We meticulously care for our bicycle, stopping only just short of pampering it. Through ages spend coveting, building, and riding it, we become attached to it and its beautiful finishing details – the luster of the frame’s finish, the angle and sweep of the bars, the gleaming white tape, the tires, the wheels – all perfectly curated and cared for. Though we anthropomorphize it; the bicycle is, at its core, a tool. It is meant to be ridden. It is built to carry us to the heavenly heights of our sport’s legendary Cols and into the jarring hell of the Pavé du Nord; our machines will be subjected to vehicular transport, to ruthless baggage handlers, to rain, mud, snow, to crashes, and to careless accidents that come to it by way of its daily use. As the bike’s cosmetic perfection fades, it gives way to a beauty told through its scars: derailleurs and ergo shifters ground down in a crash, crank arms rubbed by countless revolutions of the pedals, chips in the frame’s finish from road rocks or gouges in the paint from a stubborn signpost used to improperly lean our machine against.
Through our journey, we have lost hold of the boundary between rider and machine; each wound inflicted upon la bicyclette is a wound inflicted upon our very flesh. It is the Way of Things. The ride is the cathedral where we worship, and the bike is the mechanism that carries us through this journey of discovery, beauty, pleasure, pain, triumph, and tragedy. I would much rather see my cherished #1 cleft in two upon the cobbles of Northern Europe than have her waiting at home, immaculate and flawless.
This damage is nevertheless categorized into good scars and bad scars. Good scars enliven the narrative we weave upon our machines and includes benign crash damage, rub marks on the cranks, besmirched bar tape, rubbed-off logos on the nose of the saddle, or that spot along the top tube where your knees have dulled the paint through total commitment to finding the V Locus. My Bianchi EV2, on its maiden voyage after replacing the original frame destroyed in a crash, was to be subjected to a catastrophic failure of my Mektronic drivetrain in a town-line sprint. The derailleur autonomously shifted, the chain snapped, several spokes broke free from the rear wheel and then rapped upon the rear triangle, tearing giant chunks of paint from the seat and chain stays. I nearly crashed and my new frame had already lost its cosmetic perfection, but these marks help tell a story which would be the poorer for their absence.
Bad scars, on the other hand, include the several dozen ding marks scattered about your frame and wheels from the time you carefully packed your bike into a travel case but neglected to remove a loose allen key which then spent the duration of the 12-hour flight to Europe bouncing around inside the case. Or perhaps that time someone helpfully leaned your bike against a car and someone drove off in that same car before you had a chance to move it, like I did to my dad’s new Merckx the first weekend he had it, as he was preparing for his first ride on it. And, of course, the time-tested rite of passage: replacing your forks after driving into the garage with the bike still on the roof.
Through use, our beloved machines will lose their cosmetic perfection. We do our best to avoid them, but once the pain has faded, the narrative of our time together speaks through the scars left on La Bicyclette.
Vive la Vie Velominatus.
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Bad bike ...
He's got the good scars going for him. His photo really got me. He rides in our local Wednesday Group ride. I need to pinpoint him one week and just converse at whatever pace we choose
.
@frank
Cheers Frank for helping. That journey culminated in a week of heavy rain. The only day it didn't rain I rode up the Colombiere. On the other shittily wet and cold days I rode regardless getting the crap beaten out of me on Avoriaz and the Joux Plane. When I get back home and work out how to post picks you'll see I'm clearly "enjoying the work".
With regards the missing decals (just to humour you) they'll always remind me of my trip to the Alps in 2011, cold set and bloody hard! Good scars.
ps, it's been hot this last 2 weeks in the alps, the Grand Colombier was a tester, great atmos though!
Sorry I like to keep my rides as pristine as possible, breaks my heart to see my babies marked.
OCD?
Maybe
Ride it like yer stole it. Wash it down later.
I understand this is an old thread but it reminded me of something that happened more than 25 years ago.
I was into BMX at the time (Mid-80s) and I had acquired a Takara from a friend that was very beat up. I spent half the summer fixing up this bike, stripped it to the bare frame, sand-blasted the cro-mo, sprayed multiple coats of primer and finish, rebuilt it with tons of new parts. Spent all my summer earnings. The frame was white, with blue rear wheel and red front wheel. For the time it was pretty cool and I was very proud of it. Sadly I don't think there is a photo of it. I was a competitive swimmer, and I used to ride my bicycle to practice all the time. One day I rode it in when some of the college guys had come back to swim with my age group team. A guy named Jay Triepel decided that I loved that bike a little too much. For a joke, he picked it up and stuffed it on top of the lockers. My paint work was destroyed. Needless to say I was a bit miffed by this, but he was about 4 years older and 40lbs heavier than me, so I didn't have much recourse. Crestfallen is all I can say. I'm still mad about it now.
BAD SCAR.
Tom
BITD I bought a Super Record Guerciotti and had it about three weeks when I got hit by an uninsured car. Nothing sucks worse than making payments on a pile of twisted aluminum.
@K
Dude, my new CX bike, with its custom paint job is so far flawless. I almost want to crash it just to get over the pain of the first ding...having a perfect finish on an offroad rig is a dangerous ploy...
@VbyV
I'll bet. Makes me mad just hearing it!
@VbyV
Tom. I'm very sorry that you've had this burden to carry for so many years. I think that all children have their varying injustices to bear them through the years to maturity....and continuing emotional hurt that does not end with adulthood. I came across your post, admittedly during a self name google search for no particular reason...just killing time, but was upset with what I read on your post.
I have no recollection of this incident that you accuse me of. If you know more than I.....I am very sorry and have no explanation. I do not think that I did this. I was picked on ......throughout my middle/high school years and was not allowed, home rules, to ever fight back to anyone. An example, I had my own lunch taken on the bus and smushed on my head, and did not fight back because I was told to not engage others in physical fights. So, in my recollection, doing something to someone else's property would have been very much out of my character, then, and now. If I ever got caught in the rain on the way home, I had to get towels and dry every inch of my bike, spokes and all. My daughters have ridden my schwinn bantam bike from the 70s.
I did not do it. My apologies nonetheless for your hurt over time. It does mean something and I understand.