Thinking About It: 2021 Specialized Crossroads 2.0 M (Dark Grey w/ Neon Green Accents

Specialized Crossroads M
Dark Blue-Grey with Lime Green Accents

Made in Cambodia, Designed in California, the Specialized Crossroads 2.0 M my daily bicycle. With a reasonable mass of 31.5lb or 14.3kg, its a mostly aluminum build.

The premium A1 aluminum frame features fender & rack mounting points. The handlebars made of aluminum alloy with a 15-degree back sweep, 80mm rise and are 31.8mm in diameter as tubes for grips, shifters, brake lever mounts & similar forward lighting, phone mounts etc.

The Stem made of 3D-forged aluminum with 4-bolt retention and 7-degree rise. The tape a body geometry contour with lock-on. The Saddle a body geometry comfort gel type. The alloy seat post 27.2mm featuring spring suspension & a 2 bolt clamp adjustment. The seat binder a bold type of 31.8 mm.

Front & rear axel brakes feature 160mm drilled rotors with a mechanical brake discs actuated by a cable pull force. Hydraulic brakes with larder rotors would be a cool upgrade that requires less hand clamping force to slow the bike effectively, but I fly down hills as fast as possible to get where I am going faster & rarely use the brakes anyways. I don't want to waste an inertia scrubbing off brake pads on the rotors unless needed for safety anyway!

The Shimano EF500 shift leavers are a breeze to actuate on the fly. The front derailleur a top-twin Shimano Tourney, with 31.8mm band clamp attaching it to the frame. It moves the front of the chain drive up to the larger sprocket smoothly without any binding & minimal noise. The Shimano Altus 7-/8-speed rear derailleur that works well with minimal noise. The chain drive system perfectly aligned by the dealer, clean & lubricated properly, with very high quality components that are sure to be long lasting. The crankset Shimano Tourney TY501 and the chainrings are 46/30T w/ chain guard while the KMC Z7 7-speed w/ Missing Link™

While chain drives are criticized for being old fashioned and belt drives, shaft drives, internal rear hub automatic shifting, electric or electronic detailers, there are many advanced bicycle parts that can drive the cost of a bicycle into the $15,000 range. This ~$700 Specialized Crossroads 2.0 really a premium entry level bicycle with nice parts assembled really well by bicycle mechanics a Gerks in Issaquah, Wa, USA.

The 2.0 wheel set features 40mm inner tubes with Schrader valves for adding air to the tires. 700x45mm front & rear Nimbus II Armadillo Reflect tires of 60 TPI tire compound that rolls better with better traction performance and puncture resistant to protect the inner tubes so you can ride with less concern for a flat tire. Many newer bicycles feature puncture resistant tires now.

When I was selecting which electric kick scooter to buy, I actually went with the Hiboy S2 Pro because it has solid drilled tires & no suspension. That means the tiny battery in the S2 Pro can enable a top speed over 18 MPG via the 500w nominal 800w peak front hub motor & 417 watt hour battery that gets 999.5 MPGe.

Puncture resistant tire technology awesome & should become standard along with slime tire polymer sealer installs from the factory like they did in our Lectric XP 3.0 long-range eBike featuring a 672 watt hour battery that gets 1500 MPGe :) Raise your hand if you want a flat tire? I actually spent $350 building a full size spare tire & wheel kit with jack & wrench for our 2019 Nissan LEAF SV. The entire kit only added about 23kg of mass to the car, noting that this will have virtually no influence on range per charge given that driving techniques like hypermiling can improve the economy vastly more than a small mass penalty.

Now there are no two ways about it, adding a lots of battery to an electric vehicle makes the vehicle heavier. I am thinking of an alloy Tesla Model S with a mass in excess of 2300kg. That's using a mostly aluminum intensive body shell, alloy wheels, and low mass lithium NMC batteries. The same vehicle with flooded 6V GC lead acid golf cart batteries of the same energy storage capacity would have about an a 8000kg mass and would chew up car tires even faster!

