Following up on previous discussions that clearly classify me as a closet curmudgeon, let me assure you that I have embraced the future on occasion.
As marketing director at Bike Friday, I got hooked up with some fellas living on the cutting edge of cycling technology from time to time.
When we decided to dabble in the concept of belt drive and internal hubs, I found some guys trying to make the leap from the auto industry to bikes.
Yeah, I know. Dreamers. Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em.
Anyways, they had this sweet hub called a Nuvinci. Not a 3-speed or 5-speed. Nope, we’re talking infinity!
Imagine twisting your handlebar grip and locating the perfect sweet spot to keep your preferred cadence!
What wouldn’t you give for that convenience?
I’ll tell you what practically NO ONE would give: the 5 pounds that the hub weighed.
Weight weinies! Can’t live …
Since I never concerned myself with weight, it was the bomb. I even lugged that extra massive 5 pounds up the McKenzie Pass once, marveling how insane it was to always be in my sweet spot without cranking and crunching gears trying to find nirvana!
Suffice to say I’m a loner in sooo many ways.
Or how about Aerospokes?
Life in the 20-inch wheel lane ain’t no picnic! Options? We don’t need no stinkin’ options!
Enter some dudes with indestructible carbon composite five-spoke wheels. Not only that, but they come in fancy colors!
Now Bike Friday has always been about colors, offering a great variety of tones and tints and always experimenting.
So I built up a sweet showroom bike: USC red with yellow wheels.
I took it for a test spin knowing what might be an issue, but came back simply amazed!
I went to expert engineer Rob English and asked, are these super aerodynamic wheels?
He rolled his eyes, snorted and laughed as he shook his head.
Maybe it’s the weight. Once they get moving, momentum …
A louder snort.
Well then, I don’t know the physics, I just know they feel better than any wheel I’ve ridden.
Yep, Raz the loner.
I bought that bike, plus the extra set of gray Aerospokes we had ’cause no customer ever showed the slightest interest in adding weight to their machine.
My wife and I have pounded those wheels going on 13 years. I once got a 3-inch diameter tree limb stuck in one. Would have ripped standard spokes to shreds. Nothing. No sign of any incident.
So see, I’m willing to boldly go where no one else dare venture.
This week’s question: Does weight make you say WAIT!?
Yes. I weigh in under 130 and I’m not interested in something that’s 1/4 of my weight. I’m built like Marco Pantani but with the tree trunk thighs or the earring. So weight matters like it does for a kid.
Then again, I bike packed with a 68 lb bike on part of the Erie Canal and that granny gear made it all worthwhile as I climbed the 800’ out of the valley to go home.
So maybe it’s all in my head??
* WITHOUT.
Just to be clear!
The dissonance is real! Years spent obsessing about weight and now it’s no big deal.
My carbon full sus mtb was broken for 10 days so I hopped on the Ti hard tail for a few rides. What a chattery non-flowy experience that was! The bike is way lighter, but less fun.
Bit by bit the old dog learns the new trick.
Also, thanks much to TomInAlbany as it was hard to picture a version of Pantani with even bigger thighs and even more earrings.
No, generally. My mantra had been “lose the weight, save the money.” For example, I put a ton of miles on a Giant OCR with a basic component spec (i.e. Tiagra shifting later upgraded to 105). Those miles included a ton of climbing like the Devil Mountain Double Century with 20,000 feet of climbing. Dropping the lbs off my bodyweight saved me thousands of dollars. Now that I’m older though, there’s more of me and more money to spend. So I’ve got a lightweight Trek Emonda that I carry my not-quite-Clydsedale frame around on. Ah, the path from young man to middle age.
I don’t obsess over weight. When I built my road bike my goal was to make the bike comfortable which was the reason why I selected a Ti frame with clearance for 32mm tires. I’ve had quite a few people ask me how light it is or they comment that it must be light cause it’s Ti. They seem disappointed when I say I built the bike for comfort not lightness.