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lifetime guarantee

my original attraction to road cycling was, to be honest, a bit on the superficial side. i'd been inadvertently sucked into the mountain biking meme, having purchased a muddy fox courier on the basis that it had a decent spread of gears via a triple chainset. the notion that people would actually ride up and down mountains (or big hills, given that we're talking about scotland) hadn't occurred. surely the word 'mountain' was merely a marketing ploy?

however, as the 1980s progressed into the 1990s, mountain biking became more and more of a 'thing', spawning endless anodised widgets, bar ends, crazy tyre names, smaller and smaller inner rings, that it seemed quite possible the entire enchilada would eventually devour itself. all of this was reported, featured and encouraged by a sizeable number of publications devoted to the activity and sport, many of which gave away cover-mounted, anodised widgets.

though i'd like to think of myself as several steps distant from such commercialisation, in truth, the more new bikes, paint jobs, groupsets and innovations that arrived seemingly on a weekly basis, the more my own bicycle seemed out of date. and once you're down the rabbit hole, it becomes harder and harder to maintain a clear head in the face of rampant persuasion.

road bikes, however, seemed not to have jumped on that particular bandwagon. pretty much the only game in town in the early 1990s, was a lugged steel frame; carbon had yet to reveal its entrancing warp and weft. and any new groupsets from campagnolo or shimano were almost certainly the result of actual technical improvement. so i bought a reynolds 531 lugged frame, a campagnolo chorus groupset, a pair of iconically named croce d'aune polished hubs, a bunch of spokes and mavic rims and sat down and stood up to build my very own road bike (which i do believe is still around the village in someone's garage). i liked the fact that even the comic seemed bereft of perusasions to purchase the latest gee-gaw simply because it was the latest gee-gaw.

and, apart from some of mavic's rims, nothing else seemed to have succumbed to the invidious trait of anodising.

there will, i believe, be those who harbour doubts about the veracity of which i speak. shimano released the first incarnation of dura-ace di2 over fourteen years ago, so there are bound to be a number of today's riders, even professionals, who have never ridden a bicycle with mechanical shifting. and it won't be that long before we can cite the same story regarding hydraulic disc brakes. and just don't get me started on so-called gravel bikes, however practical they might be.

so where bicycles were once regarded as mere transport (an appellation i believe richard sachs would still be likely to quote) or, for the few, a weekend sporting activity, they are now every bit as much a part of fashion as super-dry hoodies and gucci handbags. you need, however, not only take my word for it. though this is a state of affairs that has existed for quite some time in plain sight, i do believe it's not one that would be readily admitted by the bulk of the industry. i surely cannot be the only one to have witnessed an almost total lack of recent innovation within the cycle clothing sector. if i may be so bold, recent offerings from imperial works are surely the perfect explanation as to why they've made a financial loss for the past six years.

and on checking the specialized website recently to compare my five year-old crux cyclocross bike with the present model, the only change appear to be colour scheme and a desire to be regarded as a gravel bike with the fitting of a cassette featuring a 42 tooth large sprocket.

hambini a controversial character at the best of times, has even included the demise of aero as one of his predictions for 2024, a bicycle development that was tenuous at best, and highly doubtful that it ever made any real difference to the top speed of any mere mortal. since the pros were all riding aero frames at one point, the level playing field was maintained and therefore also offering negligible advantage. there are now industry insiders and analysts competing with each other to predict the next trend likely to emerge from the far east, but designed in california. even the steel is real/bespoke framebuilder period of just over a decade past was a fashion choice, but one with which i felt a certain affinity.

in that respect, cycling has lost its innocence. no longer is it possible to purchase a complete bicycle from the shop floor that will remain fashionable for more than a year at a time. it's a shame that it's come to this, but remember, a bicycle's a friend for life, no matter what it looks like.

friday 29 december 2023