I’m emptying my basement and garage filled literally to the ceiling and rafters of all my old stuff. (Mr. Tibbs you are excused from this post now) As I go through years of cycling technology and advancement I started attaching times, races, and sentiments with each part I dropped into the “eBay” box.
What is it about the sport of cycling that draws so much passion and reverence?
When my dishwasher wears out, I don’t shed a tear, I don’t save it so that I may one day fix it or use a part from it.
I throw away my running shoes without a hint of reflection.
The tools of our sport are just that, tools that are bought used and broken.
Why do I have a fork with a missing dropout?
Why do I have a couple leather hair net helmets?
Why do I have some Campy downtube friction shifters?
Why do I have 100s of used tires…100s?
We name our bikes, we care for them better than our cars, neighbors, friends, family, spouses, children…
Why is that?
-SD
Most of us will never own a car that we can be ONE with in the way we are with our bikes. Though we’d like to dream about donning a racing suit, boots and helmet and climbing behind the wheel of some exotic racing car, most never will. But we can clad ourselved in lycra, nylon and fleece and climb aboard a great fitting and handling bike. We can scream down a mountain at speeds on the edge of sanity on two skinny tires and feel like we’re ready to take on Le Tour. And its all under our own power.
And, except for the sexually perverted among us, most of us never dream of becoming one with the dishwasher or blender. Soulless, utilitarian machines are those. . .
A bicycle is a buffer. A seductress. Unlike running, where you are mercilessly reminded of your effort with every pounding step, or swimming, where you are frequently humbled by a 12 year old on the Jr. High swim team- cycling lures you in.
It’s easy. It’s visual. I has allure.
So you buy this bike, after all, unlike running and swimming in cycling you can buy speed. Can’t you?
Then you ride it. It works pretty darn good. It’s fun. Then the seduction begins. The bike is smooth and supportive. Efficient in a sinister conspiracy urging you to push harder- harder.
The ruthless insults of sports like swimming and running are gone. The bike supports you, so you go harder. Cyclists experience the same phenomenon a hostage does against their terrorist captor: The Stockholm Syndrome. They forget the bike is their antagonist, their captor. They mistake it for their friend as it lures them toward greater and greater efforts and toward a building pain that suddenly becomes unmitigated agony. They travel to new levels. They are seperated fro their ego.
It is exactly what is supposed to happen in a good marriage: You let go of your ego. You are humbled by the effort. You put your entire being into it.
And in the end, the bicycle is perceived as your ally in this experience.
But in the end it is a just a tool. Just aluminum or carbon or whatever. It is the people who share a like mindset that infuse the bike with these capabilities. That is what you are feeling. The people who built it care. They’ve been there. They know.
That’s why people feel that way about bikes I think.
I bought my first tri bike a while ago, named it (of course) and used it for a number of years in more races than I care to remember. We were quite a team until that fateful day I went to the LBS and found out I was kidding myself about those “cracks in the paint” around the bottom bracket. I’ve since moved on to a new steed, but the old timer still has a place of honor at the top of the wall rack at the foot of my bed. Last thing I see at night, first thing I see in the morning. It still looks fast even hanging on the wall. My mountain bike should be on the rack along with the new ride, but I just can’t bring myself to remove my old friend…