Retro

I got Betty back in the early 2000s and loved the ride...until a couple summers ago when I quit loving the ride.

I made changes to the stem and to the seatpost to make it a bit more comfortable for a bit more time, then I dropped my name into an 18-24 month queue for a custom road rig. I’ve never been interested in the carbon bike that everyone has, and the steel ride I wanted just wasn’t found on the LBS floor.

Until one day it was.

In my size. Fillet brazed 853. Gloss black with white panels.

And I took it out for a long ride, just because I was curious.

It was lively.

And for the next ten months the ride picked small battles with the custom-lugged-953 in my head. My LBS buddies would comment on the bicycle when I’d stop in, and I’d leave saying I like it. The ride is what I’m looking for...

...but for just a few more $$ I’d eventually have my dream bike, whatever that was. It had been clear when I’d signed-up, but the edges were getting hazy.

And then there was a deal.

And the deal and the ride and the stolen LHT and the upcoming gravel grinder and the fact that I really do fit a standard off-the-shelf bicycle just fine so-why-would-I-spend-a-ton-of-$$-on-custom all added up to a logical conclusion.

And it turns-out the things I questioned about the bike ten months ago are the very things that make me love it: long-reach brake calipers and brazons for a rack mean it’s a ride for a variety of purposes, seasons and conditions.

One ride for everything. Old-school.

-TOB turns-out Old School is hip

Through the Window

I want

that

bicycle, the one that says

goin' somewhere...and

maybe I'll think about coming back....

- OB and I want to go with it

Nirvana

In 1996 I bought my first road bicycle.

I had ridden thousands of miles on a Giant Prodigy comfort hybrid during the previous four years; had seen the coast of Oregon and the Canadian Rockies a week at a time from an upright position. As I watched riders on road bicycles fly past me on those tours, I didn’t really understand the wow-you’re-doing-this-on-a-hybrid comments. I simply assumed they had fitness that I didn’t.

It was during a tour across Minnesota that summer that I rode my first century. The day’s route was about 70 miles, with an extra 30-mile option around mile 60. It was a relatively flat course with a couple of rollers, and the decision point was late enough in the ride that my friend and I had plenty of time to think about it.

The day was perfectly blue and perfectly mild. By the cutoff we were still feeling fresh. We had nothing to do all day but ride, so we did.

Over those 30 highchair-positioned miles I pondered road bicycles as small groups of them passed me with riders on the hoods, in the drops, on the tops. Somewhere around mile 75 my lower back started aching, and the extra foam of my lycra-covered saddle that had been so comfortable...well, it wasn’t anymore. The bull-horns on my hybrid didn’t allow the hand positions that would give my back and backside a break.

The light bulb warmed, then illuminated.

A couple weeks later I was off to find a road bike.

It was a LeMond Zurich that convinced me I could give up a granny ring for the double -- one test climb up Williston Road was enough for me to know that a lighter weight bicycle and different position meant I could go places more easily and more comfortably than I’d ever imagined.

It was cycling nirvana.  

I’d never need to, nor why-would-I-ever-want-to, buy another bicycle.

- OB I was pretty naïve in '96

And so I Write about Bicycling

and so I write about bicycling

because if I don’t my mind whirs through the night

over my profession

of learning and joy and creativity

that hasn’t anymore

because test scores dictate

because budgets are part of the chess board

and legislators override professional judgment

and one of us is doing the work of two of us

and because it all matters too much,

and so I write about bicycling

because a matching kit doesn’t really matter

and joy can be found in a paceline

or outside of one

because clearing the log the first time is a celebration

and because great flow is as good as great sex

and because all of it is beauty

and joy and freedom

and

it

saves me


- ob