Polluting Young Minds

Yesterday was pretty nice weather here in our nation's capital, so my buddy Kev and I met up for a play date for our sons. They've both recently received their first two wheeled rides, so we headed down to the Georgetown Branch extension for a little indoctrination on bicycles, riding in groups. Gotta start them young.


This is part of our merry band shortly after refreshments at Gifford's ice cream in Bethesda, conveniently located at the trailside. From left to right, my son Benchan, Kev, Kev's son James. Benchan insisted that he and James had to give the "V" sign in a group picture. All the little kids in Japan do this.


Another shot, from left to right, Kev's son James, me, my son Benchan. They are still working on the "V" sign.

I'm holding my Fuji America, which is newly on the road. I've despaired of finding a Fujita Professional saddle, so I mounted a pretty nice Fujita Belt instead.

I also replaced the bar end shifters with a set of Suntour Superbe downtube shifters.

Long time followers of this blog may recall that I applied a blue and yellow diamond handlebar harlequin wrap and that I've been somewhat ambivalent about the results. Recently, somebody observed to me that this is similar to the handle wraps on traditional Japanese swords, which makes me feel that this wrap style is a bit redolent of the Japanese heritage of the marque.

Well, with a brown saddle, it is starting to grow on me. It looks a lot better in person than in photos is all I can plead.

This example is in really clean, low mileage condition, and very trick with the chrome stays, fork, and fork crown.

It rides like a dream, inviting fast, aggressive riding. This was sold as a touring bike, but the geometry is really that of a sport bike. Lovely, lovely machine, one of Fuji's best offerings ever.