byron (seattle guy, aka bike hugger guy) mentioned something about velonews calling $5200 cx bike base level or something and then someone (or him) remembering the time when there were two production model CX bikes and they were cheap and affordable. And they were totally competitive.
On one of my jaunts on the bike today it kind of saddly clicked. In a very scary fashion.
It all fell into place.
Maybe i'm biased by having my ass handed to me by some guy who was riding wheels more expensive than my whole bike on a frame i could have purchased three of mine for. All aero.
Different guy demonstrated that Rapha shorts have massively exceissve seat padding, obs not for pedaling but for sitting on ones arse after/before/instead of riding while wearing said company clothing.
The bike disparity has been hitting me more and more.
EVERYONE has disc brake models. EVERYONE has some level of thru-axles. Because it is soooo dumb to have disc brakes w/o thru-axles.
But it goes beyond that. Well beyond that.
No longer can we build a competitive bike with shit we have laying around. Now to clarify, pro's can ride whatever the fuck and still win if they are the best. The equipment doesn't matter at their level. But holy fuck it matters at mine. In the broad spectrum of horribly sucking to at my best barely passabley mediocre. I think i spelled something wrong but i don't give a shit because the realization has been haunting me all afternoon.
The realization that disc brake CX bikes are making the sport no different than MTB. Like trying to show up at a CX race with a v-brake equiped 26" wheel bike and 8 speed grip shift. There's NO fucking way, unless you're just an absolute top level 0.01% freak that you're not going to suffer due to equipment.
I'm scared to say but I can recognize it as fact and truth. Those who have, have suddenly changed the most niche sport of inclusivity.
It has jumped the shark.
Problem is. There's no where else to go.
Problem is I love this thing so much, much like the smackdown rides that I show up on absolutely categorically disadvantageous equipment, I still show up. I get my ass kicked, completely.
I KNOW for a fact that if my bike weighed 18 pounds instead of 24, and I had wheels anywhere near beaing able to call aero with carbon rims I'd probably have no trouble hanging with the fastest on this particular ride. Would I still get dropped by them? Yeah most certainly but I wouldn't lose sight of them on a climb. They wouldn't be doubling back to wait for me.
CX is turning into that. And I fear more than anything that this year, and based on the signs and push from the marketing and selfies (even if it doesn't include the self your own stuff counts as selfie) that this is the watershed year.
Man i hope i'm wrong. And I regret not backing the old jackasses who argued against Disc brakes in CX. I think though my persepctive now is different. My objection is not the same and if it is, then my hat is off to them and I will capitualte and take it back. But I'm worried. Honestly.
And I'm sad.
Is Track the only place left? No they f'd that up when deep section carbon wheels and stupid expensive special hand laid carbon frames were making the difference there too.
Where to go after this. SSCX? Is that any different? Nope. Hate to say it but absolutely not. It isn't any different at all. At. All.
I've been shut out of one discipline I love due to cost of equipment (yeah I'm a dirt bag mt biker at heart, not that anyone would ever be able to tell). Seriously. I don't hate MTB'n around here. I just hate MTBing with anyone else around here, because I'm the only one this ancient shit that doesn't work like their fancy new stuff does.
It does come down to sacrifices and in Steph's words: "The choices i've made" but i'm here, as a result of them, and can only reflect on how it all affects me.
I can't even begin to sell my car (It is still for sale and needs to be gone soon) for what it would cost to buy the cheapest set of carbon tubulars wheels I can find.
Constantly bombarded by how out of place I am in 'this' sport. How alienated it all makes me feel. Like being the townie surrounded by summer folk and not being the townie that has any charisma to save their butt. That.
But pull back a minute and reflect and remember Mike's narrative.
People who don't do it, don't quite understand it.
People who do, know, intrinsically, as soon as you try it you are hooked on it.
Once you race cross, it is hard not to
that's still a driving mantra, a force.... a bit of spark inside.
it still feels true.
There is still so much more to the sport than brakes, or carbon frames or thru-axles.
But there's no quesiton money can buy you a much bigger advantage now than when I discovered it (wickked late fwiw in '97).
Things change.
Sometimes drastically, sometimes glacially.
Random musings. Spurred by reading.
Jarred by the massive gulf between writing styles, despite both authors being brilliant and creating fantastically solid story lines. The words flow differently. Lois Lowry's style is like a river, flowing rushing brilliantly efficient pace but at the same time like the water, so smooth, there are not edges, the changes and twists but they flow so well together. Brilliant wordsmithing. I waited 4-5 months for Son (2012) that's an eternity on Library hold. But I waited longer for other books. Less time for Station Eleven. A completely different meter, style, flow. Abrubt changes, jarring, but brilliantly so, well crafted and I owe a deep debt of grattituted to Eva Hoffman, so if any of you know an Eva who works for Boston's head start program reviewn grants and stuff, let her know I'm indebted for her reccomendation.
Time to retire with the book, reading... alone time...
some day maybe I'll write something worthy of reading.
heddwch
G
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6 comments:
I read an interesting article about the decline of participation in off-road motorcycling when you compare today with the 1970s. The main point was something like "most people don't want to go flying 30 feet in the air even if they are capable." I think it's true. I've felt that MTB was going down the same path as motocross for a long time. An arms race. People say they want "technical" but then keep on arming up to get bikes that make riding over things easier. And the trails evolved. In the 90s everyone in the East wanted a Wicked with quick handling because trails flowed around everything. Now in the days of point and shoot dualies trails go straight over everything (things that were shortcuts on these same trails two decades ago) and the exclusivists who ride the engineless motos go apeshit over "ridearounds" when someone on an older bike actually follows the original trail. I gave up, don't even own an MTB anymore.
