all the gear…
…and no idea.
I read an interesting article the other day where a wife was berating her husband for wanting to upgrade his current £800 bicycle to a more expensive £2000 one. His perspective was that the old one just wasn’t fast enough; hers that the money would be far better spent on a new kitchen.
Now, I’m on thin ice here in that my first road bike was a third-hand Pinarrello that I paid £300 for, and loved monogamously for a year, before spanking over £2000 on an equally lovely but far lighter, better spec’d and more sparkly titanium framed second-hand Sabbath Mondays Child. The Sabbath is fantastic bit of kit, I am undoubtedly faster on it and able to get up even quite fearsome climbs relatively sharpish. The thing I most liked about the Sabbath though is the fact that it looks just like a normal bike, in fact it looks like a bike from the 70s before aerodynamic carbon frames, dish wheels, tt bars and all that paraphernalia had even been dreamt up. See, my thought is that if you pitch up on a Cervelo P4, Argon 18, Pinarrello Dogma 6.1 (in Sky colours of course) or some such bit of tackle then you HAVE to be able to ride it, and ride it like you stole it.
So imagine my horror last week when I hook up with a couple of guys for an easy, gentle end-of-season spin and am greeted by a gnarly, honed, old-school cyclist with the words ‘nice bike’. He didn’t need to say anything else as we both knew exactly what was meant – ‘all the gear no idea, let’s now see if your legs can cash the cheque that your bike has just written’. To further add insult to injury he was on an aged steel framed Look winter hack that had seen more road miles than I’d probably driven in a car. Uh oh. The next hour was pure torture and I was well and truly put to the sword before making my excuses and quitting before the second loop. Mr Old School, whilst pushing the big gears Jan Ulrich would have been proud of, didn’t break sweat and contemptuously played down my feeble fawning of him being an excellent cyclist. Why, he’d given up years ago and only taken it up again this summer. Mind, I’m sure he let slip that he had competed in the ‘worlds’ at some point in his past. I wish I’d have had the breath to have quizzed him more on this.
So, my advice is by all means go out and buy whatever bike you want but be prepared to pay the price in more ways than one. Watch out for the real boys on their road-worn and war-damaged Colnagos, Ribbles, Quests and Bianchis as they’re waiting just round the corner and are ready to spank your bony backside all the way to your next double-shot latte coffee stop!
Oh, and the debate over the bike vs kitchen ended with the advice that the wife should use some of the money to buy herself a bike as well as if she didn’t, by the time they were both 50 she’d look more like his mother and he’d undoubtedly trade her in for a younger (and far lighter and more sparkly) model!
