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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@frank
Also had a Gazelle Champion Mondial (Team TVM) before the Corsa Extra (Reynolds Competition). I sold the "one' Corsa Extra at 750.00. And slamming my steerer adaptor with a 130mm and 17 degrees negative and (31.8) carbon bars is a setup that I could almost never change. Although I will go look at the Cinelli. I like the Pazzaz Black Alloy Quill to A-Head Stem adaptor (1-1/8)
@Dan O
You know, I labored for ages over this fucking article, and there you go, doing better in one fucking sentence. Can I offer you a job? It involves hours and hours of 24/7 work for no pay. Interested?
As to your scuff mark, I hear you. The VMH's EV4 has such a scar from the most recent trip to Europe where we didn't pack her up as perfectly as we should have. It kills me. On the other hand, it reminds both of us of the trip and I'm glad the bike went with us and it graced the slopes of all the major cols in France. I'm glad the bike came with us, I just should have packed it better. I guess I blame myself a bit, but I also classify it as a good scar.
The question is, where did the bike go that cause the scar and was it a good trip? If so, Its a good scar...
@bonesx
Well-played, Pedalwan. But spoiled children wind up rotten. You don't want to rub your bike in a diaper, but you do want to wipe the shit off it after riding it through Flanders.
@Beaconjon
I think my guidance to @Dan O serves for this one; would you rather have left her at home? I think not, unless you did a shit ride or wussed out because it was a bit drafty that day, or a bit damp, or you "didn't feel 100%". In that case, bad scar.
Gazelle (Reynolds Competition) and Corsa Extra (SLX)
@versio
The Cinelli X/A stems won't slam, but the Cinelli titanium quill stems will, and offer the same -17 setup, which you will know, with that history of bikes, was the only real option until someone decided mountain bike stems belonged on road bikes.
You need to either switch to an ahead fork/headset assembly or get a suitable quill fork. Even the 31.8 carbon bars you've got on there is no excuse as there are various NOS TTT bars with the same bend (within 1mm) available in 26.0 that will work with a conventional stem.
If you can't find a set, I have both somewhere in the stockpile and can check model numbers/names for you. The 31.8's aren't stiffer, either, as is often assumed, though the ahead stems are. But I believe you're loosing the glorious stiffness already via that adapter and the frame/fork itself. And don't tell me you need the carbon bars for ride comfort or weight because that MX Leader kills the first argument and causes irrelevance to the second.
Do your frame proud, Pedalwan.
@frank
"I once took a perfectly good Les Paul and sanded down all the areas I thought should be worn out. I shouldn't have done that - they all wound up being bad scars."
You, my friend, are going to hell.
@frank This MXL frame is built up entirely with 2012 components. Everything. I love it.
@Gianni
I also put a Bigsby tremlo on it, so I could play the solo to Keep on Rocking in the Free World without bashing it against my Marshal Half Stack. Which I've since also sold.
The bashing, in the end, had a better effect than my playing, but either way, I wound up running this site with fuckers like you as my partners, so I guess, as the french would say, I'm fucked in hell anyway. (That's a French saying, right?)
Bad scar: my VMH's cat ( i take no ownership/responsibility for this animal) knocking over my new bike and scratching up and bending the rear mech. Stupid cat. But otherwise I like the scars on a bike, it makes the machine unique and allows it to tell its own story. The scars become part of the machine's personality.