Tikit Commute

I'm working at home quite a lot these days, but I do need to visit our office outside of town occasionally. Yesterday I had a meeting in the next town over and was then headed for our office located on a rural property outside of Calgary. I grabbed the Tikit on my way out the door and rode 2kms to the train station - folded my bike and traveled 25kms by train to the southern edge of Calgary. With my new Blackberry I was able to deal with a few emails on the train which was nice. Once at the last station I unfolded the Tikit and rode the 25kms to Okotoks where I had a meeting. After the meeting I threw the folded Tikit in a colleague's car and went for lunch on the way back to our office. At the end of the day she gave me a lift to the train which I took back into downtown. Jumping on the Tikit I rode to meet a friend for coffee/dinner and an evening bike ride before finally heading home. I've had the Tikit long enough that I'm taking it a bit for granted, but when I think about it I'm quite amazed how versatile this bike is and how it just seems to fit into my life so well.

A few things I observed today:

• The Greenspeed Scorchers are amazing on rough pavement and even rumble strips. Riding this same route with my road bike or recumbent involves some tooth rattling moments. Given my Tikit has really small wheels I was amazed that riding across the rumble strips was almost a non-event. I didn't feel the usual buzz from rough pavement at all. I pumped the rear Scorcher up to ~55psi and the front to ~50psi which seemed to work well.
• My time for the 25km high way ride was 55mins for an average speed of ~27kph. My average speed along the same route [over many trips] on my Cannondale road bike was ~30kph so that is not bad at all. There was no wind on my ride and I suspect the upright position I am in on my Tikit would suffer quite badly against a headwind. Although I could fit drops to the Tikit if I wanted.
• I've largely given up on bike shorts and bike specific clothing for a lot of my riding. Wearing synthetic performance fabrics I was able to ride reasonably far & hard while arriving cool and dry at my meeting.
• I was happy that the 8 speed gearing on my Tikit was more than adequate for this route which entails a decent amount of climbing.