I failed a cycling purity test

The other day I engaged in a conversation on Facebook. I know, I'm sorry. I'd say it won't happen again, but that would be a lie.

The conversation was started by a pro cyclist about the incredible advantages of disc brakes. He wrote a great paean to disc brakes, which are absolutely far superior to rim brakes, but he ended it with a call for all cyclists to immediately switch.

Now I'm all about embracing new hotness, but I also have pay a mortgage and make sure my kids can eat. Those things are priorities, and cycling is a hobby. An obsessive hobby, but still: a hobby.

I responded to his argument by saying the conversion to disc brakes is not a trivial matter. One cannot, for instance, simply mount disc calipers to any given road frame, nor can one slap on a disc to any given wheel. Both items are made specifically for one brake technology or the other (let's not get into weird custom-builds). So to "make the switch" to disc means buying a new bike. Or new bikes.

Instead of acknowledging that there is a price barrier to changing brakes, he pointed out that I have more bikes than he does, as if to invalidate my argument of price savings.

I was lucky that, when I first got into this hobby in 2015, 11-speed components were just becoming standard equipment across road and mountain bikes. I chose to set my bikes up with Shimano and SRAM components because they're largely interchangeable. So gearing was easy. I could swap drivetrains between bikes with no more effort than a couple of hours and a new set of cables.

But when I bought my 2nd road bike for commuting, I had a tough choice to make: disc or rim brakes? I knew I wanted faster wheels for my race bike, and that the stock wheels on the commuter would be horrible. If I went with disc brakes, I'd be buying a new bike plus two new sets of wheels. That would mean shelling out at least $1,000 for a new bike, then another $550 for Mavic's Ksyrium Pro Disc (cheap, light, and shipped with tires!), AND THEN another ~$1000 for used carbon race wheels for the other bike. Minimum $2500. Or I could buy the rim-brake bike and upgrade my race wheels later, saving hundreds (ended up saving $800 going this route).

Now there are many riders out there for whom those numbers sound pretty cheap, and nothing throws that into sharper relief than the industry buzz around the new Specialized Tarmac SL7. This new "end all, be all" of road cycling can be yours for the low low price of $12,000, plus tax. Oh and then you'll have to buy pedals, because bikes don't come with pedals. Oh you want bottle cages? Maybe a cyclocomputer? You're bumping up into the $13,500 range now, all in. The kids don't really eat all that much, anyway.

Over the past 5 years, I've accumulated 3 road bikes of my own (+1 for Alastair) that all use rim brakes. Across the board I have a TT bike, a race bike, and a rain/commuter bike. On those bikes I have aero wheels, a disc TT rear wheel, climbing wheels, and a set of commuting wheels. Literally all completely interchangeable with just a few adjustments. And they can also all trickle down to Alastair's bike. All in, including pedals, cyclocomputer, bottle cages, panniers for the commuter, etc etc etc? $12,323.45. I have the receipts.

For less than the take-home cost of a top-range SL7, I've gotten 29,526.8 miles over 1255 rides across 3 rim-brake bikes.

All costs are tracked in Excel and correlated to Strava data thru Power BI

No single bike in my arsenal has even crossed the midway point of the SL7's cost, including my main race bike, which is just now--after 5 years--nudging up to $6000, including $2200 in repairs and $2285 in upgrades. FWIW, that bike brand new in 2011 was listed at $7000 (the same price as a brand new mid-range Tarmac SL7...still without pedals!), so I 'm not even up to the initial purchase price in 20,066 miles of use. I bought it for $950 in August 2015 and have replaced literally everything on it except the fork and the crankset. It has thrashed bearings, crashed hard sacrificed pedals & handlebars, and it's still a rock solid light-weight (998g) carbon, aero, internally-routed crit monster, even at 10 years old.

This sport is stupendously expensive--there's just no getting around that. But it doesn't have to be expensive-r just because there's a new braking technology around. In fact the budget racer is LOVING life right now while all the rich kids dump their old tech. I got my Zipp 404 Firecrests last year at a race for a third of what they cost new. Same for my Super9. These deals do not yet exist in the disc-brake space.

But I know the tech is changing. 12-speed is in the market. Electronic shifting is becoming such a standard some bikes don't even support cables any more. Disc brakes are the norm. When I replace a bike, it will have at least one of those 3 items, and my interchangeability will be diminished. And that's ok, but it's not going to happen until I break a bike, because my kids eat like horses.

