Hey class! How's everyone doing today?
Excellent, glad to hear it.
Except for you, I'm sorry to hear about it.
Well, I have exciting news for you all. Are you ready for it? You sure? Here it comes.
I have a new bicycle. That's right. I have a shiny red new bicycle. And by "new", I mean a used, 22 year old bicycle. 23 if you factor in build date vs model year date.
For some of you, (all of you?), this is probably underwhelming news. I doubt a single one of you is anywhere close to whelmed. However, I am pretty stoked. "Stoked", a word almost as culturally old as my "new" bicycle.
Not that this matters to most of you, but allow me to explain.
For those of you have been longer time readers, you might remember my historical affinity for bicycles. If you don't remember (or never knew), feel free to catch up by reading this old post of mine Lesson 10 - Soft Like Concrete.
Now, I already had a bicycle. Back in the year 2000, I think, my wife and I decided one day on a whim with no research and even less common sense, to just purchase a couple bikes because we wanted to ride bikes. They were cheap Target specials and, fortunately, we didn't pay that much for them. But hey, we had bikes and we rode them. They were both mountain bikes, which made sense because we were living in Colorado at the time. In case you didn't know, that's where the mountains live. Not that we ever rode them in said mountains.
Ya.
Fast forward to 2014. We are now living in Chicago. As it turns out, there are not a lot of mountains in Chicago. These old bikes were full suspension bikes because, um, they were suspension bikes and isn't that what the cool kids rode? I mentioned we just sort of did it, right?
As such, these old bikes are heavy. HEAVY. My bike tips the scales at just a smidge over 50 pounds. That may not sound like a lot, but for a bicycle, it's obese. Morbidly obese. But, hey, it looked super cool and, to be fair, the frames were close to indestructible. I learned this recently when I decided to research the bike I already owned.
In Chicago, a bicycle is more than just reasonable transportation. It makes a ton of sense. One doesn't measure travel time by distance here. Most places I will ever go in the city are within four miles of my home. Much of it less than two. If we head downtown it's more like 12ish if you go straight, or 15 if you take the lake front path. And, you can do those trips in not much longer than driving if there is any traffic at all. In fact, the shorter distances, especially in traffic, are often faster for cyclists.
I started riding my bike more recently. Especially when my wife started running 14 miles at a time, just for fun. No race. No event. She does it just because it's a Sunday. So, I decided I would ride and keep her company. I run, but I can't run that far yet. And now that I messed my knee up (which in theory should heal up good as new), the bike is making more sense as opposed to jogging.
After that first ride/run session, I learned the truth about my old bike. It is, and always was, a giant, heavy piece of (insert preferred negative term, here). Navigating paths and people and hopping curbs and descending stairs (that's right, down stairs), the weight and overall uselessness of all those suspension components became crystal clear. I'm not saying there aren't good suspended bikes. There are tons of them. Mine simply isn't one of those examples.
But mostly it was all the extra weight and floppy, rattly, parts that, no matter how much fine tuning you do, will not change.
Sooo, I decided it was time to upgrade.
Now, as a former design guy, the look of the bike mattered to me. It needed to have the appropriate function, but also the right style.
I began researching bicycles. I hadn't really kept up once I went to college, had a car, and got married. (Hence the garbage bikes we bought shortly there after.) It became clear that what I wanted was a single speed bike. I realized that I was pretty much using the same gear all the time on my bike. I had found one that allowed me to ride slow, accelerate well, but also ride fast enough to tackle street riding.
I then realized that I really like the simple, clean look of fixies. Those are the fixed gear bikes all the cool kids in the city ride. They look like old road bikes, but with out all the gears and switches.
The problem was, they have those super skinny tires. Which are fine except that their designer never road a bike on Chicago streets. The problem isn't the endless potholes and cracks. It's all the energy it takes trying to find a path that's rideable between them.
Ok, it's the potholes and cracks.