Electric Vehicle Battery Mass Paradox

EV's have a battery storage capacity mass paradox limited by the chemistry of the battery, its anode & cathode, electrolyte, case materials, thermal constrains, charging limitations, cycle life, energy density, power density, peak power output, fire safety, puncture safety, short circuit safety, high & low cell voltage safety, BMW system efficiency, power buss wires, relays, contractors, switches, power controller & everything other than the EV motor that's part of the energy deliver system or regenerative braking energy recovery system all of this stuff very copper, nickel & aluminum intensive, but fortunately thereby also highly valuable for recycling in the future when the vehicles scraped out EOL or end of life :)

Bicycles are my favorite vehicle technology because they are energy efficient with human muscle calorie MPG-bio of over 300 MPG-bio-thermal & are an appropriate personal mobility solution for 10 billion people.

Cars make people fat, sick & lazy because of how they get people off bicycles & into fossil fuel energy powered metal boxes with climate control, fat & happy for a while, but traffic congestion steals that joy as more people buy automobiles worldwide.

Commuting in stop & go traffic stresses people out while the tailpipe fumes from ICE vehicles are toxic to public health (cancer, brain & kidney damage) & cause acid rain, while nasty smog forming air pollution causing climate change to worsen faster because of CO, CO2, NOX, soot, particles, fumes, smoke & worse like HC or unburned hydrocarbon vapors that create ground level lung irritating ozone when the UV in sunlight reacts with HC.

E-bikes & E-bike conversion kits offer a pathway to a comfortable hill crushing bike that reduces athletic stress on the knees, hips, ankles & feet. They also enable people to have longer bicycle routes that would be feasible or practical for the average commuters fitness level without causing an injury. I am on day 3 after riding to work & back on my bicycle & still feel sore. I been using our motor scooter & EV car to give myself a physical break. It was the first bicycle ride in over a year, and a somewhat extreme route for the first ride in a long time, so I am not surprised.

I am almost 40 years old, so it's not like I am 10 without a job able to dottle about on my bicycle all day for hours on end. To commute on bicycle one way in less than 1 hour means focus & you have to be close enough for it to actually work at whatever speed you can keep up. I averaged 8.8 mph round trip on the commute.

We are moving 12 miles further away from my work, so I would need to be able to rise 50 mile round trip at high speeds & that's only practical with electric assist. That's in part why I shelled out $1300 for the Lectric XP 3.0 step-though bike, so that I can commute with pedal assist 30 miles one way, charge at work, then commute home again. If it's 22 miles one way & I can manage 18 MPH on the eBike then that means a little more than an hour each way. Not every day, Meg even says I can put the bike in the trunk of my Nissan LEAF SV, drive it to within a more reasonable bicycle range, then bike the remaining distance for fitness & moral improvement.

With 150-1500w motors or 250-750w more commonly, and something like 12-120nm of torque, rear hub, front hub & mid drive electric motors can turn a bicycle into an E-bike when paired with an appropriate controller & battery, throttle & other brake sensor & lights.

A conventional human powered bicycle nearly silent and provides a good cardio workout. Bicycles are also very energy efficient, and much faster than walking. There is something special about riding a normal bicycle that reminds me of my first 10 speed children's bike that I rode a lot as a child.

I left my first bicycle outside without locking it up to go into a fast food restaurant to use the bathroom & came out to see a man put my bicycle into the back of his truck & was driving away, the bicycle was stollen. I was very upset because I had to walk home some 8 miles, which took over 3 hours because of the elevation gain.

My second bicycle, the 21 speed Schwinn mountain bike was my 21st birthday present, purchased for under $200 from Fred Meyer :) This $700 Specialized Crossroads M my 4th bicycle & exceedingly nice, very sharp looking, and I only seek to add a front suspension form at some point.

My 3rd bicycle was a Prodeco Phantom X folding E-bike but someone stole it out of a locked underground parking garage in Downtown Bellevue Wa, USA while I was at work. The Lectric XP 3.0 Long-Range 48v 14AH + 500w hub motor with folding step through frame my 5th bicycle, though its for Meg & I both this time, especially because the step-through easier for her 5ft 3in body leg spar length to get on & off of.

Meg has a 1996 Marin Triathlon bicycle that was given to us by Sid & Joyce, that Recycled Cycles in Seattle helped us improve with an upgraded used cheap carbon-fiber handle bar & some light tuning & repair action.

