In your future... I see... a... Mountain Bike!

   In the early 1980's I saw a mountain bike (MTB) for the first time and I bought it immediately. It was great fun, at least theoretically, but there really was nowhere near me to ride it to take advantage of its rugged design, so after a few years I sold it. In the years that followed, mountain bikes became more and more popular but I paid little attention to them, I had a “been there, done that” attitude toward them, and still assumed that Cincinnati was not the right place for them. As a diehard road bike rider I felt there was an “Us and Them” separation between the two bike genres and I was definitely an “US”. 

  About 3 years ago I was working, working, working... business was too good (this was before WTB) I was getting burned out. In the middle of a project I started questioning why I was putting myself through such stress, the answer of course was “money”, but with a wife, 2 kids with orthotics, 1 with a big appetite, a house, some cars, who knows how many pets,... the money no longer came to me and had lost it's value as a motivator. So on a whim, to give my toil some meaning, I bought myself a MTB. The immediate result was that my attitude toward the project I was working on improved amazingly, there was a reward for my labor. The side benefit occurred the first time I rode the bike off road... I was lousy at it!

   I had no idea how bad a bike handler all those years of fast road riding on predictable pavement, with relatively wide turns and consistent traction had made me. I fell a lot. Nothing dramatic, just low speed tip-overs from not having the skill to merely ride slow, or turn sharply, or relax when a tire skidded. This pathetic lousiness and the realization that it was just a microcosm of the “set in your ways” resistance to change that creeps into our lives over the decades, inspired me to ride my new bike to stretch myself beyond my comfort zone. I quickly learned that confidence was the key to MTB riding, and I was decidedly NOT confident about riding off road, so I learned to ride as if I were confident... just fake it... “Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead!”. How exhilarating! Yes I was scared, but if I forced myself to ride as if I thought I could make it rather than hedging for safety's sake, the majority of the time I would actually get through some pretty tough parts of the trail. I got tired of the scabs and bruises after awhile, and in desperation bought knee pads and elbow pads, these were wonderful investments that made risking fake confidence a little less risky.

   This is the start of my 3^rd season of Fall/Winter MTB (I go back to road riding in the spring) This year the pads have not been needed, I wear them every ride but falling over just hasn't happened... till this weekend. One of my riding buddies and I realized that we were no longer getting our money's worth out of our pads so we decided we needed to push ourselves a little harder. So we forced ourselves to push our limits a bit. It was challenging, and scary and fun, and resulted in a few uses of our pads.

   I had a gentleman in the bike shop last week, he was about my age, who said “I'm too old for mountain bike riding.” Well here's my theory of why he's not and why more of the “over thirty” crowd needs to ride off road. When you hit some point in your thirties you start putting a lot of effort into not falling down. You get so good at it that by the time you are in your eighties and you slip and hit the deck, you shatter like glass, WHY? Because bones need to be stressed to the point of creating micro-fractures in order to rebuild and stay strong. Road bike riders have low bone density according to research and MTB riders do not. Every time I fall off my MTB I'm improving my bone density! And even when I manage to hang-on the jarring of the rugged trails still provides the impact and stress that my bones need. You are NOT too old for MTB but you may very well be old enough to need it.

Road riding is my first love, but Mountain bike riding is my density...

Confession

  After the paper route (yes I actually delivered newspapers by bike), my first job with a boss that I could see, was as a bike mechanic for Jim's Bicycle shop. I can proudly say that I was Jim's first mechanic (thanks Jim!). I was a clueless, arrogant, road bike snob.

Old people would come to the shop (in their 20's and beyond) and whine about how their hands hurt, or their butts hurt, and I would reluctantly sell them unnecessary accessories like padded gloves and saddles that weren't made of concrete.

   Kids would come in to ask how they could remove the colored anodized finish on their BMX gear because the peer driven fashion trend had swung in a new direction and they had to keep up. I would roll my eyes and tell them “oven cleaner and steel wool”. Did it work? I never tried it myself, but no kid ever came back to say it didn't.

   Occasionally someone would come in to buy a bike to ride around the neighborhood. They had no interest in racing, or going fast, or in touring foreign countries... that seemed kinda pointless... oh well, I showed them some bikes anyway... Even riders that I should have some respect for would come in and ask questions like; “which color handlebar tape is the lightest?” Perhaps it was simply because I had never considered that sort of question before and was jealous of their higher level of reasoning, I would automatically judge these folks as geeks.

