The Art of the Bike

As the Cannondale waits its turn at the beauty parlor, let’s start tailoring a dress for the Viner.  Tipping the scales at 2340 gram, this steel frame is no anorexic waif and that doesn’t include the 777 other grams for the uncut fork. That comes out to nearly 6.9 pounds of steel which is an impressive quantity for weight weenies and steel enthusiasts alike. Cutting the steerer tube will shave that fork weight down a bit but only by a bit. Then again, how much does weight really matter? As I always say, there’s more I can do around my waist line than on my bike.

Todays bikes are not made and crafted as much as they are engineered and built. Back in the days when steel ruled supreme, there were no computer models of some fancy finite element analysis that pointed out areas of strain and flex. Materials in well built frames were chosen carefully based on the experience and feel of the builder. Who in the world would have understood something like, “vertically compliant and laterally stiff”? Frame building was a craft and something done by feel as much as by a ruler. It was a talent as much as a skill. Being a craft meant that frame building and bikes were art. Everything had to look as good as it felt and it had to ride as well as the quality of paint on the frame.

I think a lot of the art is lost on the today’s pack of riders. Technology, and computer modeling in particular, has superseded the hmm’ing and scratching of your head. Automated robotic structures in Asia weld, braze, glue, and rivet everything together. The people pushing the buttons on the machines may know as much about cycling as anyone can know the nature of God. They just follow the designers and engineers drafting things up in AutoCAD or some other modeling software. While this may not directly impact the quality and performance of the products we receive, it does make for a disconnect.

Have you noticed how almost every handlebar, stem, and seatpost is black? The black can hide manufacturing marks.

How many polished hubs do you see? Less and less, I can guarantee you that. That’s manual labor.

How much more are we concerned with aerodynamics than stability when we look at a set of wheels? Everything was designed with a computer. It has to be stable.

This is what I mean when I say that the art of the bike has been marginalized, at least to some degree. Subtly has given way to loud flashy graphics, aggressive designs, and quantitative (vs. qualitative) summations. I find this a bit sad when I look around and see the plethora of cheap components littering the marketplace. Personally, I hate seeing the individual TIG weld marks. My Flyte is covered with them.

Can you just hear the weld marks being put on? Plat-plat-plat-plat...

Ghastly.

And the plastic coated Deore quick release nut on the DS is nothing to write home about.

Plastic is great for Tupperware - not bikes.

Form follows function here and it doesn’t have to look pretty. It simply has to work when every other option would lead to failure. The Flyte has to make it work when others are fixing their flats. It has to climb when others have to be walked. People look at it and say, “You made it on that?” Yes, the Flyte is one ugly beast but it works.

This is not say that modern bikes are necessarily trash. I ride several of them in aluminum and one in carbon fiber. All of them use modern components and everything is of recent manufacture from places like China, Taiwan, Italy, and Japan. They all ride great and show no signs of fading into the limelight anytime soon. Yet, despite all the refinement today’s bike can offer, there is something missing – a certain feeling.

What of beauty? What of refinement? What of the craft? Where is the feeling?

That is what I hope to capture with the Viner. It may be a cheap imitation of a Colnago somewhere and it certainly won’t have the media flashing their bulbs like Schwinn’s 70th Anniversary Paramount. Like I said in my one of my previous posts, the logo bled, the chainstay protector is off, and the headbadge is just a cheap puffy stick. The bike will weigh more than it should and probably not everything will be polished to a mirror finish but that’s not the point.

The point here is that it let’s me say, “I told you so.”