All this talk of Meh-roica bikes last week compelled me to head out on one this past Friday as soon as I concluded my broadcast day:
This in turn finally compelled me to do a little more primping:
After acquiring this bike very inexpensively last April, I pledged to spend absolutely no money on it, and so far I’ve been successful…with one (well, technically two) exception(s):
Ironically, those things cost almost 25% of what I paid for the entire bike. However, they still only cost about what you’d pay for lunch for two at Chipotle, and they were well worth it to salvage what was otherwise a perfectly good pair of wheels. Furthermore, with this latest round of improvements, I still haven’t spent any money. Well, at least not directly.
Oh, speaking of money, the resurrection of my archives last week also prompted me to go back in time to the mid-aughts and find Chris Huber’s price list:
Wow–and keep in mind that’s mid-aughts money. Factor in the inflation and that’s like twenty million American Fun tickets™ for an aluminum frame.
“So what did you do to the bike?,” you’re now not asking, because who the hell cares about a stupid Craigslist bike except me. Well, having addressed all the most serious deficiencies, what it now needed most urgently was new bar tape and new hoods:
Fortunately, having recently engaged in some shady backroom deals during which no actual money changed hands, I had both, and so on they went:
Less crucial in terms of functionality and ride comfort but nearly as bothersome psychologically was the absence of the little o-ring thingy on the rear brake adjuster:
Well, I now had that too, thanks to a surprise package:
So I took care of that, and while I was at it I also put the original brake pad holders on there because I finally found my stash of Campagnolo brake pads:
Then there were the tires that came with the bike, which I’d kept on there in the name of frugality, even though you can see they’re sort of starting to come apart:
So I put on a pair of 23mm tires I’d been saving, nearly breaking my thumbs in the process because holy crap those rims are a tight fit:
By the way, nobody has asked, but yes, there will be a tire width limit for the Meh-roica Ride:
Simply put, tires wider than 25mm will not be permitted. Arguably this is unnecessary, since many Meh-roica compliant bikes can’t go wider than that anyway. But the point here is to preserve the integrity of the event at all costs, which more than anything else is about telling GRVL to go FCK TSLF. Seriously, it’s enough with the Very Small Rocks already. Plus, we all know how it goes: first you allow 28s, then medium-reach brakes, then come the dick breaks, and before long there’s a 500-mile MH-RCA XL and all the twisted love triangles that come with it and jilted lovers are killing the riders.
Frankly I don’t need that kind of publicity.
So you can keep your Panaracer tires with the boutique branding and the huge mark-up at home, and if you’re afraid of pinch-flatting or whatever then you’d better open the windows, lock up the cat, and start gluing:
And so help me if I catch anyone with tubeless tires during the pre-ride inspections that will be grounds for the confiscation of your bicycle.
Oh, and I’m also banning handlebar bags for the same reason:
If you can’t carry it in a jersey pocket or under your saddle or in a water bottle with the top chopped off in your second water bottle cage then don’t bring it. This is not some kind alt-cycling love-in and we will not be stopping to make pour-over coffee and go skinny-dipping. Meh-roica is a ride for cranky old fusspots, and the only thing higher than the tire pressure will be the blood pressure.
Anyway, in addition to the above I switched from mountain bike pedals to road pedals, because if Meh-roica is about one thing it’s telling GRVL to go FCK ITSLF [see above], but if it’s about two things it’s about that and inconvenience in the name of performance:
Finally, speaking of Performance, I added the ultimate Meh-roica flourish by changing the perfectly good but mismatched skewers that came with the bike for these flimsy Forté-branded ones:
Because nothing evokes the Meh-roica spirit like flipping through a paper Performance catalog.
I daresay this is now nearly the Platonic ideal of the Meh-roica bike:
All it needs is crabon wishbone seatstays.