Does this make it right?
I kind of like the fact that I still have to look up what number certain Rules are. Some stick in my mind, usually due to their relevance to my everyday riding and living situation. That’s how I could justify hairy legs over a ride-barren winter, loose-fitting (I refuse to call them baggy) shorts for gravé rides, and a frame pump on my road bike. I can hear the howls of derision now. And even after Gianni’s public flogging for using a saddle bag, I’m still gonna go there, girl.
It occurred to me while watching the Tour that the main reason we eschew the EPMS, like most things, is that they don’t look good. Fair enough. Yes, they are functional, and while that usually doesn’t sit high on our list of priorities, it has been making a bigger blip on my personal radar of late. I guess that’s what happens once the floodgates are opened by the likes of a frame pump; “shit, this works really well, and you know what, no-one else is running it, so I’m kinda unique. Maybe even a trendsetter.” OK, maybe not, but justification comes in many forms. Anyway, from watching the Tour and not being able to avoid the fact that every bike was running the electronic timing GPS device under the saddle, I had to ask the question: do they make the EPMS acceptable?
Probably not, and those howls of derision are hitting peak decibels now, I’m sure. But there is a new crop of bags out there which are swaying me to the dark side. Stop howling! Maybe not on my road bikes, but with a new gravé machine imminent, I’ve been looking at all manner of add-on carrying devices. Frame bags, TT bags, handlebar bags, and even the EPMS. My good friend the Bike Bag Dude has been commissioned to customise a camera bag for the bars that can handle an SLR, and a slim frame bag that can also accomodate my Silca Impero. And those purveyors of the pump that has its own Rule caveat may have just released another Rule-breaker with their new Seat Roll Premio. See, it even sounds cool. It uses the BOA system to secure it to the rails and looks more like a wallet than a small piece of carry-on luggage dangling under your arse.
Now that Frank has turned 40 and Gianni and I are well north of that, could there be a softening of the Rules going on? Shit no, we’re not completely senile just yet. But there are increasing ways to gently skirt some of them, while others are sacrosanct. And when our colostomy bags turn up, you know they are going to be Rule compliant. Otherwise, it’s just a shit time, and no-one wants that.
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@KogaLover
Ah yes - sorry; busy evening yesterday.
It's weird, really, how I was quite reckless in my youth (while I still had a lot of life to lose, so to speak, if things should go wrong), while I am getting more and more careful and chickensh** as I approach the big Six-Oh. Paradox there.
Anyway: on that same holiday to Rome, my two companions and I were slogging up a steep climb in the Alps (and approaching the top), when a guy in an orange Opel Ascona showed up behind us. We were probably weaving a bit from side to side, so this guy (in his car decked out with 'sporty' checkered stripes, extra fog lights and a pair if dice dangling from the mirror, as I recall) honked his horn long and loud at us and then gunned his engine and roared past... But 2-3 minutes later, we reached the top of the climb and started our descent.
Another 5 minutes later, we had 'caught' the guy in the Ascona, of course (in spite of the not-so-superior way our bikes handled), so while we were screaming downhill at something between 70 and 80 km/h, we pulled up to a couple of meters behind this guy's rear fender... and oh-so-cool, 18-year old yours truly took one hand off the handlebars and started dinging the stupid little bell on the stem repeatedly, and gesturing for the guy to clear the road. He took it well, in fact: pulled a little to the right on a long straight and gestured with an arm out of his side window that we could pass safely. It was only much later that I started thinking that this guy - had he been in a bad mood - could have slammed his brakes (which were most certainly vastly superior to our Mafac centerpulls) and we would have gone straight through his rear window, We would then actually have been to blame for the damage - on top of being killed by death, to quote the late, great Lemmy Kilmister... Did we wear helmets? Of course we didn't.)
I'm not saying I'm that much smarter today, but I was really abysmally stupid back then - and utterly convinced of my own immortality. The folly of youth..
