[CR]NYT article - Clueless in Manhattan

The NYT article recently discussed has clearly provided good fodder for the list. As I read it, and the subsequent responses, I had some trouble keeping the positive attitude that several kind list members suggested we all should keep. Yes, it is a free country. Yes, people can spend what they want on what they want. Yes, it certainly shouldn’t cause me any duress. Right? Some have suggested that the bikes purchased today and cast aside tomorrow will be cheap collectibles for us to enjoy the day after that. Well, that’s one way to look at it, and I won’t belabor the whole argument about how modern bikes somehow differ fundamentally from our beloved “classics,” primarily because I don’t think it is true. But on the matter of potential collectability, something germane to the list topic, I personally have little hope for such bikes. There are two major problems with today’s $10,000+ bikes from a future collecting standpoint. The first is that these bikes are uniquely the toys of well-heeled neophytes. How many people on Sevens, or even Serottas are serious riders, let alone accomplished racers? Who wants to collect the cast offs of the clueless rich when there are real race bikes out there? Several U.S. builders have found their audience, and it is limited to the trendy over-privileged, those who never stop to think that the most expensive and best are not necessarily one and the same. I think it is telling that the bikes discussed in the article, Gurus and Serottas in particular, are more dear than the bikes of the world’s best competitive cyclists. Shouldn’t it set of an alarm at some point that your bike costs two or three times as much as Lance’s, or Ivan’s? Doesn’t that suggest that the point of diminishing returns has been passed? And to what advantage? Certainly neither performance nor craftsmanship is appreciably enhanced. I think what’s added is exclusivity, but it is an exclusivity supported by price alone. “Yes, it’s nice, but do you have anything more expensive?” The new golf indeed!

I’ll throw this out as an open question: When did the most expensive racing bikes become too “good” for actual racers? It seems to me that this transition might be the historical center of mass for the list, but now that lugged steel has been relegated to an “old school” niche, we celebrate all of it without arguing about which bikes are “too much of a good thing.” Specifically, look at the California Masis (again!?!?). These were bikes that most racers would have been pretty happy to use, and I don’t imagine too many guys thought they were “too nice.” I also suspect that while some may have been sold as rich man’s toys, most were used for hard riding. Then that whole generation of U.S. builders took it a step further, and a step further after that, and soon the best racing bikes were way beyond the means of most guys in their physical prime. I know about the historical examples of cycling finery, such as the constructeur bikes, but it strikes me as uniquely American to make the best racing bikes too “good” for the best racers.

The second problem I see with many, though not all, ultra-pricey modern bikes is that they are custom geometries. Now, some of them are probably just fine for use by a variety of able-bodied riders, but I’ve seen some Serottas and Sevens that are just laughable. These are “racing” bikes designed around the bodies of guys who are barely fit to ride and utterly unfit to race. When I see a Serotta Otterrot with an ultra short top tube and extendo head tube my first response is not that I’d love to own that fine piece of performance machinery; my first response is to laugh. I think that custom bike companies are a little cynical these days, knowingly selling high-performance material for low-performance applications, but I can’t say that I blame them any more than I blame Porsche for making the Cayenne. What better way to profit than to meet the demands of those who are at once ignorant and wealthy.

What supports a market in $10,000+ boutique bikes is the fact that in our society the lines have blurred between what you own and what you are. If you own a $10,000 bike, many people will mistake you for a serious cyclist, or at least a connoisseur of bikes, and they may even admire you for it. It will at least get their attention, “like when I drove a Porsche,” as the one guy said. On the buyer’s part, he might mistake the spending of money for the gaining of knowledge and experience. It makes perfect sense that there is so much emphasis on “having a bike fit to you,” in this business. One can’t correctly select his own equipment if he hasn’t learned the hard way what works and what doesn’t. In fact, I have directly observed that paying Cadence hundreds of dollars to help you spec out a $12,000 Serrotta doesn’t ensure that the bike’s fit will be anything close to optimal. The fitter himself may be unqualified, but more significantly you need to ride any bike and adjust it yourself, refining your skills/fitness and equipment iteratively as you progress. No amount of cash and mid-brow Cognac will give you good position, and it certainly won’t make you a good cyclist.

So, why all the angst on my part? Good question. Insecurity I suppose. I just don’t want my interests mistaken for their interests. For those of us who understand good bikes, it’s a little annoying to have what “they” do mistaken for what “we” do. It’s the same in a lot of hobbies. People who are into music and its in-home reproduction, and who might spend $10,000 or more on a stereo are routinely faced with being compared to a young professional with a “kickass surround sound system.” A guy who races a mid 80’s BMW M3 Evo2 will be grouped together with a dentist who drives a 2005 M3 convertible with automatic. “Yeah, by brother in law drives an M3, flashy and expensive cars those.”

To each his own certainly applies, and if we were all judged as individuals we’d have no cause for concern, but we do live in a world in which many people think a phrase like “Wall Street types” has some actual meaning.

Tom Dalton Still looking for a connection between wealth and sophistication in Bethlehem, PA, USA

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