I'm not sure discs in CX are making the difference you seem to think they are. Deep wheels on the road, absolutely. That is 2 mph free speed. I said it the first time I used Spinergys in a race. It was like I had a motor. At the time I felt they should nip it in the bud and make a "wooden bat" 32 spoke rule, but of course that did not happen. Everyone wanted free speed. Now everybody (except you apparently) has $2500 deep carbon wheels, so NOBODY gets any advantage, but we're all out $2500. Progress. People using them on training rides? That sucks. But OTOH, the last race I won in 2010 I rode my $1200 bikesdirect.com Motobecane, riding on Bontrager RL Aero alloy wheels. Those wheels are great. Never won a race on my carbon Trek that they came on...
We are nowhere near the front in CX anyway. Would it make a difference if we had two carbon wonderbikes? Sure. Discs in certain conditions, yes. Deep wheels at a fast course like Noho, sure. Brand-new $150 each tires at Sterling? I guess. How much difference? A few spots I suspect. I try to minimize the damage. Alloy Crux frame was $650. Midrange drivetrain and TRP brakes with SwissStops. OK in most conditions. Mostly GP4 wheels that are too old to enter the junior race. Disadvantage for sure but I don't have to freak when I bottom out. My best races the past two years I rode Fango tubulars that Soups gave me. This year I broke the bank and bought another half dozen Challenge treads for my various old wheel with the indexed bearing races.
You have a lot more years left than I do, so I can see where your pain comes from. A disc bike is inevitable in your lifetime. I figure I've only got two or three more seasons of CX competition before I hang it up anyway, so I don't anticipate going that route.
I woke up this morning wondering if I was going to need to edit what I wrote, if i was going to need to make some changes to the connotation and the words.
The only thing I need to cover is: it isn't as negative of a post, and I'm not too sad, just a not positive reminder that equipment drives this sport.
The beauty of it is that yes, at least in CX it might, at best, cost me a handful of places, well within the margin of just having a good day on the bike. I do still have the Zipps with the old PDX tires on them. So there is that but they don't stop all that well. Not that you want to stop in CX as much as you just need to slow down a bit. And while those are fancy wheels the alloy frame is not so fancy.
Someday, yes you're right. I'll probably have to get a new bike. And it probably will have disc brakes.
Bottom line it is still CX. And CX is good.
I think one of the unmentioned things that is spurring the growth in CX is that for the first time that I can remember, a CX bike might be a person's most used bike. Not everyone lives where there are trails readily accessible and there's plenty of folks getting tired of being buzzed by cars and yelled at on the road. There's lots of crappy tertiary roads and gravel routes to explore if you have a bike that can go anywhere. I'm in the PNW, where the gravel is plenty, so I imagine I'm biased, but I've seen a trend away from the super pro style CX set up. Of course it could be that the reason for that is everyone is starting over building their quivers back up after they switched to a disc CX bike and can't swap wheels between it and the road bike. "Back in the day" the one CX bike that might be in the product range from a manufacturer was pretty cheap. It's still an option, but there are six more models above it if you want to drop the coin. My most popular bike, not just CX bike, but bike is the Jake the Snake from Kona. $1600, alloy frame, full carbon fork, 105 11sp group and fender mounts. It's my gateway drug bike. I tell most of my customers who are thinking about a cross bike, it's the bike you'll spend the least money on (at least initially) and the most time on. At least that still rings true out here.
Ge, buddy. Couldn't have written it better.
When it comes to this stuff, the world will burn and you and I will still be standing there with our heels dug in because that's our beautiful defective wiring.
The only thing I can tell you - but you already know - is that we have to want to be in the sport more than we want to wish it wasn't changing.
Tangentially, think of this - I am the last last last last last person who would have ever bought a car with a CVT. Last. And that's exactly what I did yesterday, and through some kind of miracle I actually kind of like it. Kristen told me at some point, I'm going to have to accept these things, and she's right - for now I get to stop fighting whatever they call progress and get back to enjoying my time behind the wheel. It's not bad.
Amen brother. My bike has been through 16-17 seasons with no real changes beyond replacing what got worn out. It isn't very light and I've never had deep wheels or tubulars for that matter (it's still hard to say tubulars instead of "sew-ups" but I'll capitulate to the less elderly on that one)
I guess the carbon fork was an upgrade around 2006 but that's the only "new" tech that the bike has seen. I do miss that cx used to be so low tech at least in the Bs and Cs and that contributed to the atmosphere.
BTW
You forgot to mention that a weekend of CX is now almost the cost of a weekend of skiing.
Amen brother. My bike has been through 16-17 seasons with no real changes beyond replacing what got worn out. It isn't very light and I've never had deep wheels or tubulars for that matter (it's still hard to say tubulars instead of "sew-ups" but I'll capitulate to the less elderly on that one)
I guess the carbon fork was an upgrade around 2006 but that's the only "new" tech that the bike has seen. I do miss that cx used to be so low tech at least in the Bs and Cs and that contributed to the atmosphere.
BTW
You forgot to mention that a weekend of CX is now almost the cost of a weekend of skiing.
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