here too. A Salsa Cycles Big Mama, a Gary Fisher HiFi, a Badger Cycles Dorothy, and a Mongoose All Mountain Pro. I also have an Ibis Trials Bike stuffed away somewhere down there that needs brakes.
And that does it! Those are the bicycles I have. I'm working on whittling down the numbers of bikes, and in fact, I've already broken down one from the Part 2 of this series, the On One Inbred. So, this list should get smaller as time goes on. That's my hope, at least.
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