by Maynard Hershon

Opinion

What Would Nancy Do?

Both my bikes are steel. They’re old. Both have older Shimano parts on them. Do I love my bikes? I do. Am I married to steel as a frame material? Or to bike parts of some bygone era? No and no. 

I see the charm of old — or old-style — bicycles. Handcrafted older or older-tech bikes are more evocative than most new carbon racing bikes. People say old bikes can be repaired after crashes, that steel frame bikes feel better on the road. Older bikes attract the attention and approval of folks their owners want to call peers — folks who’ve “been around” and are not seduced by the latest thing.

When you hear people call new-tech bikes names like throwaway bikes, “fragile bikes” or “compromised bikes,” ask them if they have owned any recent bikes or have ridden them a few miles. It’s my hunch that the honest answer will be no. 

Some people bad-mouth equipment they haven’t owned or even used. They absorb opinions about bikes from other “experts” and hold those opinions as gospel, never examining them. They don’t want to ride the bikes they love to hate. They already know all they need to know.

I hope I’ve never fallen into that trap in my columns. I say that after a recent epiphany, a surprise discovery ride on a slick new bike.

I see that many newer, lighter, more “alternative” (than my 20-year-old Lighthouse or 10 year-old Rivendell) bikes are terrific. We’re not going backwards. New bikes are not junk, not cheap-to-make techno-trash. No one frame material or parts group is an essential element of a great bike. 

I walked into Turin Bikes here in Denver on some errand I can’t recall. The guys there treat me like family, I’m delighted to report. They said “hi” and introduced me to one of the reps who calls on the store. I believe he represents Shimano and Scott Bicycles among other outfits.

He had his own bike with him, a Scott “Addict,” equipped with the first Shimano electronic Dura-Ace components I’d ever seen. I didn’t know the Scott models and didn’t know where the Addict fits in their line. I’d seen Scott ads and knew that they are among the lightest bikes one can buy. My tendency is to discount extreme lightness or extreme anything in bicycle design. I’d rather ride the middle of the road.

I’d read about the new Dura-Ace system but wasn’t all that interested — and I didn’t know then what I know now regarding how expensive it is. 

Riders vary in their ideas about what’s important in a bike, the money moments, you could say. I suspect that some cyclists feel that the instant they take their new superbike off the roof of their car and their bike club friends see it, it is the money moment. I’d rather my bike attract no attention at all. Just owning a bike says nothing about me. The world’s full of bike owners. There aren’t nearly so many riders.

When does my bike earn its keep? When I’m riding up a long grade into a headwind, pedaling an 80 cadence — that’s the money moment for me. That’s when my bike matters to me most. Does it feel alive and responsive to each pedal stroke? Does it fit me so that I hardly notice the machine? Does it feel as if it’d never ever waste a bit of my effort? 

In that uphill headwind moment, you will note, I am already in the correct gear. A big-bucks magic shifting system won’t help. I don’t know if a bike five pounds lighter would help, I’ve never been able to duplicate that situation on a borrowed 17-pound racing bike.

Because there is no equivalent to the Bicycle Paper in Colorado, and because my work seldom appears in VeloNews these days, Turin’s rep did not know me by name or as a bigshot media star. He must’ve thought I was a favored customer, a “friend of the shop.” And I am, I guess.

“Would you like to ride the bike?” he asked. 

I seldom ride other people’s bikes, but I looked at the Scott and the new parts. I saw that the bike was almost exactly my size. The Turin guys urged me to do it. I said, “sure, be my pleasure.”

The bike was not almost my size, it was precisely my size. The saddle felt like one of mine in both shape and placement. The bars were a bit lower in relation to the saddle than mine are, but they weren’t way down there. I fit on the bike just fine.

And when I rolled out Turin’s door and into the street, I realized that I could simply ride off into the sunset on it. It “disappeared under me,” as the cliche goes. As I pedaled — light, precise, responsive and shock-absorbing as it was — I wanted to ride away on it and not go back. 

I rode it for the novelty of riding it — after years on steel frames and old Shimano parts. Who’d have imagined I’d want to own it?

As I hinted above, I don’t believe I’d spring for electronic shifting even if I could afford it. I’ve always been able to find the gear I wanted, even with frame-mounted shift levers that didn’t click [friction shifters]. The magic of the new Dura-Ace shifters worked fine but did not charm me. 

The Scott charmed my socks right off. I don’t believe that there’s something about that particular Scott that’s superior to other cool new bikes; it could have been any evolved bicycle. Did I think the Scott was pretty? Uh-uh. Did it remind me of Fausto Coppi’s bicycles or the 7-Eleven Team’s Serottas? Nah. It isn’t a period piece or an artifact from a niche in some museum. It’s a riding tool, the best one I’ve used.

If you’d like to remain blissfully happy with your old bike, as I was with mine, and the rep offers you a ride, do as Nancy Reagan suggested. Just say no. 

Maynard has been writing about cycling for the Bicycle Paper (and the Rivendell Reader) almost forever. He says he’ll keep doing it as long as he can get away with it. “I do it for the money,” the Denver-dweller says, but we think there must be something about cycling that interests him.