   The Mormons I could respect. Each year, 2 fresh ones were sent out to enlighten the local heathens. They bought stout utility bikes to travel the neighborhoods proselytizing. They didn't drive around, they rode their bikes around, it wasn't racing, or going far or fast, but it had a purpose (like delivering papers) and they bought bikes I would never have had the experience working with otherwise... heavy black Ralieghs, real ones, made in England, with rod actuated brakes rather than cables, and wheels that seemed huge! (these were 29'ers, before there were 29'ers) These “missionaries” would ride their time machine bikes, dressed in outfits to match... starched white shirts and neckties, out in the August sauna, smiling and meeting folks. They didn't complain about hands, or butts, or component colors, neckties, or grams. Their lives were centered around bikes, and selflessness, (they had me beat).

   It took some time, decades really, before I had some appreciation for the typical customer's concerns. Eventually when I got into my 20's, and beyond, gloves and less painful seats did seem like worthy accessories. Having a bike that looks good, not just one that is good, is a nicety that I can now appreciate. Occasionally riding a bike around the neighborhood, or trail with no destination, or competitive goal, is attractive to me. A light weight bike is a joy to ride, even if the handlebar tape clashes with the rest of the bike. And if it were possible to deliver souls by bicycle I'd even be willing to wear a dress shirt and tie as I made my rounds... for a boss I couldn't see.

Prosthesis, Catalyst, or Muse?

I've gotten used to people reacting in amazement when they learn that I've ridden my bike some distance. Almost any distance seems to be enough to cause disbelief; “You commute every day on your bike to the bike shop... and on Harrison Ave.!?!” or, “You rode 80 miles this morning before you opened the shop!?!” or, “you rode 50 miles after work!?!, you're amazing!” Such statements are usually followed by; “I wish I was in that kinda shape...” or, “I just don't have the energy for that sort of thing.” or, “Wait till you get to be my age, I'm just too tired anymore...”

I used to, egotistically, receive such words as confirmation of how fit and above average I was as a rider, and how sluggardly and out of shape were the sayers. But now I have a deeper understanding of the perspective of many of these folks. Some days, just walking 50 feet or less can feel overwhelming to me, after such a heroic effort I need to sit and rest. I attended my wife and daughters to the park recently, it was about a hundred feet from the parking space to the playground, that's nothing to most folks, but to me it felt like an immense effort. I got to the edge of the play area and sat and watched my daughters play. I had no gumption to join them at even the most rudimentary level by merely climbing a few rungs on the slide. My wife asked if I wanted to join her for a walk, I rolled my eyes assuming she was joking... next thing I know she was gone and later returned after completing the 1 mile stroll around the paved path at the park, then my daughters RAN around the loop!! I dragged my weary bones from the timber curb I was perched on to a picnic bench to wait out their return. I'm not kidding, it was truly overwhelming to me to just get back to the car. Settling into the passenger seat feeling like I was made of lead, I thought of my poor grandfather who lived well into his nineties, “Geez” I thought, “I might only be half the way to dead... how much more worn out will I feel with each passing decade?”

BUT, put me on a bike and suddenly I'm the energizer bunny. When I ride with “the boys”, which generally happens 3 times per week, we usually ride 50 – 80 miles, usually over pretty hilly terrain, and usually average around 20mph. Yes, I get plenty exhausted racing up the climbs or sprinting to be the first to the various town limit signs we contest, but after a few minutes of recovery I'm ready to pound the pedals for many more miles. I get tired on a bike but not weary.

So I wonder... am I missing some vital member such that I need a bicycle to compensate so I can lead a normal life, like someone who has tragically lost part of their body and needs an artificial something-or-other fabricated by engineers and artists to help them lead “normal” lives? Is my bike my prosthetic?

Or does riding on a bicycle change me somehow, causing me to be better when in contact with it... a catalyst... like the antithesis of the relationship of Kryptonite and Superman?

Or am I inspired somehow by the flight-like freedom of such rapid self-propelled transit, that I forget to be weary, and rise beyond my own status quo (that's Latin!) to push the limits of my endurance? Is my bike my muse?

I don't know the answer, but now I wonder if many of the very people that have been amazed by my bicycling exploits might also be transformed if only somehow I could convince them that I'm not just making this all up in order to sell bikes.

As the slogan says “Change the world, change you, ride a bike.”

Change

Bicycles can change the world?

Yes! They already have.  





I'm not kidding.

In the US, so many people were smitten by the allure of the freedom and self-powered speed that the bicycle offered, even in its early, awkward forms, that they were able to work together as a positive force to get municipalities to pave roads that had previously been rutted dirt tracks, quite suitable for horse travel but lousy for bicycling. These new, relatively smooth roads, made it possible for people to travel by bicycle from town to town, not just for pressing business matters but for fun and adventure. Imagine the convenience of just being able to hop on your self-powered machine and travel at horse speed but without the burden of care, feeding, saddling, or storing a horse! And no unpleasant deposits left behind.
The bicycle is even credited for helping the women's rights movement. It certainly forced changes in women's fashion toward more practical clothing styles. Have you ever wondered what happened to the hoop skirt? There's a quote attributed to Susan B. Anthony;  "the bicycle has done more for the emancipation of women than anything else in the world."
Unfortunately, the freedom and paved roads that were brought to us by the bicycle were soon usurped by the automobile. The 2 things that are most ironic to me about this development are; 1) The vast majority of Americans now seem to think roads exist for automotive travel and bicycles are a dangerous intrusion. And. 2) The burden of care (maintenance, repair), feeding (gasoline, oil), saddling (licensing, insurance, financing) and storing (garages, driveways, and the overwhelming waste of otherwise productive land as parking lots) that the bicycle relieves us of, has been accepted without question as a reasonable tradeoff. And then there's the unpleasant deposits left behind in the form of air-born pollutants, noise, and toxic fluids spills.
At West Trails Bicycles, we want to be part of a new revolution, brought about by the lowly bicycle. Sure we want to change the world, for the better, but our focus will be to change our local community, ourselves, and YOU, by promoting the glorious simplicity that the bicycle offers as a mode of transportation, a soothing and fulfilling form of recreation and exercise, and a challenging, character testing, skill-building, adventure machine.

Change the world. Change you. Ride a bike.

Mindset Reset

Mindset Reset

  My friend Rob is a genius, but he just doesn't get it. He can't imagine paying $2000 for a bike. “My first car cost less than that!” Rob exclaimed.
  I'm sure he's not alone in this mindset, but I'm not sure it's at all logical. Now, not too many people “need” a $2000+ bike, but not very many people “need” a $20,000 car either, yet many more people seem not to have a problem buying a car that is way more than they need or can afford, to provide the transportation that they could get from a really nice bike for tenth of the cost or a merely usable bike for 2% of the cost.  Let's say Rob's first car cost him $500. Compared to a $2000 bike it seems he got a whole lot more for his money and indeed he did. His $500 car came with HUGE operating costs. Most of us don't stop to consider these but according to AAA, the average cost of operating an automobile in 2009 was 15.42 cents per mile. With a 10,000 mile yearly average, thats $1542 PER YEAR! That operating cost doesn't include much of the expense of car ownership, just tires, gas and maintenance.  Ownership costs, including insurance, license, registration, taxes, depreciation and finance charges, on average in the US, add a staggering (brace yourself)  $5783 PER YEAR!!  At 10,000 miles per year AAA estimates a car costs an average of $7067 per year!!!  How many cars do you own? Many individuals and families own more than one car. How many $2000 bikes can you afford each year if you eliminate one car from your life?
  Yes, a bike requires maintenance and there again is a point of contention. Folks riding bikes that cost them $200 or less, have a hard time justifying sinking more than 25% of that cost into their bike each year for a tuneup. But Rob likely spent over 100% of his purchase price for maintenance of his first car, EACH YEAR! Then there's the fact that most people have never experienced a bike that costs more than $300, they think about the ride of their sub $250  bike and think “why pay so much money to replace something I already have and is so uncomfortable to use?” I detect yet another lack of logic. A $2000 bike of recent vintage is an amazing vehicle, truly a joy to ride. If you are considering loosing a car, and commuting by bike you could buy BOTH a Breezer Villager AND an Uptown 8, two really nice commuter bikes, and still be under $2000!
  Oh and did I mention what kind of fuel a bike requires to operate? If you deduct the cost of a health club membership from your yearly bicycle cost of ownership, I think you'll find that a bicycle costs less than zero dollars per year to operate.

Reset.