Sunday Morning RIDE!

Harry sent me the latest installment of the Sunday Morning Ride rant/narrative/monologue/serial novel/awesomeness. Tada!

IMPROVMENT

My wife is the best ever. Kit always knows how to score big when it comes to gifts, and this Christmas was no exception. She got a new pair of road shoes for me. Nice road shoes. A lot nicer than the ones I was wearing.

As is our usual routine, we opened gifts on Christmas morning, and then drove to Waco to see my family. The weather was perfect. Every minute of Christmas afternoon I thought about those new Sidis, and how they should be on my feet and I should be on a bike.

The morning after Christmas I was up early, brimming with anticipation. I hustled out to the shop to retrieve a set of spare cleats, and then settled down with a cup of joe and my new shoes to prep them for the inaugural ride.

I took my new shoes out of the box and turned them over to attach the cleats. The bottoms of these shoes looked very unfamiliar. There were no slots to adjust the cleat position. In fact, there weren’t even any holes that would accommodate my SPD cleats. It slowly dawned on me that Sidi had unilaterally decided that my venerable SPD cleats were soooooo not-Serious-Cyclist and that they would henceforth “support” only the new, improved Look style cleats.

After experiencing a brief moment of non-plussitude, I figured, well, I can’t be the only person this has happened to. I’ll bet there’s an adaptor plate that fixes this problem. So right after the next Sunday morning ride, I rolled by the Local Bike Shop to investigate. The guy at the LBS said, sure, we can get just what you need. He took me down into the bowels of the store to show me a set of said item that they had ordered for another customer, and we agreed that this was indeed just the ticket. He assured me that they’d order them right away.

A week went by, and I heard nothing from the guy at the LBS, so I called. I was told that it was the special order guy’s day off, so I should call back the next day. When I finally got around to calling back four or five days later, word was that the adaptor plates were on back order.

Well, I figured, thanks to Al Gore I have the infinite power of the Internet at my disposal. I’ll just buy a set of these things from a Giant Online Bike Store. Then, when the LBS gets the set they ordered, I’ll have some spares. They’re plastic. They’re gonna break eventually. So after perusing the web site of a typical GOBS, I identified a couple of items that I thought might do the job, and I picked up the phone to confer with a real person. The sales guy at the GOBS confirmed that, sure enough, the Shimano part I was looking at would do the job. I said I’d like to order a set. He said they didn’t have any. He went on to tell me that they sell so many of them that they have trouble keeping them in stock. When I enquired how long it might be before they’d have more, he responded that, “last time it was about two months.” Calls to three more Giant Online Bike Stores yielded the same result.

In desperation, I called the LBS again to enquire about the status of my original order. The guy at the LBS said he’d find out and call me back. A couple of minutes later, the phone rang. Still on back order, was the word, “but we’ve got a set downstairs that we ordered for some guy, and he never picked them up. We’ll sell you those.” Two hours later the cleats were on my shoes, my shoes were on my feet, and I was spinning down 360 toward Bee Cave.

A lot of people would probably maintain that putting a really nice pair of bike shoes on my feet is like putting lipstick on a pig, and I sure wouldn’t argue that point. I’m sure there is a legion of Serious Cyclists out there who would scornfully dismiss my insistence that SPD cleats work just fine. They’d probably lecture me about the improved lateral motion allowed by the vastly-superior Look style cleat, and about how it’s been proven to reduce fatigue by whatever percent. I figure there might even be a small number of them who are actually able to discern some difference. Nonetheless, when three manufacturers together can’t produce enough parts to meet the demand for mounting “obsolete” cleats on “state-of-the-art” shoes, I gotta think something is wrong. If I were really cynical, I might say that manufacturers and dealers are just trying to sell us some new crap because we’re not replacing the perfectly-serviceable old crap as fast as they’d like us to. If I were really paranoid, I might say that this is a transparently obvious plot by Big Business to enhance their ever-expanding market for “accessories”. But I’m neither. History shows that consumers in our culture are great at doing just that – consuming. They mesmerize themselves with the fallacy of trickle-down technology. This school of thought holds that whatever technology is favored by Grand Tour racers should be immediately adopted by all Serious Cyclists everywhere in hopes of increasing one’s speed, power, VO2max, feng shui aura or whatever.

Now I’m not saying that technological advances aren’t a good thing. If there were no improvements in technology, we’d all still be riding dandy horses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dandy_horse

However, I do believe that there is a level of technology that is appropriate for every rider, and for most of us a few extra miles a week would go a lot farther towards making us better cyclists than fixing something that ain’t broke. Considering that the modern bicycle is probably as close to a perfect machine as anything on the planet, I’m constantly amazed at the frenzy of activity that is expended towards its “improvement”. Every year, come T de F time, we’re treated to the gushings of Euro-twits who profess their awe at the fact that this years DuraAce groupset is an ounce and a half lighter than last year’s. The Bicycling Magazine web site urges me to “Get Gear Savvy” and read reviews of things I “didn’t even know I wanted”. I suppose we’ve gone so far down the road of bicycling as an “industry” that it’s too late to turn back because of the large amounts of money at stake for manufacturers and promoters. Still, I can’t help but think that we might all be better off if we would, to paraphrase the late Frank Zappa, shut up and ride our bikes.

And that’s just what we do every Sunday morning. Join us on our regular weekly foray. We’ll launch from Clown Dog at 10:20. Route TBD. Bring some ideas.

Those of you who have ridden with us before know how we roll. For those who haven’t, please read the blah-blah below. It’s important. Really.

• Some of us are down with the fixed gear deal, but mostly we’re just about riding. Bring whatcha got and ride with us.

• Every cyclist is responsible for his or her own safety and well-being. We assume that everyone is familiar with basic rules of cycling safety and has enough hours in the saddle to feel comfortable with his or her ride. Use of helmets is optional (but highly recommended). Use of headphones, earbuds, Blue Tooth headsets or any other form of electronic distraction is discouraged. (It’s a SOCIAL ride, dammit!) All traffic laws and rules of right-of-way will be observed. Here’s the deal:

SAFETY FIRST!!!!!

If someone gets killed, it ruins the ride for everybody.

• This ride is 25-30 miles long through mostly urban and suburban areas. We do a convenience

store stop at about the halfway point for anyone who needs snacks or drinks.

• There is no SAG support on this ride. Bring a spare tube and something that will inflate it.

• The purpose of this ride is for everyone to have a good time and (we hope) to become better cyclists. We ride at a variable pace, according to the group on any given ride, and all skill levels are welcome. This is a 25-30 mile ride over typical Central Texas terrain. If this is consistent with your riding experience, or is perhaps slightly more challenging than what you’re accustomed to, you should have no problem going the distance.

So I’ve got a pair of new shoes with plastic adaptor plates that cost $38 at the LBS. Those are the same plastic plates that I could have bought at the GOBS for $22. Only they didn’t have them. I guess this makes the case for buying locally.

It’s time to ride.

Wow.