“Or everything old is new again…”
There is a lot of truth to the lyrics in Baz Luhrmann’s Sunscreen Speech Song.
“Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.”
I remember when “bicycle” was a thing that my parents were all excited about. They were trying to “sell” me on it. The resulting experience wasn’t much fun for anyone involved.
There was a day when “bicycle” became exciting and fun. That was the day I taught myself to ride one. From that moment on, “bicycle” was synonymous with “wonderful.” But the “new” quickly wore off of the idea of bicycle. I rode that first clunker as much as possible, but it was more of an amusement than a transport.
I’ve spoken elsewhere (and often) about my first “real” bicycle. It arrived on a birthday, and suddenly the concept was new again. That bike changed my world, opened it up to me, and provided me with freedom, mobility, independence, and a vast measure of joy. But it too became a routine part of my world.
I vividly remember the first road bike I ever saw. The rich kid in the neighborhood showed up on it. It had funny handlebars, and five speeds. Nobody could catch the kid. But we all sort of sneered at it. The big news at the time was the Schwinn Stingray. They weren’t particularly fast, but they were flashy and cool.
After a time, once again, bicycles became routine.
I truly discovered “road bikes” in my very late teens. This was a revelation akin to that first “real bike.” Suddenly, again, bikes were about going places. They were about touring and racing. I immersed myself in the arcane of the road bike. I learned about “sew up” tires. I spent hours talking gear inches, and comparing shifting techniques. I could spend hours talking lugs and Reynolds 531, and butting.
. I remember when Campagnolo shook the world by introducing Nuovo Record, with six rear gears. That was earthshaking! Something really and truly new!
(In retrospect, I think I remember when I found out about this. The actual introduction was several years earlier, but it took a while for stuff to spread from Vicenza to my location in the boondocks.)
Life was good. We rode our bikes. They were the epitome of development and civilization. But they weren’t new. Oh sure, there were new bikes, but they all looked the same and used the same stuff. We had no idea what storms were brewing.
The oil embargo of 1973, and a series of gasoline shortages in the 70s resulted in the “bike boom.” Suddenly bicycle manufacturers had access to capitol and technology! Add in the “new” mountain bikes. Very abruptly there was a technological arms race. Mountain bikes fueled it. Shimano stoked the fires. Tech that worked on mountain bikes was adapted and adopted to road bikes. Road bike advances in light weight stuff were fed back to the mountain bike world. Changes followed and competed with each other at a blinding pace. New alloys and frame construction techniques. Aluminum bikes. Indexed shifting. Brakes that worked. Titanium! Integrated brake and shift controls. Plastic frames and parts. Carbon Fiber! Linear pull brakes. Dual pivot calipers. Seven speed. Eight speed. Nine speed. Where would it end? Suspensions! Disc brakes.
By this time, a lot of the development has stabilized. There are refinements, of course, but it’s been a while since anybody actually dramatically changed the nature of the thing. It was a breath-taking quarter of a century. Suddenly we have more choices and more capabilities than we ever dreamed of. There is a bewildering array of niche bikes on the market. (Sadly, this sometimes obscures the fact that there are a lot of simple, reliable, highly approachable bikes for “ordinary” people.)
I’m glad I saw it. But it doesn’t surprise me that some of the latest trends in the cycle world have been set by the retro crowd. I’ll mention fixed gears, single-speeds, and “tweeders.”
Now we seem to have settled down. The bicycle is ever-new, and pretty much the same. Sure, there’s always some backyard inventor out there, trying to change the world, with some “new” atrocity of a bike, or some “new” way of riding them. (NOTE: To you would-be maniac inventors, supine bikes, wacko gear trains, engines, stooped-seats, and funktified handlebars have already been done! They didn’t work, and that’s why you don’t see them now! But feel free to keep trying. Everyone needs a hobby.)
I really don’t miss the old “iron Schwinn” road bike. What I remember about it, is the feeling of exhilaration that it gave me. It was so much better than anything I’d ever had, and it was such a departure, and it was so new. Today’s bikes are better. Let’s settle down and enjoy them.
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