This past Friday saw the submission deadline for The Seventeenth Inaugural Tan Tenovo Meh-Roica Bike Pageant:
Brought to you by Dumonde Tech, the champagne of lubes:
Since then I notice one or two of you have inquired about the winner, which…
[Deep breath.]
Okay, let’s get something straight here. That deadline was for you, not me. I don’t know how many times I have to say it, but I didn’t start a bike blog because I wanted to do work, and I’ll announce a winner exactly when I’ve chosen one and not a moment sooner. And there are lots of submissions, too, including this one:
Look familiar? It should:
Yes, that’s the Surprise Marinoni I rehabilitated to the best of my meager ability:
It now belongs to the commenter knowns as “Some Guy From Upstate,” and it is a rolling testimony to the enduring nature of the Meh-roica bicycle–forgotten and neglected, yet resurrected with a little love and a lot of Dumonde lubricant:
No doubt it will serve its new owner faithfully for many years to come.
Oh, and here’s another Marinoni:
Quite different than the first, yet still within the Meh-roica parameters–as is this contestant:
Here’s more from the owner:
I made absolutely no effort to tart it up for the contest, so it’s a bit
dirty and still has a quick-release rack and bag combo attached. I don’t
know whether that’s in the Meh-roica spirit, but I figure it’s in the BSNYC
spirit.
Regarding the contest criteria:
– Bought new around 1997.
– 9 speed (converted from 8 some time within the Meh-roica period).
– Triple crank because this bike was bought as a race bike, up 25%
gradients.
– 23mm tires (the only size available).
– Threaded *and* threadless headset (quill to ahead adaptor fitted during 9
speed conversion)
– Good old Italian steel.
Sure, the “no effort” thing is certainly a fundamental part of my ethos, but what’s most Meh-roica about this bicycle is that it embodies the can-do spirit of these things. Sure, it’s great that wide tires and rack and fender mounts have come back into fashion, but it’s important to remember that a Meh-roica bike can also be a highly serviceable workhorse with a few simple clamp-on components, even if it was meant for racing.
Indeed, my only quibble here is that I have a personal prejudice against threaded-to-threadless adaptors. Look, sorry, we all have our weird things, that’s one of mine. I fault nobody for using them, and they certainly make a lot of sense if you want ready access to a whole variety of stems without fundamentally changing your bicycle. But for some reason I cannot make myself use one under any circumstances, even though I happily pedaled around on a Wife Oil for well over a year:
Speaking of personal prejudices, while I’m on the subject, I’ve noted some objection to the criteria here and there; for example, I seem to remember someone objected to the fact that the guidelines do not prohibit sloping top tubes, which some traditionalist blame for all the ills of society.
[Deep breath.]
Okay, Meh-roica isn’t about what’s “better”, or about what’s beautiful. If it were this whole contest would basically be just Rivendae and Farbmans. No, Meh-roica is about the generation of road bikes for which everyone seems to have suddenly developed a blind spot: neither classic nor modern, they’re simply dismissed. For years the reviewers told us these were the bikes we had to have, but now apparently riding tires narrower than 30mm is downright suicidal. But I refuse to let these bicycles be forgotten, and instead I’m celebrating them as a symbol of the cycling media’s fickle hypocrisy.
By the way, the same thing goes for the GT test-cycle:
Even though it’s against my principles I’ve grown quite fond of it–partly because it’s fun, but mostly because these are the bikes reviewers fawned over for years until suddenly they decided they were obsolete and unrideable. Now these same people feel all smug because they’re riding bicycles with single-ring drivetrains and stubby stems and low bottom brackets and slack headtubes because a few bike designers finally figured out how to copy Jeff Jones, but guess what? Sooner or later they’ll completely about-face on those too, and they’ll be onto something new, like 32-inch offroad e-cumbents. I mean, come on, doesn’t it make you angry!?! First it’s BUY BUY BUY, then suddenly you’re an idiot for riding the thing they insisted that you buy in the first place.
Fortunately though there are people out there with integrity who are willing to care for these poor bikes when the fashionistas have abandoned them. Yeah, that’s right, I just called myself a person of integrity–and while I’m at it I might as well throw compassion in there, too. What, don’t think I’m compassionate? Wanna fight about it?!?
The point is, dear bikes of the past, when the BikeRadars and PinkBikes and Mountain Bike Actions and Bicyclings of the world have turned their backs on you, I’ll be there for you, and I’ll love you for your rim brakes or your 26-inch wheels or your 23mm tires, not despite them–and it’ll be real love, too:
Not the fake love you find on sites like the R*tardavist, where you have to be suitably vintage complete with a pedigree and a provenance, and people leave comments like this:
[Barf.]
No, give me your tired, your poor, your ugly-ass out-of-style bicycle yearning to breathe free.
Anyway, it should be clear to you by now that while I may refuse to do work, I take this contest VERY SERIOUSLY. That’s why if you sent me an email in which you flippantly said something like, “Oh, here’s my submission, it’s a bit late, but whatever…”
NO LUBE FOR YOU.
Or if you took liberties with the email subject header in any way, however clever you thought you were being…
NO LUBE FOR YOU.
Or if your bicycle deviates from the guidelines …
NO LUBE FOR YOU.
See, I’m as serious as I am lazy…though that’s mostly because eliminating entries means less work for me.
No lube for you, no work for me.
Speaking of which, I find this sort of thing rather vexing:
Basically he rode L’Eroica and it made him appreciate how much “better” bikes are now–and okay, fine, even I will admit there have been a number of meaningful improvements since the L’Eroica cutoff dates. Still, do we really have to act like we haven’t also taken several steps backwards, or that riding older bicycles is profoundly arduous and challenging, like churning your own butter? I’ve ridden some pretty old bikes as the Classic Cycle OCTP, but you get used to most of the differences in like the first 15 minutes:
[Except for that saddle. I never got used to that saddle.]
I also question whether some of these things are really improvements. For example, he complains about the lack of power when braking from the hoods:
But spending 90% of the time with your hands on the hoods is a post-integrated shifting phenomenon, and it really defeats the purpose of drop bars in the first place:
He notes that thanks to modern ergonomics you can now ride around like this:
But when you have drop bars you’re supposed to…use the drops. Not all the time, but certainly under the sorts of circumstances where you’re going so fast you might need to apply the brakes with a decent amount of force, because not only do they make you more “aero,” but they also give you more control. Otherwise why use drop bars at all? I’m certainly not saying he doesn’t use the drops, but I’d guess that the majority of people don’t. This is why gravel bars are basically moustache bars at this point:
[From here]
But sure, let’s stop and appreciate just how far we’ve come:
Certainly we’re pushing the boundaries of pricing:
Gotta keep upgrading!
There is one more thing I want to highlight when I think about these two bikes, and it’s part of why you might pick one versus the other. The Specialized Tarmac SL9 looks like a regular bike. Not just a regular bike, either. The Tarmac is an incredibly well-known bike that hasn’t appreciably changed for multiple generations. There’s a group ride I sometimes join that has multiple SL8s and a couple of SL7s. They all look the same, and they don’t especially stand out. In some ways, that is part of the charm. Like a Porsche 911, you buy into the family and you know exactly what you are getting. Upgrade after a number of years and sell the old one. It’s easy.
Today’s “modern speed equation” is tomorrow’s Meh-roica bike.