Over-Roaded

In 2024, for the primary time in my life, I noticed via a New Yr’s decision, that being to cut back my complete variety of bicycles. Now, I didn’t precisely minimize it near the bone, however I did handle to get my complete variety of highway bikes down to 3–arguably two greater than anyone actually wants, however fairly good for a semi-professional bike blogger and recovering middle-aged Fred. I had the Milwaukee, which was to be my “fundamental” highway bike:

I had the Cervino, which was my ceremonial cosplay bike, as a result of there’s actually nothing like driving a basic highway bike in wool on a crisp autumn day:

And I had the Faggin, which was my rusty, dinged-up sizzling rod, and which additionally has sentimental worth:

Not solely that, however the trip is way extra refined than the bike’s garish look would recommend, and it’s solely enhanced by the latest addition of these Spinergys and their surprisingly springy trip high quality, although the beautiful thrill of realizing it might finish at any second when the wheels collapse is little question a part of what makes the feeling so intoxicating.

Please notice that the Normcore Bike DOES NOT COUNT, because it’s now my elder son’s bike:

Although there’s one thing each endearing and deserving about this unassuming bicycle, and someday I’ll take it again and adorn it with one thing ridiculously extravagant like a Campagnolo C-Report drivetrain full with Delta brakes, simply because:

Both that or I’ll simply slap a pair of Spinergys on there and name it good.

Anyway, I used to be fairly happy with myself for consolidating my holdings, and I used to be able to trip these three humble highway bikes into retirement–or at the very least till I used to be not capable of attain the bars and I turned a full-time Rivendell rider, whichever got here first. I had all I wanted, and that was that:

However destiny had different plans, and I used to be quickly the recipient of a battered and bruised Shock Marinoni:

In addition to a brand new test-cycle from Traditional Cycle:

As soon as once more, I used to be overloaded and over-roaded, and naturally I’m now within the troublesome state of affairs of getting fallen for each. I had loads of frustration in overhauling the ‘Noner, but regardless of myself it’s now working fairly easily:

And even the 8-speed Ergo levers I’d simply assumed had been moribund really feel incredible after being handled to new hoods, cables, and a liquid lubricant shvitz, they usually miss nary a shift:

As for the LeMond, having eased into an all-steel existence, I figured I’d revel within the materials excesses of the early twenty first century for awhile and ship it again:

However naturally I’ve change into infatuated with it. Not solely is it each roomy and cozy, nevertheless it’s fairly gentle on its ft, and whereas I’ve by no means cared a lot about bike weight or endeavored to construct a superlight bike, after you have one it begins to really feel like one thing you must have at the very least for particular events, in the identical approach you typically really feel like utilizing the flamboyant wine glasses. It’s additionally like having a second probability on the Litespeed, which I returned after a lot soul-searching, and which is without doubt one of the few former bikes I nonetheless really feel a pang of eager for once I have a look at it:

I don’t even really feel something once I have a look at the Engin, if you happen to can imagine it, and that was a customized bike made only for me:

However the Litespeed I miss, go determine.

Additionally just like the Litespeed, the LeMond hails from the period that was the excessive water mark of my Fredness, so there’s a sure satisfaction in driving round on a motorbike that I might by no means have dreamed of proudly owning on the time because it was the rarefied area of dentists and different jet-setters who stay impossibly glamorous life:

So if the LeMond Tete de Course was probably the most unique bike you possibly can buy from the Nice Trek Bicycle Making Firm on the time, does that imply in 20 years I’ll be equally infatuated with the top-of-the-line Teks I scoff at right now, comparable to the brand new Madone?

Setting apart for the second the very actual risk I’ll be bodily unable to trip such a motorbike in 20 years, I suppose I might see it taking place. In addition to it most likely being a whole lot of enjoyable to trip, I additionally suspect that that by then all of the stuff that presently turns me off about this bike due to my retrogrouchical predudices (the disc brakes, the battery-powered derailleurs, the built-in all the things) will appear impossibly quaint, and I’m certain that by 2044 I’ll be happening and on about how satisfying it’s to press an precise button to shift as an alternative of adjusting gears via telepathy or blinking or urgent your tongue to the roof of your mouth or clenching your sphincter or nevertheless it’s that drivetrains will work by then. (Most likely some mixture of all of the aforementioned strategies relying on private desire and the way you are feeling about inserting your “blips” rectally.) In actual fact it’s fully attainable that the very concept of driving a highway bike outdoors might be a consider the previous; simply because the “security bicycle” changed the pennyfarthing, so too might the Zwift bike exchange the common highway bike:

“Security bike,” you say? Effectively it doesn’t get any safer than that.

Then once more, I’m undecided it’s so simple as the passage of time, as a result of I’m undecided that in 20 years a Trek Madone will fill me with a way of nostalgia. The texture of a Dura-Ace 9-speed lever or the look of a Chris King headset in a titanium headtube evokes for me the aspirations of yesteryear and the the satisfaction of getting lastly realized them. Nevertheless I’ve no such associations with internally-routed hydraulic hoses and PNS jerseys, and had already hardened right into a crusty previous fusspot by the point they entered biking, so it’s onerous to think about my present emotions in the direction of them evolving into affection.

However you by no means know.