@ErikdR
I'll try to find the reference but apparently it's a scientific fact in the way a teenager's brain is wired.
@ErikdR
Sort of like this
@Teocalli
Yup. Spot on, as far as I can tell. Very nice take on the matter - and interesting that the article should mention "the presence of peers" and "situations where emotions run high" as factors, by the way. As I recall, we were certainly showing off 'towards each other', so to speak - and we were showing off to the guy in the Ascona. Not in anger, though. More like a game of dare, or something along those lines. Young animals swaggering.
Whatever was going on in my mind (such as it was) at the time, I'm pretty sure it forced my Guardian Angel(s) to work overtime on a regular basis. I'm grateful that he/she/they did such an impressive job. (Not that I deserved it, or anything - but still).
@ErikdR
I was gassing with an old mate a few years back and we were reminiscing various things when part way though the evening he turned to me and said "I've just realized that you've spend most of your life trying to kill yourself"...........Mrs T does not reckon my teenager switch ever got switched off..........
@wiscot
I have a number of older jerseys I picked up used, because I liked the looks of them when I first started really riding. Sadly, my OCD comes out due to the fit of clothing, in particular if it isn't perfect. After wearing modern, snug fitting jerseys with full zippers...I simply can't bring myself to wear long ones with a 1/4 zip. And these are from the 90s, not even that old!
@Teocalli
@ErikdR
Gents, Teenage Brain Syndrome… it is for real for sure. The whole frontal lobe development thing and their brains firing differently. Have to learn to embrace it when coaching 'em. Serves 'em well of course when it comes to embracing new tech, traveling to new places, meeting new friends, trying new things… all the stuff we grow up to eventually learn is an annoyance when everything is just fine as it is… is just some of what characterizes a good case of Teenage Brain Syndrome. The tragic incidents that can occur and that result from Teenage Brain Syndrome? Sometime in my late 20's my old man turned over to me a whole life insurance policy he picked up on me in my teens. I'm pretty sure I well characterized Teenage Brain Syndrome. Cheers
@Teocalli
Wow... Do you, like, climb mountains and free-dive and stuff like that, on top of the cycling? "Trying to kill yourself" sounds a bit... extreme, maybe? On the other hand: do you also sometimes feel that life 'tastes sweeter', for lack of a more apt expression, whenever you find yourself in a situation that makes you realize that it (i.e. life, or one's physical health) might actually be at stake, to a degree? (That's how it sometimes feels shortly after the 'danger' has passed, in my case).
I'd certainly not describe myself as an adrenaline junkie, but I like occasionally to put myself in situations where I'm at least reminded that there IS an edge. without necessarily having to come ridiculously close to it.
@ErikdR
I think without adrenaline I'd be really flipping bored. But this is also why I've deliberately never got into downhill mtn biking (despite it being amazing fun) because the natural end point of doing downhill runs is A&E.
If I didn't have to work I think I'd cycle all day, and spend my rest days from cycling rock climbing. I just don't have time climb as much as I'd like to, and I do miss it. Cycling just fits into my life much better at the moment.
@RobSandy
I had to look up "A&E", admittedly. "Ambulance- and Emergency (Services)", right? *Smile...*
I've observed a couple of youngsters during a downhill event in Wales once, and I nearly sh** my trousers just watching. Not for me, I'm sure.
Thought just crossed my mind: could it be that (apart from the - apparently very real - Teenage Brain Syndrome), people subconsciously steer more clear of danger as they get older, because they realize that they become less break-proof, as it were (as in: brittle) with age? At the risk of REALLY sounding like an old fart: I hate to think of what would happen to my limbs if I were to re-enact some of the crashes I walked away from, more or less unscathed, at twenty-something.
I (still) love me a nice rush of adrenaline every now and then - but it does not necessarily have to be a stronger dose than what I enjoyed thirty years ago - rather the opposite. * ...Shuffles back to padded armchair...*