Hitting The Skids – Bike Snob NYC

Further to yesterday’s post, an anonymous benefactor generously offered to underwrite my Craigslist Spinergy purchase in the name of content creation:

I should point out that this benefactor has in no way requested anonymity; I just think it’s more fun to refer to an anonymous benefactor. And before you get carried away, no, the anonymous benefactor is not Grant Petersen–though a Roadini with Spinergys is exactly the bike the Internet needs right now:

[Photo: Rivendell]

Anyway, naturally I sent the seller another message agreeing to pay the full asking price, but as of now I have not received a reply. Perhaps I offended him with my initial lowball offer, or perhaps they’re just gone, but either way I now find myself in the ironic position of really wanting those Spinergys after having roundly mocked them. And maybe $200 is a bargain after all, because here’s someone in Sheepshead Bay who wants more than that for just one:

He’s definitely banking on the Return of the Fixie:

I like to think the “Must pick up” in the ad doesn’t mean you have to come get the wheel, but instead refers to some sort of magical Excalibur situation whereby only the most worthy Fixster will be able to lift it.

Anyway, it could be that these Spinergys have slipped through my fingers (severing several digits in the process with their wind-cutting blades), and if so let that be a lesson to you about the dangers of haggling:

Also, speaking of requisitioning materials for this blog, I looked further into the possibility of obtaining a steel LeMond in the exact same size as the crabo-tanium Tete de Course, putting exactly the same parts on it, and comparing the bikes in order to determine once and for all what effect (if any) frame material has on ride quality:

Alas, in looking at the geometry charts in the catalog, it turns out the Tete de Course is a little different from the steel bikes:

How much of a difference does this make to the ride? I dunno. But the comparison doesn’t work if there are any differences at all other than frame material, so that’s that.

Of course that famous blind test should have put this whole thing to bed in 1996:

[I really need those Snapple shorts!]

While the tester felt he could detect the differences between different steel tubesets on otherwise identical bikes, he also decided his preferences were basically random:

Then again he also takes for granted that different materials ride much differently:

Though who’s to say those preferences aren’t equally random? Between the rider and the bike there are so many variables it’s no wonder your favorite bike often happens by accident:

I never seriously entertained the possibility of actually liking that bike, but I ended up loving it–and even then I didn’t end up keeping it, opting instead for a bike of a similar vintage that fit similarly but was also a little more versatile and “practical,” relatively speaking:

It’s easy to make fun of bicycle marketing, but you’ve really got to feel for these companies who have to compete over potential customers by pretending any of these random ride impressions are easily quantifiable or anything but subjective. Obviously a bike must be designed properly for its intended use, but so many of them are extremely similar, and so beyond that it’s like selling a fragrance:

Then there are the bike booms followed by the inevitable busts, and right now we seem to be in the middle of a big fat bust:

Apparently, their parent company is throwing them overboard to focus on their watersports business:

So basically they’re ditching bikes for this:

I want to know if wakeboarding is to waterskiing as gravel is to road riding…or is the new thing going to be gravel wakeboarding, where you get pulled down a dirt road by an ATV whilst kneeling on a carbon fiber board? And is wakeboarding really a better investment than bikes? Or is this company just stupid? (According to one source, it’s the latter.)

Meanwhile, on the road side, power meter company Stages Cycling has also just blown up like a Fred who’s powered right through the feed zone without stopping:

This is probably bad news for anyone who’s bought a $749 bilateral power meter:

And of course Trek recently “right sized” itself by 10%, and are cutting prices to match, which means you can now get that top-of-the-line road bike you’ve had your eye on for…fuck it, never mind, they’re still insanely expensive:

But obviously not all their bikes are that expensive, and being old and obstinate and out of it and completely mired in vintage bikes as I am, I figured I should at least take a look at the sort of bike normal people are buying these days:

Back in the previous century, when I was a young single person just starting out in a career I would eventually fail at, I walked into a bike shop in order to purchase myself a “serious” bicycle. In those days, the main question was, “Road or mountain?,” and to be honest even as I walked into the shop I still hadn’t quite decided. Fortunately, the shop gave me a great piece of advice, which was basically, “You live in the city, what they hell are you going to do with a mountain bike?” So I got a road bike and rode the hell out of it. Then I got a mountain bike, and every other kind of bike, and I started a blog, and here I am scrounging for used Spinergys on Craigslist.

But things are different now. The choice is no longer simply “Road or mountain?,” and if I was that wide-eyed shopper today I’d probably be contemplating gravel bikes along with everything else:

I’m old and jaded, and disc brakes are enough to make me balk, let alone “IsoSpeed:”

I’m also uneasy about the idea of a frame that requires a skid plate:

But setting aside my own prejudices I’d say these kids today have it pretty good, what with their bikes that do both road and trail and even hold stuff in the downtube–and prices are more or less in line with what you would have paid 30 years ago. Would I be lured by the promise of adventure if I were a young person shopping today? Possibly–though if I were living in the same place I was then I’d probably still wind up with a road bike. Plus, no matter how varied your riding everyone has sort of a root note, and a road bike is what mine seems to be, despite the ever-present danger of encountering a psychopathic driver: