As far
as loss in real life is concerned, all this is nothing. As a Cyclist, however,
I found two emails waiting together in my inbox one recent morning hard to take.
The first, from my brother over in Holland, reported that I was about to lose
the storage shed I've had across the street from our apartment—it had to be
empty by the end of the month. It is where I've kept my older bikes, and now
the only feasible solution—given that I'm still in the U.S. and someone else
has to deal with this on my behalf—was to get rid of these bikes. The second
email was from a frame builder, also in Holland, whom I'd asked to look into
some small fractures at the top of the seat tube on my titanium Colnago Lux
Oval Master frame. His report was that the damage was more serious than
revealed by a cursory examination; that he would be unable to repair
everything; and that, given the risks, I should not ride this frame anymore.
That's
four bikes, together representing countless rides, races, memories going back
to the 1980s. In recent years I did not use these bikes much, except for the
Colnago, but the memories alone would have caused me to keep them around. But there
was also the knowledge that eventually a new purpose, however infrequently
pursued, will always present itself for a bicycle. The purposes had become
fewer and farther in between, but about once a year I rode each bike up and down
the dead-end road bordering the shed, just to confirm they were still in
working order.
The
oldest of the four was a steel Dutch-made Koga Miyata Roadwinner. I got it in
1986 or 1987 for 700 guilders as a student in Amsterdam from Cycles Brands, a
reputable place back then, since gone out of business. The bike was only one
year old. It had toe-clips, down-tube shifters, ten gears, one bidon cage, and
I loved riding it. I had been a runner, but knee trouble forced me into cycling—such
a drag. I actually did my first race on this bike: the 1988 Dutch championship
for journalists, a flat crit where I got 12th in a 90+ rider field. I suppose
that's also when I discovered I can't sprint: I came out of the final turn in
second place but then watched all these intense people (sprinters) pass me left
and right. This being my first real road bike, there were many other firsts: first
mountain pass (Simplon, Switzerland, 1987; the next day, I had to dismount and
catch my breath five times tackling the much tougher Nufenen); first cycling
shorts and jersey (but initially I'd still wear cotton t-shirts underneath);
first town line sprints (on evening rides north of Amsterdam); first time
around the Liège-Bastogne-Liège course; first Rule #9 rides, coming home
through blowing snow or freezing-cold rain with summer gloves and not enough
fuel in the system on what in the morning had looked like a pretty good March
day. This bike also provided the first brush with disaster on a self-organized
week of racing in the Cevennes and Alpes Maritimes in 1992. As I lifted by my
bike out of the van in Saint-Étienne-de-Tinée on the final day, preparing to
race my friends up the Cime de la Bonnette, half of my fork stayed behind on
the floor. That was the same fork I had used the day before, when we logged 160
kilometers, including up and down the Col de la Couillole and the Col
d'Andrion. The last ride I remember doing on the Koga Miyata was in 2008, on an
early spring visit to my mom in Holland, when I still lived in the U.S. Just
a flat little windy and damp loop close to home--but it was a bike, and you
could take it for a ride.
In 1994,
living in Athens, Ohio, I bought the second bike I have owned in the U.S.: a 1992
lime green/yellow carbon Trek 2300. A friend urged me to consider buying it from
him. It had been left behind by a guy who still owed him the rent for one of
two months. The seat stays on my 1987 Fuji Team had just separated from the
seat tube, so I was in the market. 800 bucks did the trick, and I think that
over twenty years of ownership I got my money's worth. The first time I showed
up on it on our Sunday ride, one of the guys asked: "is it as fast as it
is ugly?" Even though in hindsight I could have done with a smaller size,
I think I was pretty fast on it. This was my main bike for seven years, and I used
it as I became a licensed racer living in New Mexico, started getting into breaks
as a Cat. 3 at the weekly crits in Pittsburgh, and hung on in the Master's
races during Superweek after we moved to Milwaukee. By then, the technology had
become quite dated. I remember a guy at the starting line at Alpine Valley
waxing nostalgically over his own, long since deceased Trek 2300. This did not
put me in the right frame of mind for this tough road race. But I won my first
prize money on this bike (not that day), and also recorded the highest speed
ever to appear on any of my bike computers (57 m/h, coming down Pajarito Rd in
Los Alamos one day after work). After replacing it in 2001 with what is now the
good old Klein Quatum Race, it became my winter bike, decked out with a
seat-post rack for 50 minute rides bookending 90 minute speedskating work outs
at the Pettit National Ice Center (warning: this is too much exercise all at
once, at least if you have to go to work the next day). Over in Amsterdam, I
used the bike for four years to commute an hour each way to Amsterdam, until
one dark and stormy night in 2012—it was my birthday—I took a left turn without
looking back and another rider rode straight into my rear wheel. While, unlike
him, I stayed upright, I had to open the brake all the way (unscrewing the nut)
in order to be able to ride home, and the rim still rubbed up against the fork
in two places. This particular night also happened to see the most intense rain
showers in six years of doing this commute. But I made it. In these conditions,
on what has turned out to be its final ride, the badly maimed Trek got me home,
as it always had.
