Righteousness is in…and it has nothing to do with morality! I was speaking to the boys over at Paul’s Cycle a few days ago, asking how their new Electra franchise was doing since they had taken on the line at the beginning of the season (at my urging and recommendation I may add). Apparently these old-style upright bikes are selling like hot cakes to the legions of aging boomers with sore asses from their Treks and Gary Fishers. Chronic readers of this blog may remember my own epiphany after buying an Electra Amsterdam at my daughter’s behest, after her two-year sojourn in Holland and 40 lb. weight-loss riding one of those Dutch beasts of steel.

This year, while I got a pretty early start on the biking season, it was nevertheless with my Gary Fisher Sugar 2 mountain bike in its new “road” configuration (more upright bars and slim road tires instead of knobbies). The Electra lay dormant in my basement, too lazy to haul it out and get the recall done on it (we had received a letter asking us to bring it in to the shop for a safety-related modification). At my wife’s insistence, we brought the bikes in and a few days later, after the repairs were done, we walked to the Village and rode the bikes home. Wow! What absolute fun to be able to ride and see the world at the same time rather than be hunched over the handlebars.

And here’s a funny item. I installed a new iPhone app that uses the built-in GPS to track speed, distance, elevation gain, calories burned, etc. So I did my usual workout ride with each of the bikes (MTB and Electra) and while the rides felt dramatically different, the Electra was only about a minute behind the Gary Fisher in overall performance (and actually burned more calories because of its weight). So there you go…riding for fun isn’t significantly less exercise than riding with more narcissistic aims.