The Overtake

As a cyclist, there is a moment that occurs every time a car passes. It usually doesn't last more than half a second, but in that time, your life hangs in the balance. Is the car going to kill you?

For the most part, riders can fit comfortably into two camps: the first assumes the answer is usually yes, and generally switches to mountain bikes pretty quickly and forswears the road. The second set, though, has to accept this moment, which can happen hundreds of times on a single ride, is fleeting and worth the risk for the joy of the open road.

Being born to one camp doesn't mean you can't switch to the other, but I try really hard not to let fear take hold of my heart, and usually I'm able to move beyond a pass.

But some are scarier than others. In that moment, when your nerves are on fire and your heart is trying to jump through your throat, a driver holds your fate completely in their hands. A friendly honk becomes much less friendly if it makes the rider jump out of his or her skin. Certainly rolling down the window to shout obscenities isn't the kindest way to pass, either, though this is actually one of the least upsetting things a driver or passenger can do (do they have any idea how absurd their voices sound at full-chipmunk screech over the wind?).

There are the big trucks that push an air wall around them, first moving you toward a ditch and then almost sucking you into the side of them. There are trailers that drivers merge into your lane. There's the 2nd gear 7000RPM unmuffled exhaust  guy. The coal-roller. The person who sits on your wheel for half a mile while traffic backs up behind them getting angry at you before they even get to you.

All terrifying. All totally normal.

Yesterday I learned of a new foe: the police loudspeaker.

My son and I were out for a Sunday ride on quiet country roads when we encountered a particularly sharp climb. He is very (very) fond of drafting me, but knows to keep his front wheel clear of the rider ahead in case that rider pulls the bike backward to stand. So when the road goes up, he moves slightly left for safety.

Virginia code mandates that cyclists remain "as close as safely practicable to the right curb or edge of roadway", that cyclists cannot ride MORE THAN two abreast, and that riders remain single-file when being overtaken.

So we were making the climb single-file when a car passed without incident. Not pushing too hard, just rolling into power and trying to stay steady. As a second car begins to pull around us, just as the 'will I live or die' moment began to spring to life, came an unexpected loudspeaker: 'YOU NEED TO BE RIDING SINGLE FILE. NOT ABREAST.'

I nearly crashed. So did my son.

I threw up my arm in a WTF gesture before I could even turn my head to the left to see what the heck was happening, and was treated to a follow-up: 'YOU DON'T NEED TO WAVE YOUR ARM AROUND AT ME.' As I'm hearing this, I realize it's a cop, and I'm further realizing that Alastair's wheel is FIRMLY behind my own, though just slightly to the left. We are not abreast.

Cop speeds off up the hill. I asked Alastair if he was ok, he confirmed that he was spooked and angry, and I got pissed. Tried to chase the cop up the hill, but really: it's a hill and he was in a car. He was long gone by the time I got to the closest stop sign.

I titled my Strava ride with an inappropriate term for police officers, but let's break down why I'm not apologizing for that.

Every overtake is dangerous. We've already established that I accept that risk, but every single time there is that moment of not knowing if you're going to live or die.

This officer chose that exact moment--I'm sure he didn't know that, but he did it--to verbally accost us. And he did it in a way that demanded we accept his authority: over the loudspeaker with the windows up. Unannounced and disinviting of even my arm gesture in response. There was no intention of ensuring public safety. There was no goal of 'serve and protect'. There was only one goal: intimidate. And he achieved it. And from within the safety of that 4000 lb steel fortress of air-conditioning and horsepower, he did it with the impunity of not worrying if we lived or died.

There was another car behind him. If I'd crashed, Alastair would have hit me, also causing him to crash. That crash could have put us directly into the traffic that was right behind the police car. Or into the ditch.

If we'd crashed under a car, that officer would be RESPONSIBLE for the death of a 14 year old. But he'd use his badge to claim he was chiding us as wayward evil cyclists when the unforseeable happened and we swerved and crashed. Not his fault, your honor!

If we'd crashed into the ditch, would he stop the comfy car and check on us? If I yelled at him for endangering our lives in that moment, would he have decided I was belligerent and needed to cool my heels in a cell?

Nothing--not one thing--about his intimidation tactic was safe or in the public interest. In that moment, he was not a public servant. He was a pig. He used his badge and his official equipment to put exposed road-users at greater risk for his own amusement.