As the proprietor, at least for the time being, of George Plimpton’s Y-Foil, photographed here at a discreet angle to spare you the fill impact of it’s Y-Foilness…
…I find myself reminiscing about the year 1998, when the model first appeared. It was in many ways a simpler time. We were a naive people with quaint taste: Titanic won the Oscar; Titanic: Music From The Motion Picture was the top-selling album; and Subway flopped with its “Titanicwich” tie-in meal, which was a soggy meatball hero served in a large collectible cup of ice cold salt water.
But the world of cycling was anything but simple, and in 1998 America’s big bike companies vied for supremacy. Armed with carbon fiber and aluminum (by now steel had been largely consigned to history and was considered a crude material our primitive ancestors had once used to construct large “unsinkable” ocean liners), they built vast stockpiles of bicycles at a rate never before seen in velocipedal history. It was nothing less than an arms race, and to appreciate the sheer scale let us consider the arsenals of two companies as they stood in 1998, the Year of the Y-Foil: Trek…
And Cannondale:
I’d have included Specialized too but you can’t find a 1998 Specialized catalog online, go figure.
So who was winning? Well, Trek had a whole line of Y-shaped mountain bikes:
And so did Cannondale:
Though Cannondale was all in on the whole “freeride” thing, of which you’ll see nary a mention in the Trek catalog:
Not only that, but Cannondale was even designing its own shocks:
Of course Trek had a whole other mountain bike division over at Gary Fisher, though what the hell they were doing over there was anybody’s guess:
Like, what is that supposed to even mean?
Meanwhile, Trek had the Y-Foil:
And besides that their bonded bikes were slowly giving way to what a year later would become the most famous road bike in the world:
But Cannondale were synonymous with aluminum, and they sponsored a high-profile European race team:
They didn’t have anything like the Y-Foil, and instead all the aero bikes (which really weren’t all that aero, at least aesthetically) were in their “Multisport” line:
Today the big companies are building suspension into their gravel bikes, but that’s nothing new, and back then Cannondale had a suspended version of pretty much every style of bike it offered, including the triathlon bikes.
As for touring bikes, Trek offered one, the venerable 520, it’s last remaining steel offering:
While Cannondale a whole line of touring bikes:
Including one with a front shock, obviously:
They also had two (2) cyclocross models (yes, one had a shock)…
..while Trek had none.
Though both offered tandems:
Because in 1998 you still had to offer a tandem:
It’s important to note that by 1998, in addition to Gary Fisher, Trek also had LeMond and Klein, but even taking those into account, in terms of the sheer variety of bikes, Cannondale was the clear winner–and that’s not even counting the wheelchairs:
But times have changed, bicycle companies have consolidated their offering, and the pros have moved on from EPO to huffing carbon monoxide:
So much for the Tour going carbon neutral.
Apparently it simulates altitude training or something:
And while there’s no evidence riders are doing it for this reason, they totally are:
Except for Tadej Pogačar, who doesn’t even know what it is:
Oh wait, yes he does:
Anyway, pros doing it is one thing, but things will really get ugly once Cat 4s start inhaling carbon monoxide without supervision in pursuit of the “super altitude” effect:
Spouses, be sure to check those garages! It would probably be both easier and safer if they just took up smoking:
I guess they were onto something back then after all.
