A cool and breezy day in the first weeks of summer –– I was on the flats outside Plainfield, five miles into the ride and only now beginning to feel stable on the narrow wheels of this road machine. Hands on the tops of the bars, I settled into cadence. Green beside. Blue above. Air whistled faintly across me –– a cool touch that held back the sun’s heat. At the base of a small rise I made a flip decision to stand instead of shifting to easier gears. The force of my weight over each pedal bit the pavement; a surprising surge of power. In three quick rotations I launched over the knoll. “Oooh hoo,” I chuckled to myself. Momentum spoke. I tightened the gears, dropped my butt back on the saddle, shifted hands to the drops, pointed toes and summoned the thighs. The bike responded. I upped the cadence to find that first slight lactic thigh-burn, dropped my shoulders and leaned into a deeper tuck. I eased up short of maximum effort and held my pace across the mile that separated me from Plainfield. Breath came hard, but the smile was easy. This wasn’t supposed to be happening.
On the other side of Plainfield I found more open road, settled back into any easy cadence and reflected on how foolish I had been to think that I should give up road riding. For a moment, I stood back in the entrance of that shed in Pacifica, deep in shadow against the hillside on the back corner of our small lot. The aluminum sheeting was once white but now well camouflaged by dust and detritus from the young Redwood above it. The moving truck was due to arrive in three days, and the main rooms had been put far enough into boxes for me to know what remained to be done. It was time to crawl into all those forgotten closets and hidden corners to look for the surprises that derail moving timelines and budgets.
I waved away cobwebs and let my eyes adjust to the shadows. Beyond the lawn mower and above assorted hand tools hung the remains of my Cannondale road bike. Despite the darkness and through the dust I could see the flaky umber of rusted chainrings and the curl of rotted tires. I dragged it out into the light and ran my work glove across the top tube. A chaotic mix of dings and scratches showed gray against the dull black paint. Even now the pattern was familiar. Despite the dust I still saw them shimmering under the film of sweat that fell over those long, hot climbs. Aluminum doesn’t rust, but there was nothing worth saving here. I set it by the trash bins, ready for collection.
Preparing for this, our fourth, cross-country move I was overwhelmed by how much stuff a family of four could accumulate. Immediately after we got married, Daysi and I drove from Vermont to Portland, Oregon, with everything we owned in my hatchback. Three years later we drove back East in a 19-foot moving van towing our sedan. Six years after that, the moving van to San Francisco was company-sponsored and included vehicle transportation for both cars. It was getting harder and harder to move. The boxes were piled in corners on the floors of semi-empty rooms but I felt them in my chest. So much stuff! The least I could do was liberate us from one machine that hadn’t been ridden for more than a decade.
The black Cannondale from that shed was the first bike I bought for myself, and the only one I ever built out. My friend Aaron was the brains of the Cannondale build project during our junior year of high school. I balanced the shiny, black frame on my index finger as I lifted it out of the box and passed it to him. His eyes were wide behind his glasses. “Wow!” he said as he grasped it. He then helped migrate the components from the old bike I had destroyed during the prior summer when I worked as a river guide in California. He explained how the adjustments worked for each component.
Through that long, intense weekend I learned most of what I now know about bicycle maintenance and repair. There’s no risk I’ll put my local shop techs out of business, but the knowledge has served me well. More importantly, that weekend was the first time I realized that I had peers wise enough to be my teachers and mentors. Not long after we graduated from high school, I lost touch with Aaron. I didn’t know that he had fallen into severe schizophrenia until a friend called to invite me to his memorial service. He had taken his own life.
The Cannondale was my transportation for two more seasons of river guiding in California. It came with me to college and patiently waited for the rare occasion when I really needed to get out. It opened the passes of Colorado for my first experience bike camping and was under me when I finally learned the ecstasy of carving hairpin corners. In Portland it was my commuter vehicle for the assorted temp jobs I used to pay my share of our rent for our first apartment. What kind of asshole throws away something like that?
For the rest of that moving afternoon I tried not to look out the window at the remains thrown against the trash bins on the curb. In the struggle between nostalgia and claustrophobia, claustrophobia won. I needed to lighten up, to grow up and let go of things no longer useful. Moving to Vermont was going to be my chance to spend even more time out on trails with my new mountain bike. A different mountain bike, Old Red, would be converted to use as my family bike. I planned to trade the studded tires for road slicks that I could use to ride with the kids on dirt roads and would also work for the occasional trip on pavement. When I did make the mistake of looking out the window, I reasoned that road riding was no longer a priority. Adapting Old Red was a more responsible use of family resources.
Dad still has almost every bike he has ever owned. This includes several generations of road, mountain and gravel wheels along with a few oddballs. Even when well organized and hung from ceiling hooks, they occupy the better part of a barn basement. He has good taste. They are all beautiful machines that he keeps in good condition and loans out to visitors like me. What would make it into his moving van?
Mom never acquired as many bikes and has none of them; not even the wheels that she used on her solo trip across the U.S. I fancy myself more like Mom. As I write this, I am almost a decade into that phase of my life I call “Two suitcases and a bike box.” Oh yeah, I am a bad-ass digital nomad who has lived in five cities and three countries over the last 10 years. When I go to visit my Dad I am careful to not make eye contact with the six bikes I have left in another section of his barn over the years. Instead, I opt for the sweet cyclocross unit he no longer rides and keeps tuned for my visits.
