Excuse me for a moment while I plop my ass in my rockin’ chair on the front porch, scratch my five-day facial growth and speak to the concept my generation calls loyalty.
It’s a simple idea, really. Comes down to this: If somebody or something does good by you, well you repay by keeping true to them or it. Not looking for the next shiny object.
Take for instance a job. I spent eight years at a major metro daily newspaper climbing up the professional ladder stayin’ true for the opportunity it gave me to grow.
Then one day I watched as they shredded the folks who had been loyal for years figurin’ a kid outta college can fill the same space for less cost.
Nevermind that survey after survey pointed out that the No. 1 reason readers canceled subscriptions was the quality of writing.
Take fanship. My first sports memories are Bart Starr sneaking over the goal line for the Green Bay Packers THIRD consecutive championship (they did that once before, too, for all you who get wound up sayin’ that nobody has won three Super Bowls in a row like stuff that happened before you was born don’t matter).
Well, I paid for those titles by the Pack being the Detroit Lions of the 70s and 80s, shuffling through quarterbacks by the name of Horn, Tagge, Gagliano and the likes before Favre-Rodgers-Love.
Now when it comes to products …
I’ll use and abuse something way, way past its “expiration.” Don’t get me started on food expiration dates! My daughters don’t understand they are only suggestions or that humans have shaved mold off cheese for thousands of years without throwing a big chunk away … but I digress.
Sometime about 12-13 years ago I bought a pair of Keen sandals that were constructed ingeniously to add cycling cleats to the soles.
As soon as the temps clear 65 degrees, they become my go-to footwear.
My daughters laugh how they tan the top of my feet to look like tiger paws. They are sublime.
I managed to get 10 years out of them before going to the cobbler since it appears I’m the only cyclist interested in riding sandals (or so a Keen marketing person once told me as she explained why they discontinued the model).
The cobbler bought me three more years. Alas, they bit the big one on vacation. I’m not sure the cobbler can revive them this time. (He couldn’t)
I’m tempted to get out my Bowie knife and carve my leather Specialized cleats into sandals since they are older than the Keens and are already rockin’ on the front porch, iffin’ ya know what I mean …
This week’s question: What cycling item has come and gone that you’re either clinging to or pining for its return?
I miss my Morgan dropbar grips on every ride.
The other thing I miss is the ability to mix and match components. I long for the day when a standards committee develops a communication standard for bike components. For example: magine a rider using Campy brifters with SRAM derailleurs and Shimano brakes.
There are two items I wish were still around or more readily available the first being more conceptual than the other.
Santa Cruz’s cheekily named APP suspension. These bikes pedaled phenomenally well and Evil’s DELTA system is basically a tidier version of it albeit notably more costly. I suspect SC’s dropping it had more to do with lack of profitability versus performance.
Factor Hubs. These were a knock off of the I-9 Torch hub, but that is selling them short. Factor was subsidiary company under the Bike Fetish conglomerate HQ’ed here in Georgia. They took popular products and redesigned them to be better having said products then made by the companies associated with the group (Novatec, HT, etc.). They are a near perfect design and loud as hell. You can still find some floating around, but they are amazing hubs that are more bulletproof than just about anything this side of Hadleys. IYKYK.
On my glory days 26″ race bikes, I keep sets of those short lived (2003-2006?) XTR “brifters” in working condition. Pair them with a rapid rise derailleur and they are the shit. Plus, after 40+years of manual labor, it hurts my thumbs when I use my modern dropper and thumb shift levers.