Godamn kids

I rodde out from the house this evening, in a desperate attempt to get some after-work miles and maybe spend a day not getting any older. Neither one worked out quite.

A couple of miles from Stone Mountain, I noticed a couple on the side of the bike path, one bike turned upside down. I slowed down, as as is my habit, asked if they had all they needed. Most people, similarly stopped, are just resting or looking for that Heath bar in the backpack and send me on my way.

"Actually," said the young man, we don't." It turned out that Her rear tire had blown, and the had no spare tube. I always carry a couple of tubes, in the Forty Pound Camelbak, so fishing one out and handing it over wasn't much trouble. "Uh, do you have a pump?" They also had neglected to bring tire levers, not that I had any room to talk. Mine were still in the bottom of my suitcase, underneath the Dahon. So I showed Him the trick where you take out a QR skewer and pry the tire bead off with it.

While He struggled to tuck the tube in the tire and worry it back on the rim, I took a look at His bike. White Indy Fab, set up as a singlespeed. Paul's canti's, and DUgast sewups in 35mm. I looked closer. The Paul's angled upward, the arms pointing to 10 o'clock and 2, not the 3:30 and 8:30 that God and Mafac intended.

If you've read this blog before, you probably know that I've got an obsession with brakes. I went through a long study period with the early V brakes on my Bontrager, and eventually repalced them with very old style Dia Compes, and for one reason: the Compes work. So do Mafacs, and their modern Paul clones.

Th reason is the geometry. When the arms pointslightly below the horizon, then the pads move toward the rims quite fast as they pass through horizontal, and the long arms make them grip quite hard. When they're positioned above horizontal, the leverge just drops off the tighter they're squeezed.

My question is: who set up this bike? I haven't looked up Indy Fab's prices (and won't), but I doubt that even a very simple TIG frame runs less that a grand and a half, and just the two Dugasts are a couple of bills besides. So let's call the whole build a minimum of $2500. Who buys a bike of that quality and expense, and doesn't know how the brakes work? Who buys a singlespeed 'crosser and puts a cowhorn bar on it? Who needs a custom bike and has that little knowledge?

When I was a twenty-something, my dearest ambition was to be something like This Guy. I wanted the disposable incoome to ride a resepcted brand, and to have the sort of girlfriend that other riders undressed with their eyes. In those days, I was a shameless decal-sniffer, and honestly believed that because John Howard rode a Raleigh Professional, that I should too. (I didn't know then that John Howard actually rode an Eisentraut A, that changed its plumage every time Long John changed sponsors.) So I would have bought a boutique-corporate bike like an Indy, and set it up with arcane and less-than optimal parts. But I would have gotten the brake geometry right.

But what's going to happen to this guy when he catches a shard of glass in one of those high-buck tubulars? As much trouble as he had with a tube change, I can't imagine him regluing a sew-up on the road. And I sure can't imagine him restitching one. Hell, I can't imagine ME restitching one either, or at least not restitching one right.

So, after They got the tire changed, and thank yous and you're welcomes had been exchainged, I set off again. I rode my one lap of the mountain, then headed back. I never saw them, even though they'd said they were going the same way I was. I suspect that He pinched the new tube between the tire bead and the rim and split it, or that the piecce of glass that punctured the original tube was still inside the tire and killed the new tube as well. I realized this on the way home, after I'd taken a different route from the one I'd used inbound. They' were probably right in the same spot I'd left them.

And no, I didn't go back to look.