One Bike Too Many: From Buddha to Burgess

On Monday, I put forth that it's important to limit the number of bicycles you own, and I stand by my assertion. You can't have a bike for every ride, just like you can't have a gear for every hill, and the rider with a bike for every eventuality is hardly different from the celebutard who must purchase another apartment to house her shoes. Then, on Wednesday, I went on to criticize "The Climb" author Robert Mackey (who cleaned his front tire recently) for going to Europe in order to prep for his trip to Europe, likening this to "the dentist who buys a Madone while he waits for his custom Serotta to come in." And here, according to at least one reader, I crossed a line.

That reader was Dr. John M. Gowey, DDS. Dentists everywhere owe Dr. Gowey a debt of gratitude, for it is he who emails me to from time to time to correct some of my misconceptions about dentists. Just some of the things I've learned from Dr. Gowey are: 1) not all dentists ride Serottas (at least he doesn't); 2) dentists care for their bikes as meticulously as they care for their teeth (at least Dr. Gowey does); and 3) dentists love "Seinfeld" because Dr. Tim Whatley is one of the few non-psychopathic dentists in mainstream entertainment. (In that regard it seems Dr. Whatley is to some degree their Paul Robeson, or at least their Sidney Poitier.)

And I just thought they were just a bunch of sadistic Serotta-straddling maniacs. Who knew!?!

Anyway, with regard to my comment about a dentist buying a Madone while waiting for his Serotta, the always insightful Dr. Gowey had this to say:

In today's post, you insinuated that there is something wrong if a dentist gets a Madone while having to wait for his Serotta. What you did not specify was the length of time the dentist was forced to wait before the arrival of the Serotta. Now if it were only a couple of weeks he had to do without the Serotta, I would certainly agree with you that although it is good for the current economy, the dentist was exhibiting signs of excessive consumerism. If the lag time for the new bike was projected at more than two weeks however, I think a dentist (or even a non-dentist) is perfectly justified in buying a "gap bike" to help him make it through the difficult waiting period. You should acknowledge that if an "Orange Julius bike" is a reasonable purchase, then a "bike purchased while waiting for a new bike" or "gap bike" should be justified as well.

I pondered Dr. Gowey's email for some seconds. At first I was tempted to dismiss the very notion of a "gap bike" as excessive, but then I decided to appease Dr. Gowey, mostly because despite Gowey's assertions to the contrary and his fondness for Tim Whatley I still think dentists actually are sadistic psychopaths and I was afraid he might come after me. So I decided to allow Gowey and his dental ilk their "gap bikes," provided they adhere to a formula. I replied to him thusly:

I'm prepared to give an allowance of $150 a month. That means if you've got to wait three months for a Serotta or similar you can spend $450 on an old aluminum bike with 8 speed or something. I think that's more than fair. Given that, if the gap bike were a Madone 5.1 retailing at $3,019.99 (the Ultegra bike, slumming it I know but still a decent gap bike) the gap would need to be 20.13 months.

You may exceed that if you can recoup the excess by selling it (on the Serotta forums, where else?) but if you can't you're personally liable for the balance.

This I hope will appease dentists everywhere and thus spare me an untimely demise at the wrong end of some hideous dental implement.

Gap bikes aside, however, I maintain there are circumstances under which even one bicycle is one too many. Here is just one such circumstance:

This De Rosa was repainted by De Rosa in Italy. Previous owner had moola and up close the paint is stunning. To do the paint job justice, I built it up with some nice components, Phil woods, Campy Cranks, Campy brakes, Pearl this, Nitto that. I don't really ride it as I enjoyed putting the bike together more. That's why I am selling this one and starting another one. So I decided to post some pics before selling.

I think an actual geared drivetrain might have done this frame more justice, and that a frame should at least reach a certain level of deterioration before it's given the fixed-gear treatment. But hey, if your idea of fun is bolting track components to road frames I'm the last person who's going to stop you. And yes, building bicycles, however incongruous they may be, can be both enjoyable and rewarding. But it is also fun to ride bicycles, and if riding a bicycle you built isn't as enjoyable as building it, then that doesn't reflect so well on the build. Most dangerous though is flirting with addiction by endlessly purchasing and assembling components. This is something we all flirt with as cyclists. Building a bicycle can bring you joy or it can lead you to ruin, and if you're not riding the bikes you're building at least long enough to wear out a set of tires, you may be on a ruinous road. I would advise him to satisfy his need to build anew by rebuilding his current bike as a geared road bike. If the compulsion to sell and replace is still present, seek help.

Then there's this.



Yes, it should come as no surprise to anybody at this point that bars are getting shorter. It's almost as though stems are electric sharpeners and the bars are pencils being fed into them from either end. At this point I think the only thing keeping straight bars long enough to actually protrude beyond the stem clamp is the size of the grips out there on the market. This at least is ensuring that riders maintain a fistful of bar on either end of the stem. But once some fixed-gear rider has that "2001" bone-in-the-air moment of revelation and takes a scissor to his Ourys, watch out--that's when you're going to see some serious index-finger-and-thumb steering. Just imagine someone eating a piece of baby corn like it's regular corn--that's how people are going to be holding their handlebars.

This bicycle may also be one too many:

I'm not sure if "pengy" is a diminutive form of "penguin," or of "penga." If the former, it may refer to the animal this bicycle represents. If the latter, it refers to the organ which the top-tube pad protects. In either case, it wouldn't be terribly difficult to imagine Burgess Meredith straddling this bike and softly quacking to himself as he pedaled bow-leggedly away.