A typical bicycle features a transmission with between 7 & 21 gears depending on crank sprocket & rear sprocket chain drive detailer setups, enabling the human ride to vary between hill climbing & high speed level cruising.

When the founder of Honda Motor Co. the largest motorcycle manufacturer in the world started his fist product was bicycles with military surplus radio power generator engines adapted with a small sprocket on the crankshaft connected by chain to the pedal crank sprocket, able to go about 30km/h while returning over 100 miles per gallon or 2.35 l/100lkm.

The 500 cc single cylinder carburetor engines by Philips was harvested from WWII radio power generators & mounted with adapters to the bicycle frame by 12 guys working in a tiny shack. This principle of high density manufacturing still employed by the Japanese automakers today to make better use of every square centimeter of factory floor space & to enable better teammate communicate with the employees working closely together.

To this end, I have toyed with the idea of adapting a 4-stroke motor to my bicycle for fun! The only reason I do not, because I already have a nice 2013 Honda PCX150 motor scooter that we have only used less than 6000 miles. Similarly, our 2020 Yamaha MT-03 has less than 2000 mi ODO. 4 stroke air cooled bicycle engine kits cost about $300 in highest quality units from bike berry, take about 3 hours to install, and can operate at 15-25 MPH for about 1 hour.

They get over 100 MPG, but then again so does our 10 year old motor scooter that has an under-seat storage, 72 MPH top speed via upgraded CVT transmission that makes it a twist & go no clutch-no-shifting operation with a comfy upright seating geometry & full suspension. With 13 hp & 11lb-ft torque, the PXC150 can be ridden 2 up with Meg & I at the same time at or about 35-50 MPH returning 88 MPG rides that way // Then again, the noise, fumes, fuel, carb, oil changes, replacement parts, it becomes a mess to deal with & no nearly as reliable as the PXC150.

The fuel injected emission controlled PCX also released 25-50x less smog forming emissions per gallon of fuel burned, vs the 2 stroke & 4 stroke carburetor bicycle engine kits. The same reason a typical gasoline fueled push lawn mower releases more smog forming air pollutants per unit of fuel consumed vs a typical new emission controlled automobile engine vehicle. There are battery electric cars like our 19 Nissan LEAF SV & many other models, and battery electric lawn mowers, weed whackers & other power & yard equipment.

If stollen, reference #'s help recovery
Or can help prove ownership to Police

A single car worth of metal can make many tens of bicycles, even e-Bikes with batteries & suspension. Bicycles are easier to park & more can fit on a roadway. They give people activity & combat sedentary lifestyle patterns that sicken people with preventable decay. They are fun to ride & much faster than walking.

I absolutely love this Specialized Crossroads M bicycle, even though it's not an eBike. It a fun activity workout to ride, looks really nice, has excellent tires & brakes & just light enough at just over 31 pounds or (14.3kg) that I can easily lift it over my head to carry over parked vehicles, carry it up staircase, or load it off angle into the back of a hatchback car or SUV or truck to transport. No bike rack required. The quick release front axel makes it possible to fit SC2.0 into our LEAF or Prius trunk area.

Without suspension, the ride quality surprisingly supple given the stiff aluminum frame. The seat post contains a shock absorber, so perhaps that's part of why NVH seems less that I would expect without front or rear suspension.

Speaking of suspension, with an eBike I believe a good one needs front forks with 80mm of travel or better & adjustable spring rate with lockout. I think rear suspension, seat post & seat suspension are great too. At least 14AH of battery at 48vdc or 52vdc nominal, though 60vdc or 80vdc would be even better. A rear hub motor of 1000 watts with 1500 watts peak, or better.

An eBike mass of under 70lbs idea, as is the ability for it to be folded up so it is easier to store when not in use & easier to move in an automobiles utility space. Lower vehicle mass better in my opinion since it makes lifting the bicycle up stairs or similar much easier. More features are cake, it's the core of with PAS or pedal assist, half twist throttle, and to make it accessible a reasonable price like the Lectric XP 3.0 or Troxis or similar higher value e-bikes reasonable price eBike's.

