Wilhelmina the Pavement Eater</script>

Wilhelmina

The Daily

Year/Make/Model: 2015 Marin Lombard
When did I get her?: Spring of 2016
Triple Crank!: You can have it when I'm dead
Dynamo Lights!: SON, my bb
What do I use her for?: Commuting! Touring! Camping! Long road rides! Occasional gravel and MTB-ish adventures!

Wilhelmina was a lot of "new" bike tech to me when I first bought her. She had brifters! Woah, neat! A threadless headset! You mean, fiddling with stem length wasn't going to be a pain in the ass anymore? Disc brakes! I fiddle with adjusting them more than rim brakes, but I don't get brake dust all over my fingers if I have to fix a flat! And I can reliably stop in the rain!

A crash taco'd the front wheel in the summer of 2017, and the rear was replaced in the early fall after 4 broken spokes and something like, 7000 miles? I think?

She got a dynamo light upgrade and a nice wheelset upgrade at the end of 2017. But the SP dynamo hub wasn't happy with PNW weather and failed in 2019, to be replaced by a SON hub. Yes it was expensive, yes it kinda hurt to pay that much. But also, it's January 2025 now, and it still lit up my commute home tonight.

Fenders and a rear rack live on her year round. There's also a mount for an Ortlieb handlebar bag. A half height framebag I sewed in the summer of 2024 is also along for the ride at all times. Which makes it harder to shoulder carry up stairs and over stuff. Oh well.

Shifter setup has changed a few times. At first, because of the aforementioned handlebar bag. I attempted to fix bad shifting because of the bag with what's known as the V-Brake Noodle Trick. It worked ok.

In 2023, I replaced the rear shifter for a newer version of Sora. Best way to stop the shift cable and bag from fighting was to just, buy a shifter that routes the cable under the bartape! And everything was great! Until I was hit by a skateboarder 3 days later and the whole thing snapped. But I liked it enough to buy another one. And that one was also great! Until a pawl spring just stopped working in the summer of 2024.

Now Wilhelmina has bar end shifters. I loved having brifters. I do miss them. But two in almost a year is terrible reliability. And for how expensive and non-serviceable they are, I gave them up.