Even before I rode it, just walking into the living room in the dawn light and seeing a BMX bike on its kickstand in front of the tree, caused synapses to fire in new and exciting ways. Riding it was like arriving on a new planet, with new gravity, one I’d dreamed of for a long time. I was eight.
The thing about a custom bike is you really believe it’s going to be better than anything you’ve ridden before, but this is when I learned the difference between believing something based on information and knowing something based on experience. I was actually still assembling the bike and had merely placed the shifters where I thought they belonged on the bars. I wanted to test that positioning before I applied the bar tape and put the build to rest, so I took a quick spin around the parking lot. That’s when it dawned on me that this bike was absolutely perfect, like putting on a pair of old jeans, like slipping into a set of 1,000,000 thread count sheets.
It was my first dual-suspension mountain bike. For years, I’d insisted this was not a thing I needed. I did some research, asked some more experienced friends, and then called a shop owner I knew who stocked the bike I’d settled on. He had one he wanted to get rid of. He had parts. He had my fit numbers. Then one day the bike arrived, and I unboxed it and put it together. The first ride was not revelatory. It was awkward as I came to understand something completely new. This just goes to show that sometimes your mind can be blown slowly, a subtle dawning of new possibilities and unanticipated speed, until the new bike is all you ever want to ride.
For balance, I will mention a few bikes that shocked my system in ways far less positive. I bought a vintage road bike with horizontal dropouts for fixed gear conversion. It was beautiful. In retrospect, this was probably a sacrilegious idea to begin with. When I got the frame and built it up, I discovered the headtube was ovalized, making it basically unrideable, unless “mechanical bull” is the flavor of bike you prefer.
An eBike that had received glowing reviews, whose battery died (no resuscitation possible) in the first 50 miles. But let’s not dwell on these things.
This week’s TCI Friday wonders what bikes have blown your mind? And are you still riding them?
The Diamond Back Hot Streak blew my mind when I saw it under the christmas tree in 1985ish, it was my first “good” bike. I’m not still riding it.
My second road bike, a 3Rensho in 1992, blew my mind too. It was my first “boutique” bike, I wish I still had that one.
Not my first mtn bike, but the Bridgestone MB-2 that I got in 1994 ish blew my mind for how well it did the riding I was doing at the time. Same for the Bontrager Race Lite. No longer have either of those, and I wouldn’t ride them even if I did.
The Transition Sentinel that I got in 2020 really did a number on my mind. No way a bike that descends so well should be able to climb like it does. I do still have that one, and I still ride it as often as I ride a mtn bike.
In the mid 2000s I got a custom cyclocross bike built by Coconino Cycles based off a full sized CAD drawing that I did when I should have been drawing grading plans. Kinda cool to design your own frame and have it built by an excellent framebuilder. It blew my mind that I got the design right. Then in 2024 my mind was kinda blown again when I saw how much better of a road/gravel bike the new mid range Niner cabron (intentional) gravel bike I got was. I’ll chalk that up mostly to the components and wheel/tire progress that came over time.
Come to think of it, every new bike or dirtbike I have gotten has blown my mind to some degree. Sometimes it is because it is so good, and sometimes it is because it isn’t that much better and I wonder why I spent the money on it.
Paris Sport 10 Spd circa 1976 – first bike with derailleurs. 27″ wheels with a very small frame for my 11 year-old self. Suddenly I could go long and fast, and so I did (long at the time was like 5 miles).
Second MTB 1991 – I stupidly got my entry level Jamis stolen. My friend/uncle knew the Yeti people and convinced me to buy a FRO. A whole other level. Loved it and rode the heck out of it.
Serrotta Colorado 3 in 2003 – first bike custom built for me with modern components. Gave birth to a new love for the road.
Mind blower/game-changer bikes: ’92 Klein Rascal, ’99 Santa Cruz Heckler, ’99 Bianchi BASS, ’02 Santa Cruz Bullit, ’02 Surly Instigator, ’03 Custom Spot single speed, ’05 Santa Cruz Heckler, ’07 Kona Jake the Snake, ’10 Santa Cruz Butcher, ’14 Banshee Rune, ’17 Evil The Wreckoning, ’23 Santa Cruz 5010 MX. I know that is a lot, but there were others that weren’t necessarily bad, but unremarkable. The above all represent bikes that have elevated my experiences and taken me places I could not have imagined.
The IF Deluxe that I had built in 2003 was a wonderful MTB that I raced a ton and even won a couple of races on. It really blows my mind that, 20 years after it was built and 10 years after I last raced it, I keep throwing parts at it because it is the bike that I still want to ride a lot!