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I bought Gertrude in November 2013. I had a tentative job offer in DC (they were waiting for their contracts to come through) and I was actively looking for a job in San Francisco. I came to California with about two months of savings and figured I’d spend some time job hunting and ride the CA coast and hope I didn’t run out of money before I either got a job or the DC contracts came through. Fortunately I found a job very quickly and asked for a few weeks before I started so that I could ride the coast and learn more about CA before I moved here (for informational purposes, not to dissuade me).

I was short on cash so I was scouring Craigslist everyday. I needed something that would be decent enough to ride to San Diego but I wasn’t looking for something that I necessarily loved because I was thinking I might just sell it in San Diego. After nearly a week I still hadn’t found anything that I liked but I did run across an ad for a Fuji touring bike, new, at a bike shop.

I went there expecting a traditional bike shop. It was a shop specializing in electric bikes. I don’t know if someone messed up an order or how they ended up with a few Fuji touring bikes but they had one left and it was my size, kismet!

It turns out that my new bike, dubbed Gertrude, was perfect. The design is old school but really simple to fix in the field. Gert has linear pull brakes but you can buy one with disc brakes now. I’m still using the stock saddle, five and a half years and many thousands of miles later, because it still keeps me comfortable on a long day of riding. I recently upgraded the wheels because I wanted to use a dynamo hub and it was easier to just build new wheels and use the old ones as a backup set than to rebuild the existing wheels but the stock wheels worked for me for a very long time.

I haven’t seen many Fuji touring bikes out on the road but when I run across someone who has one they rave about it. A mechanic I met in Virginia had ridden one around the world in the 90s and was still riding that same bike in 2018. He told me that the bike design hadn’t really changed since he got his bike but it was still his choice for touring despite twenty five years of technological progress in the bike industry.

The Fuji touring bike is a great touring bike at a very reasonable price. I wasn’t expecting to love Gert when we first met but despite having zippier bikes, she’s my first choice when I need something reliable and sturdy. I’ve recommended this model to anyone in the market for a decent bike either for touring or to ride around town as you can haul quite a bit on it and it is very comfortable.

My touring setup involves Ortlieb front panniers, Ortlieb rear panniers, Revelate half frame bag, and the Revelate feed bag. I love the feed bag for easy access to things during my ride, like my phone or a snack. I’ve been converted to a four pannier setup from just the two rear panniers after touring on Catalina Island where having some weight over the front wheel would have really helped with my handling. I’ve been using this bag to fly with my bike and it has taken so much of the stress out of bike touring.

Interested in reading more about Gert’s adventures? Check out some of my travel writing:
– Summer in Scandinavia
– The first bikerafting trip from the Hoover Dam
– A non-traditional bike tour of Southeast Alaska