In
Pittsburgh our first winter, it started to snow. And so it became impossible—certainly
irresponsible—to ride my old Atala beater around town. Alan at the old Pro
Bikes shop on Murray sold me a nice red Trek 930 mountain bike, used, which
through the years has been a pretty good winter bike. When it became impossible
to do our Sunday rides on the road, I would actually use it the way a mountain
bike is supposed to be ridden. We'd go off-road starting in Schenley Park, also
exploring the trails in Frick before finishing on the slag heaps overlooking
the Monongahela river (now reportedly a classy new housing development) for our
own triple crown. Spending the fall semester of 1997 in Leipzig, Germany, I
brought this bike with me (slick tires replacing the original knobby ones) and
not only rode it all over town, but also used it for my own solitary Sunday rides southeast
of the city. In Milwaukee, every winter provided more than enough snow for the
bike to get its work outs on the short commute to campus. The rust, thanks to
road salt and sub-par maintenance, took its toll, however. Still, after the
move to Holland the bike always got me to the train station or to area lake ice
when called upon. And now it too is in the dumpster.
Finally
the Colnago, with its beautiful Mapei paint job, showing tumbling colored cubes
on a white background. I'd like to think that this is not the end of the line
for it, but the guy who examined it knows what he's talking about. So here we
go, for a fourth obituary: I was so pleased with this frame and the way we
built it up in 2006. "We" were Mike Weber, the owner of the IS Corp
Cycling Team, and I. The team was still riding Colnagos, and Mike thought I
should have one too. We found this particular frame among the many that the
team owned, and for the time being I would rent it, building it up with my own
stuff. I especially liked the Ksyrium SL wheels we got for it, and even more
exciting was that I had chosen, for the first time in my life, to ride sew-ups.
They were very fancy Vittorias. It only took a week for me to learn my first sew-up
lesson: you do not warm up on them, certainly not outside the course. The
learning happened during the Waukesha Superweek criterium, when my rear tire began
deflating slowly, almost taking me out a few times before I realized what was
going on; the next morning, the front tire was flat too. I had picked up
several pieces of glass, warming up in Waukesha traffic. The tires had been
expertly glued to the new rims by the team mechanic, and I spent an agonizing
hour trying to pull them off. But I'll never forget that first week racing on
the new bike with the supple, brand-new, and firmly attached Vittorias—so maybe in the end
they were worth the money. For the next six years, the Colnago would
be my racing or summer bike, usually not brought out until some time in April
and retired for the winter in late October. The Ksyriums I'd only use for
racing until, living in Holland, I asked myself why on earth I would not ride
my nice stuff, given that there seemed to be no racing in my foreseeable
future. In 2009, it was the Colnago I used for my first ride up Mt. Ventoux.
Did I look fantastic on it, wearing my IS Corp kit? You bet I did! Still, in
2012 it became time for a lighter and, I have to admit, slightly more
comfortable carbon frame (the "Nikor"/Bonetti that helped shave almost
nine minutes off my personal best on the Ventoux). Now the Colnago spent its
time stored away, though still in sight. Almost every day I’d look up at it,
admiring the paint job and feeling uneasy about never riding it any more. Late
last summer I broke down: I should just use it and look fantastic. Because if
you look fantastic, you'll feel fantastic, and then that's how your ride will
be. I rode it all winter (now using a set of old clincher wheels), with as the
final highlight—We Now Know—the first Dutch Midwinter Velominati Cogal on
December 21 (sun-up to sun-down in wind and rain and good company; espresso
prior, apple pie during, triple brew after!). More and more, however, I was
aware of the creaking sounds emanating from underneath my seat. They had persisted
after I took the seat apart to clean it and grease it up a little, which should
have been an omen. The inside of the tube feeling perfectly smooth, however, I
kept riding. I always thought that I'd keep the Colnago forever, as one
of those beautiful classic bikes you take on a coffee ride on a sunny Saturday
morning in the early spring. I suppose there will be new ways to look and feel
fantastic. After all, it still is, and always will be, cycling.
