Happy American Thanksgiving!
Sorry, wrong picture:
There is much to be thankful for this holiday season: family, health, you people, and of course my bicycle enablers. I am referring of course to people like Paul Johson of Classic Cycle, who will just send me a bike for no good reason. Here’s one that arrived just this week:
This one was deeply intriguing, and the knobby tires suggested one of those gravel bikes the kids are always talking about. As always, Paul had included his distinctive calling card:
Which indicated this bike once belonged to someone named Zach who was some sort of National Champion of something:
So was he a gravel national champion? There was another card in the package as well, but it raised more questions than it answered. For example, in 2013 gravel hadn’t even been invented yet. And while the bike did look like a gravel bike, he appeared to be carrying it for some reason:
Fortunately, the other side of the card was more informative, and it turns out Zach had been a champion of something called “cyclocross:”
With great interest, I began to assemble this curious specimen:
It did indeed look very much like a gravel bike, and it was even made out of crabon, but for some reason it had–get this–rim brakes!
I am of course partial to traditional bicycles. However, I am also a former racer and a cycling omnivore, and if you send me a pro race bike I’m more than happy to ride it:
While I was once an enthusiastic cyclocross racer, I was also terrible, and I got lapped like a saucer of milk at a cat cafe. As such, this is perhaps the most ironic bike I’ve ever ridden, since I’m completely unworthy of the stars and stripes of the national champion, and I completely lack focus.
While I’ve only had one ride on it so far, I can report it weighs less than nothing and feels like riding a paper airplane. It also has all the pro bike features, like decals that describe parts of the bike:
You know it’s a true race bike when it’s covered with real-life mouseovers:
So what is the difference between cyclocross bikes and gravel bikes, anyway? Well, if you have to ask then you really don’t understand bikes–and by that I mean I have no idea. However, this bike is not suitable for gravel, since not only does it have primitive rim brakes that are very powerful:
But it also has a front derailleur, and if you attempt to ride a bike with a front derailleur on gravel you likely won’t survive:
Indeed, so pernicious is the front derailleur that the frame appears to be rejecting it like an organ transplant gone bad:
And yet, despite all this, the bike felt great, go figure:
I will of course share more insight into this star-spangled plastic curiosity, but in the meantime I wish you a very happy Thanksgiving, and I’ll see you back here on Monday.
Love,
Tan Tenovo
