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We all make our own decisions...
Musicians are careful around others' instruments, but (many urban American) drivers aren't careful around other moving vehicles.

bloke "who - unless remuneration is involved - stays way from urban America"

I can tell you from personal experience that once you break a violin, it's basically toast. If you dent a tuba, you can have the dent taken out and it might not look exactly the same but it will play the same. You cannot say that for a violin, and they are considerably MORE fragile than tubas, no matter what some may think.

The last time I used my bike (wearing a black suit) was when I had a VERY limited time to get from here to here:

I was doing (at that time) my regular (ending at noon) late Saturday morning lounge/boarding gig, which ended at noon (a cruise ship, which went from Memphis to New Orleans).

If I REALLY hustled, I could get off that ship and into my car in ten minutes.

Less than two hours later, I was supposed to be in my seat (University of Mississippi basketball arena) to play prelude music for one of the commencements (located in the middle of the campus).

As there were multiple (large) commencement exercises on campus (overlapping times), the campus was a veritable "parking lot" - ALL DAY.
Google driving time (on a REGULAR day) was listed as 1:25 - c. 85 miles

How I accomplished this was to
- wear my black suit (only slightly overdressed) for the cruise ship gig
- drive from the Memphis ship dock to the University of Mississippi VERY fast
- (yes) use a tuba BAG
- park at an office building parking lot (closed Saturday) just off the southeast corner of the campus.
- jump on my bike and RIDE (in my black suit, with the tuba on my back) past ALL of the .5 mph cars jammed up on campus
(with a whole bunch of people heard saying to each other: "We should have though of that!")
- arriving at the arena c. 10 - 15 minutes early - with time to use the restroom, clean up just a bit, fix my hair, straighten out my clothes, etc.

(I did that two or three years in a row.)

Mark wrote: Sun Feb 11, 2024 3:12 pm

bloke wrote: Sun Feb 11, 2024 9:12 am Some of us goofballs have stopped using bags, because we've grown weary of dent removal - even when we can do it ourselves.

Agreed. Wasn't it @Rick Denney that coined the term Dent Bag? I have seen that term used in this thread yet.

I remember them being called "Dent Bags" in the early to mid 90s. The biggest dent on my Euphonium is due to said type of bags.

OK. We won't !

bloke wrote: Fri Feb 16, 2024 6:16 pm The last time I used my bike (wearing a black suit) was when I had a VERY limited time to get from here to here:

- jump on my bike and RIDE (in my black suit, with the tuba on my back) past ALL of the .5 mph cars jammed up on campus
(with a whole bunch of people heard saying to each other: "We should have though of that!")

I bike to rehearsals weekly, with the BBb kaisertuba on my back.
Works for me! (with a bag obviously, I have no hard case for it)
I have a bag for my sousaphone as well when we have a marching gig in town, looks a bit like a turtle on a bike from a distance

I bike to work daily 20km one-way, so it would be silly for me to take the car out to drive 2km to the band room...

I remember the 1970's when then University of Illinois tuba professor Dan Perantoni would ride across campus on a bike with his tuba in a gig bag on his back! I have used gig bags for nearly 50 years with few problems. Ironically, the worst damage a tuba has suffered was when it rode luggage on a plane while secured in a hard case. The next time I flew with it it rode in a bag and had it's own seat.

I wasn't crazy about using the bag and I wasn't crazy about using the bag on a bicycle, but - without that strategy - I couldn't possibly have made it past at least a mile of cars jammed up in a major American University campus to the basketball arena in the center of the campus, and done so by time to start playing - given the time I had between the end of the last gig (80 miles away) in the beginning of that gig.

I still have all of my California bags, but they're pulled out only one I have to use them for some reason such as the above. My largest thinnest tuba has no matching accommodating bag, and will not.