But also, I didn't like the harder ride of the thin tires and I wasn't keen on the gear options on the brand new bikes.
I looked at beach bikes and the like, but I just couldn't find the thing that made me all giggly in my insides.
Then one day I had an accidental epiphany. One could argue that all epiphanies are accidental, but whatever. I was over at the church and one of our youth rode up on a bicycle. It was an old Raleigh. But it wasn't a road bike. It was an old mountain bike. And that's when it hit me. I had missed the obvious.
I needed to find an old mountain bike and convert it to single speed.
Here's why.
The older, first and second generation mountain bikes all had frames that more or less visually mimicked the road bike frames, except they were much stronger, and just as importantly, were designed for fatter, more comfortable tires.
And... and... because they had no suspension on them, like every single bike we all grew up with, they are much lighter.
Problem solved.
Except, where do you find one? And, which one should you get?
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why God invented the internet and Ebay.
I started searching for old mountain bikes. Or as the internet calls them, "vintage" mountain bikes. Even if it's from the 90's. Sigh.
That's how I stumbled across the early 90's Bridgestone mountain bikes.
"But isn't Bridgestone a tire company?" I hear you ask. Yes. Yes it is. But they have also been importing bicycles to America off an on for a long time. Currently, they do not, but their last round of bicycle importing (Bridgestone is actually a Japanese company) came from 85-94. Mine is a 92 (frame stamped 91, but I'm sure I'm the only one who cares).
I won't go into all the things I learned about these bikes and the various models. But I will say this because it helps me get closer to the point of all of this. The guy who was designing the mountain bikes for Bridgestone at the time decided to go against convention. As a result, he almost single handedly set the tone of all mountain bike made by everyone for the next decade. Better frame geometry. Better frame construction. He did all the stuff that the then current frame makers felt didn't matter. He was even criticized for it. But in the end, his bikes set the tone.
Most people probably don't even remember these bikes were made. The bike aficionado's do, but other than that, not many. But those who do all say the exact same thing. These were some of the best (but not THE best, just being fair) bikes made during that era, maybe ever, especially for the price.
And that was the thing. They were stronger, better made, not as light as some, but they lasted and won races. But most importantly, they were less expensive than the ultra expensive competition bikes.
In 1992 the bike I now own cost just under $900. I picked it up for barely a fraction of that. I've spent more money on shoes than I did on this bike. And you could argue, "ya, but it's old." My response is twofold. One, shut up, it was only 1992. That's not old. Respect your elders. Two, quality is quality. Strong, straight, excellent build quality, good condition, old paint not withstanding.
Now, I have a bike I can modify slightly and have exactly what I needed, to do what I wanted to do.
But here was what surprised me the most. It shouldn't have, but it did.
This bike is older than my old bike. A 21 speed mountain bike that hasn't seen adjustment in a long time.
Once it was delivered (Ebay rocks), I reassembled it, aired up the tires, and it rides better than my old bike ever did, even when bran spanking new. It's solid, smooth, quiet, and oh so light compared to my old bike. It was like a revelation. Right now it weighs 27 pounds. It will probably weight about 4 pounds less when I'm done.
But oh man, the quality.
And this is the great lesson. Quality matters. I will stick my neck out and say that this is true 100% of the time. Quality often costs. But, not always.
More importantly, quality matters in every part of our lives. Not just in what we do, but how we do it, and who we do it with. Quality matters in who we are and how we live. Quality is that thing in life that makes your eyes light up and your heart speed up and causes you to have that slight twinge of regret when you find quality when you hadn't noticed that quality was what you'd been lacking for so long.
Do not just exist and complete life. Live it with quality. The amount of your years matter, but not nearly as much as the quality of the years you live do.
Seek the best you can in all you do. Not costliest, not the most quantity, but the best quality you can muster in all things. It is here you find the beginnings of satisfaction in everything you do.
Have a truly great night.
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