Of course, it was Dad who observed the reality of my Vermont riding after we moved the family. My single-track aspirations had been shattered across multiple mishaps that ranged from minor to physical-therapy-required, and I was surprised by how much joy I found back on Vermont pavement. Old Red had logged longer rides and more miles than planned.
We had one of our occasional, mid-week lunches in downtown Montpelier, and sat beside the large window of our favorite café with our view framed by towering snow piles on the sidewalk outside. The heavy snows at the end of March added extra urgency to talking about the upcoming season. Spring only begrudgingly wanders into Vermont when summoned by the collective desperation of its populace. Every shared cup of coffee, cash register conversation, or grocery aisle encounter becomes its own dark rite of spring –– pallid faces hunched forward chant the latest forecasts in unison. We leave seed catalogues open beside the toilets, stage bags of bulbs on coffee tables, and scatter limp seedlings among the sunniest window sills as if they might prevent the next blizzard.
Dad paused with his spoon above the soup, “You should take the Serrotta,” he said. I knew Dad’s penchant for sexy rides, and I knew the exact machine he was referring to. It was a hand-crafted, steel-frame beauty –– the kind of graceful engineering that traditionalists point to when arguing against the harshness of aluminum or fragility of carbon. Painted in a deep purple with yellow lettering and matching bar tape, it advertised a degree of cycling competence that I could never live up to.
“You’re not using it at all?” I was looking for an out.
“Not since I got the Orbea.” He returned to his soup. There was excessive patience in the gesture. This was an ambush.
“Won’t one of the boys want it?” I inquired about my younger half-brothers, who were all strong riders.
“Bah,” he scoffed, “They think road riding is for pussies.”
I felt the claustrophobia. Old Red was doing just fine on the roads.
Dad seemed to have finished with his soup and was now looking at me. I reached for my sandwich and ran through the list of first year Vermont sporting expenses: ski equipment for Daysi, downhill and cross-country ski rentals for the girls, winter clothing, ski tickets. And we knew that Sofi was now ready for her own bike. “Thanks Dad, but I don’t even have road shoes anymore.”
He was ready for that one. “Why don’t we stop by the shop after lunch? I think you have a birthday in a couple of weeks. Right?”
The Serrotta was more flash than I felt comfortable with. He knew it, and he knew I had burned through my short list of excuses. He also knew I was likely to put his old wheels to good use.
And as I moved across the rollers past Plainfield, I made no effort to suppress my grin. Light, tight, precise –– the movement of this machine was already wired directly into my brain. I had seen the sleek carbon-fiber beauty, all orange and black, that now held the place of honor in his barn, but I couldn’t imagine anything better than this steel-tubed classic. Then I took the sharp left in Marshfield.
I assessed the angle of the rise ahead, wrapped my hands around the brake mounts and started to shift. Click. Click –– the reassuring rattle of a chain sliding through derailleurs. I paused for two pedal strokes to let the chain settle. Click. Click. Pause. Click; the lever was stuck. I tried again. And again. Derailleur problems already? Dad was meticulous about the maintenance of his rides. I had started the steep part of the climb but still risked a glance back through my right armpit to check on the rear cluster. Fuck! Nothing wrong at all. The shifters had done their job. Now it was my turn. I rose out of the saddle, focused my eyes 8 feet in front of the bike and reached deep. So this was how it was going to be!
New Bike Syndrome is a common affliction among riders, especially those who, in Grampa’s parlance, “have more money than sense.” Dad had reached that point in life when there ought not be shame indulging in some fine new wheels, though I don’t recall him ever inviting Grampa out to the barn. The Marshfield hill demonstrated that the Serrotta was a racer’s bike. Big chain rings up front and a tiny cluster in back created a drive train meant for speed –– and the arrogance of young legs. I now saw his sexy new carbon-fiber, Orbea in a different light––beneath the glitter, I am sure he had a more forgiving drive train. I had spent the last 10 years on Old Red with three chain rings on the front and six plates in the back. It was built for rough trails and steep climbs. Was there yet enough arrogance in my quads to push the Serrotta through the Vermont hills?
I took a few breaks on that first trip over the ridge into Calais, but even on the dirt roads I found pleasure in how the Serrotta handled a climb. Every bit of strength went directly into power. I enjoyed the challenge of finding traction through the corners where gravel accumulated and washboard formed. Back on Route 14, I rose out of the saddle for the biggest descent of the ride. Long beyond the max velocity of Old Red, I kept pouring power into the rear wheel. I tucked low over the yellow handle bars, tightened the gears and upped the cadence until all resistance vanished. At these speeds I wasn’t shy about taking my section out of the middle of a lane. Body and frame fused into a single unit –– I didn’t slow anyone down.
To think that I was ready to turn the page on that chapter of my riding life. Really!? I give thanks to those who know me better than I know myself, and to those willing to accumulate baggage I am unwilling to bear. Is it wrong to wonder when Dad’s next purchase might push that Orbea into my garage?
About New Bike Syndrome
It is a well established fact that a new bike will cure all afflictions, especially useful in the treatment of ague, melancholy, bad humours of the blood and troubled relationships. The treatment is a bit more expensive than the venerable practice of bloodletting but with less mess and similar efficacy.
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