I have owned my 65cm Clem for 8 years now, and I have run into the first downside of the extra long wheelbase after 8 years of mostly happy riding.
I recently changed out vehicles after my former ICE vehicle chunked it's transmission, I now have a 2024 F150 Lightning that I have leased for, let's say less than I thought could ever be possible for any EV. The only EV things that were cheaper to lease were things that I could not live with because well I'm 6'7" and I'm not getting a Hyundai Kona ever. I liked the ID.4, but I know those things are hardly selling and the dealer acted like he was doing a favor by taking off the superfluous paint coatings and letting me buy it at sticker. I found some single pay leases on Blazer EVs that were pretty attractive, but I wasn't sure how I was going to come up with $6K all at once other than borrow most of it. The unmentionable brand starting with a T was not considered. So huge EV truck, it is. Only the first very low payment due at signing and give it back at the end of the lease for $399 disposition fee, fine. Anyway.... I haven't had a full sized truck since the 00s as I've been trying to lower my environmental footprint, but back then I could fold up the back seat of my crew cab and roll my Rivendell Custom into the back seat with the wheel turned to the side. And fit another smaller bike facing the other direction. The cab on my Lightning is even more cavernous than my Nissan Titan I had back in the day which was pretty big in it's own right. So when I folded up the back seats this morning, I figured it would be no problem getting my Clem in the back in the manner that I used to back in the day, for my 3 mode commute, i.e., car, train, bike. But it was not to be. I could not get the doors to close, even after I took the front wheel off! It's just too long. And I wasn't about to take the back wheel off and expose the interior of my clean new truck to my dirty drivetrain. Worse, after I struggled with it for a while, I realized I was too late leaving the house to make the 7:30 train, so I had to drive all the way to the office, whereas normally I'd only spend about 15 minutes in the car, it was over an hour. There's not another train until 8:00, and that wouldn't have gotten me to the office by 8:30. I suppose the casual reader might be thinking, well, why didn't you throw it in the back? The answer to that would be that I have a bare painted bed without any sort of bed liner or bed mat, and being that this truck is a lease, don't want to scratch up the bed and be liable for paintwork at the end of the lease. Another reason is, it's a 5.5 foot bed and I'm not sure just how well my very large Clem will fit back there either. I did go ahead and purchase a bed mat from the jungle river site, we'll see how well that works out. I guess next time I'll just have to take my Custom. There are worse problems to have. Jim Austin suburbs, TX -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/CA%2BypmEZ-iyA%2BFCZw0%3DjS_X1uL6X0Zcxn0hTEG8WoS_ekoHRSWA%40mail.gmail.com.
