The cycle of life
By Tom Vanderbilt |
June 5, 2011, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
EVANGELIZING cyclists will often pronounce, in a moment of populist zeal, something like: "It doesn't matter what you ride, as long as you ride." This is a rather oleaginous half-truth spread across a larger reality. It may not matter what you ride, but it matters deeply what I ride. People pick up on this. A Brooklyn bike shop owner recently described to me the almost apologetic air of patrons bringing him bicycles for repair, as if they feared the dusty specimens they had just freed from storage revealed some philistine streak, as if they knew some better bike would complete them.
But it's hard to fault cyclists for coveting "kit," as Robert Penn calls it in "It's All About the Bike," which puts his vast and endearingly shaggy bicycle boffinry on a brisk round-the-world tour. First of all, there's the total transparency of the bike itself, with every part on display. Modern cars are black boxes, their digital inner workings better divined by trained mechanics. But bikes come with no "Onboard Diagnostic Port," and with an ounce of initiative cyclists can get their hands dirty and make repairs. (Penn, confronted with a busted wheel in the Italian Alps, retrieved a faded set of simple instructions he had gotten while in a pinch in Penang, and was soon riding again. Try that with a dropped transmission.)
The conceit of Penn's book is simple: He needs a new bike. But his will be no quick, off-the-shelf grab. "I need a talismanic machine that somehow reflects my cycling history and carries my cycling aspirations," he writes. "I want a bike that has character, a bike that will never be last year's model." And he sets off on a quest, equal parts industrial archaeology (the firm that makes DT Swiss spokes turns out to have origins in the 17th century, when it made wire for use in soldiers' shirts) and Boy's Own adventure (the characters here are overwhelmingly male, even though nearly half the American cycle market is female). Assembling his dream components - Cinelli handlebars, Royce hubs, Chris King headset, Brooks saddle - Penn lays out a narrative with more parts than a multifunction bike tool.
All this could make for the literary equivalent of a dead-leg ascent of Mont Ventoux, but Penn's energy never flags, and he knows when to change gears. Thankfully, there's not much Zen to his bicycle maintenance. Rather, the book is as a wheel-builder named Gravy described Penn's just completed, perfectly tuned, 28-spoked rear wheel: "Well, my friend. It's true."
But it's hard to fault cyclists for coveting "kit," as Robert Penn calls it in "It's All About the Bike," which puts his vast and endearingly shaggy bicycle boffinry on a brisk round-the-world tour. First of all, there's the total transparency of the bike itself, with every part on display. Modern cars are black boxes, their digital inner workings better divined by trained mechanics. But bikes come with no "Onboard Diagnostic Port," and with an ounce of initiative cyclists can get their hands dirty and make repairs. (Penn, confronted with a busted wheel in the Italian Alps, retrieved a faded set of simple instructions he had gotten while in a pinch in Penang, and was soon riding again. Try that with a dropped transmission.)
The conceit of Penn's book is simple: He needs a new bike. But his will be no quick, off-the-shelf grab. "I need a talismanic machine that somehow reflects my cycling history and carries my cycling aspirations," he writes. "I want a bike that has character, a bike that will never be last year's model." And he sets off on a quest, equal parts industrial archaeology (the firm that makes DT Swiss spokes turns out to have origins in the 17th century, when it made wire for use in soldiers' shirts) and Boy's Own adventure (the characters here are overwhelmingly male, even though nearly half the American cycle market is female). Assembling his dream components - Cinelli handlebars, Royce hubs, Chris King headset, Brooks saddle - Penn lays out a narrative with more parts than a multifunction bike tool.
All this could make for the literary equivalent of a dead-leg ascent of Mont Ventoux, but Penn's energy never flags, and he knows when to change gears. Thankfully, there's not much Zen to his bicycle maintenance. Rather, the book is as a wheel-builder named Gravy described Penn's just completed, perfectly tuned, 28-spoked rear wheel: "Well, my friend. It's true."
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