They say love is blind, but maybe they haven’t had a long-term relationship, because let me tell you, over time, love comes to have 20/20 vision. I am keenly aware of my wife’s shortcomings idiosyncrasies. When we were younger, I held out hope that some of these peccadillos might soften or disappear. Later I realized that you need to be very careful what you wish for. When people change, it can be hard to predict what sort of person they will become. I prefer to love the woman I know, as she is. I’m not blind (and neither is she), I just know what I’ve got, and maybe the enduring feature of love is that chooses what it’s got, over and over again, despite its seeming imperfections.
That brings me to bikes.
I have never had a bike that was perfect. Oh, I’ve come very close. In fact, I own three custom bikes, built to fit me in every way, and they are stupendous, nonpareil , inspiring in the way they read my mind and do my bidding. But I think I could probably improve each one, especially as my body changes and begins to need new things, like a taller headtube.
Every single non-custom bike I’ve had required compromise. If it fit just right, then it didn’t handle quite as I’d have liked. If it handled well, my position wasn’t ideal. Some of them weren’t as agile as they could have been. Some were too stiff.
Did I love each one? Yes. I love bikes. I love riding bikes. Even the worst of them were worthy of my affection. But I shall not compare them to a summer’s day, notwithstanding the fact that I prefer spring and fall anyway.
Fortunately, my bikes have never taken my criticisms personally, and there are only one or two that I regret letting go, once the spark of our relationship had gone out. In my perfect world, I would build myself a new custom bike every five years or so. That cadence tracks with the evolution of my body AND my ideas about what I want a bike to be. If done right, each of my bikes is made with some room to adapt to my evolving fit. As for the relentless march of technology, we’re all at the whims of the industry on that.
This week’s TCI Friday wonders what you would change about your number one bike right now. We know you love it. But how could it be better?
I’m in almost at a year in on my current main squeeze (bike, you degenerates!) and I have made a few noteworthy changes to it so far. I built it over-forked by 10mm out of the gate and that made the geometry ideal for my endeavors. I had the rear shock custom tuned and recently went to a less monstrous fork (Zeb to Lyrik) albeit with the same amount of travel. I may likely acquire a “Runt” air cartridge from the same people that tuned the shock, Diaz Suspension Designs. Beyond that not much else. Who knows though? I certainly have modded my bikes a million different ways over the years, but as time has passed I have found a better ROI from working on me.
My number one bike is a big brand dually trail bike. It is the best bike I’ve ever owned. It’s no super svelte race bike (like my previous best bike ever) but it is faster with less effort. I would like to swap the drivetrain to 2x. I miss the extreme low gear for the near impossible climbs and I would like a little taller gear for some of the forest roads that I occasionally race on. Really, I love it, no matter what.