New Bike

Hello Everyone,

There’s a great Onion article from years ago about a guy in a convenience store trying to figure out which brand of diet cola best expresses his personality. It’s funny because it both satirizes brands and consumer choice but also speaks to something true. People really do consume products as basic as a soft drink based on their self identity.

I don’t drink a lot of soft drinks, but I do ride my mountain bike a lot, and I’m faced with the same question. What kind of mountain biker am I?

I had to ask myself this question recently when I bought a new bike. You might think: “Hey, just get the best available bike at the best available price.” To which I reply: “Oh, you sweet summer child. Would that it were so simple.”

For many years, I defined myself as the guy who had an old, but still functional bike, and crushed climbs all the same. I didn’t need a fancy carbon fibre frame, a dropper post or any other bells and whistles to grind out tough rides. My kit worked, that’s all I cared about. If I didn’t have it, I didn’t need it. Like patching holes in my clothes, I valued functionality over esthetics. At least, I saw myself as someone who valued functionality over esthetics. And, if we are being honest, I wanted other people to see me as someone who valued functionality over esthetics. But then, like the pair of pants with the thrice patched hole in the inseam, my faithful old bike broke and could be patched no more.

The line between “fixing up an old but still workable bike” and “unnecessarily risking serious injury” is located precisely at a break in the frame. If your tires are old and worn, that’s something you can manage. If your frame is broken, no matter what you do, it will most likely break again, and usually when under the most strain. For instance, when you are going down a steep, dangerous hill. I’m parsimonious, not dumb. It was time to get a new bike.

My dilemma stems from the fact that because I’d been out of the market for so long, there were a half dozen significant upgrades to mountain bikes since I last bought one. And, when I did make the plunge, I timed the market pretty well and bought a very nice Rocky Mountain Instinct. But now, I’m the guy with a flashy new ride. Carbon frame, big cassette, the whole works. What does this say about me as a person? Who am I anymore? Can I still think of myself as morally superior if I’m no longer visibly motivated by functionality?

It would be one thing if I could keep my credibility by complaining loudly about my new bike and how my old ride was so much better, how they don’t make them like they used to, how I don’t need any of this new-fangled tech, etc. But my new bike is awesome. I fell in love with my old bike because it was such an upgrade over what I had previously. My new bike is the same kind of step up, and I’ve fallen for it hard. I’m like a widower who remarries; I mourn while also full of joy at my new life partner. Is that comparison going too far? Maybe a little.

Still, it’s not hard to see why I’m not even pretending to prefer my older bike. The new one is unfathomably light, shockingly strong, and as nimble as a cat on Velcro. I’ll name it David McConnor. It even has an Edmontonian shade of baby blue.

Can I still be cool if I’m just another middle-aged guy on the trails with a nice bike? No, that ship has sailed. But, true to my demographic, I’ll cling to the idea that at one point, in the increasingly distant past, I was actually cool.

Wes