At some point, I have to come to terms with the fact that it’s October, I ride a bike to work in Portland, and I have no fenders. Or particularly warm clothing. This morning was cold, but still mostly dry. Wet plus cold is right around the corner, though, and will manhandle me outright.

While I’m at it, probably best to realize I’ve been using a Parlee Z3 as a daily driver. Somewhere in there I stepped from “owner of badass hot rod bike shop” to “dude with three kids” and that step is approximately three stories high. Now I’m that guy who won a Ferrari in some obscure Italian pasta company sweepstakes and drives it around town with bald tires and a grinding transmission.

I need a practical bike.

Like that $70,000 steam bent wooden Thonet up there.

It isn’t so much the bike I need, though, as the Photoshop work associated with it. Here, for instance, found right there in the FastCompany article about the bike, is what it would look like if piloted by an imaginary commuter.

And here’s what it would look like if a tiny Alejandro Valverde were to try to ride it with only a few parts of his shifters left.

The point is, instead of all this nasty business of freezing nards off riding the thirteen or so miles in to work every morning, why not just Photoshop myself doing it and make it easy?

As first seen on the Facebook page for Cyclocross.com then, here’s an image of me commuting to work this January.

Or I buy fenders.