7 sprockets & detailer of rear axel

I just got the Specialized Crossroads M back from storage, which took me 38 minutes to extract in a dangerous procedure I would never repeat. I was obsessed with getting it back so I could ride it right then to my PM route, so after getting it down, I carefully took off the front wheel being cautious not to damage the disc brake or caliper. Thankfully it has a quick release front axel nut setup!

Crank & detailer for two sprockets

I set the front wheel & tire again the bumper & then with the rear seats folded down & a large piece of cardboard covering the full size spare tire & seat back, I rolled the rear tire into the trunk of the LEAF SV & then slid it into place with the cardboard moving in a way that helped. I carefully stowed the front wheel behind the front passenger seat in the wheel well. This solution proves that it would be nice to have folding bicycles to fit two of them into one of our passenger sedans.

Front axel, disc brake, quick release & fork end

After not riding since June of 2022 and rode it 10 miles one way to work from the round-about on Newport Wa in Issaquah, WA, USA, to the BSD transportation Hub on NE 5th St in downtown Bellevue, Wa, USA. It took me 43 minutes to ride to work. Riding home took 57 minutes. I averaged 8.8 MPH according to the bicycle computer that I use to track rides. The odometer from 70.1 to 90.3 mi respectively.

Custom painted & restored water bottle holder

The route was very intense for a first ride after not riding for about a year. I am very sore, especially my knees, hips, ankles & feet. It will likely take a day or so to "recover" so I can try again. To that end the next bicycle ride to work & back will probably be on the Lectric XP 3.0 long-range Step-Through eBike we recently purchased, though that depends on when it arrives from Arizona where they are shipping it directly to us since I purchased it on their website on Monday May 8th 2023 with a Mother''s day discounted price of $1179+ tax or around $1300 in my memory.

Rear sprocket, disc brake & caliper, cables, mount

The 7lb battery 48vdc nominal voltage with 14A capacity, so not exactly long range when considering that some eBikes come with 20AH or 30AH or even 60Ah batteries more recently in the EHORA Juliet for example, but it weights 100+ lbs. I care about mass because the 64 lb mass of the XP 3.0 Lectric right at the edge of what is safe & practical to lift off angle into the back of our Nissan LEAF SV or Prius III hatchback sedans.

Made it home from work on this bicycle :)

A bicycle my favorite vehicle for several reasons. I had a 21 speed Schwinn Mountain bike for 19 years & logged thousand of miles on it :) Meg gave me the approval to get a high quality bike so I traded it in at Gerk's Ski & Cycle in Issaquah Wa in Feb 2022 when purchasing a Specialized Crossroads bike that's a little bit low mass & has 14 gears via 2 at the crank & 7 on the cassette in the back. It's around 5lb lighter than the Schwinn, making it easier to lift over my head or carry while walking up a short steep trail connector between roads or similar.

Made it to work 10 mi away on this bicycle

I really wanted a super low mass or ultra-light bicycle, something like 20lbs or slightly less. The only things I could fight that were that light were carbo-fiber frame bicycles that cost around $1500-5000, within the price range of awesome e-Bike prices, though most e-Bikes have a mass greater than 46lbs, with a few models as low as 38lbs which considered an ultralight in the eBike lineup available for purchase to the general public worldwide.

I say that because you can always find some one off bicycle maker in some distant place that make a low volume example of an eBike that only weights 24lbs, omitting that it has a tiny 150w mid-drive motor & ultra low mass polymer battery only good for 12mi of throttle only or 26 miles of PAS or pedal assist.

Having strong puncture resistant tires nice given the way I ride in the bike lanes on the road edge to the right of the fog line, where a lot a debris ends up, some of which can easily puncture soft bike tires & tubes since many bicycles have tube-tires. The bike features Nimbus with armadillo Anti-Flat Technology, with superlative bead-to-bead flat protection and reflective side-wall accents that increase visibility in low-light conditions. Casing: 60 TPI with wire bead & 60a compound that rolls better with bette traction. See https://www.eriksbikeshop.com/specialized-nimbus-ii-armadillo-reflect-26-inch-tire-pr3e19283/p