Orny's Cycling Journal

Today I said another goodbye, dropping the Plastic Bullet off at Free Ride Pittsburgh, the local bicycle repurposing charity, in much the same way as when I donated my first bike, a Devinci hybrid, eight years ago.

The Plastic Bullet at the Provincetown finish line after a 3-day trek across Massachusetts in 2010 to celebrate my 10th Pan-Mass Challenge

The Plastic Bullet appears in a hundred regional newspapers in a thank-you ad from Dana-Farber following the 2011 Pan-Mass Challenge

Like that Devinci, the Plastic Bullet had been relegated to a backup bike, and then left to a lonely retirement, forgotten in a closet. And like the Devinci, an inter-state move is prompting its final fate. Hopefully it will find some new life beyond my custodianship.

And like the Devinci, the P.B. served me very well. It was my first road bike, a Specialized Roubaix Expert that arrived in October 2005. Being a carbon-fiber frame it was immediately nicknamed the Plastic Bullet, derived from the lyrics to the Shriekback song “Go Bang!”, which also provides this blogpo’s title.

It was my primary bike for the next seven years, seeing me through 30 century+ rides, including seven Pan-Mass Challenges, my first 200 KM brevet, and my 2010 three-day 10th anniversary PMC ride all the way across Massachusetts.

It also featured in my most treasured cycling photo ever: a shot of me leading a paceline in the 2011 Pan-Mass Challenge that was used in a quarter-page thank-you ad from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute that appeared in over a hundred regional newspapers.

The Plastic Bullet was demoted to backup in early 2013, when I splurged on my current steed, nicknamed R2-Di2. It came out of storage whenever the R2 was in the shop, and was brought along when I moved to Pittsburgh seven years ago. But it has seen virtually no use since then, and retired with a final odometer reading of 36,711 KM (22,811 miles).

Before the Plastic Bullet, I had always been a bit of an outlier as a road-riding enthusiast riding a flat-bar hybrid bike. But the Plastic Bullet allowed me to fit into my niche and complete my transition into the roadie that I am today.

It’s hard to say goodbye to something that was such an important part of one’s life for so long, but it’s a good opportunity for me to practice with the laws of impermanence and non-attachment.

And it also opens a bit of space for someday welcoming a new resident in my stable of bicycles, which is a distinct possibility once I get a better idea what the riding is going to be like in Austin. After all, no cyclist should have to live with owning n-1 bikes!

It might violate the image I’ve cultivated, but there was a time before Ornoth was a cyclist. Let’s set the wayback machine to the previous millennium…

In the late ’90s, I had a two-mile commute across the Charles River from my home near Fenway to work in Kendall Square. Having learned that taking the train took 45 minutes and the bus took 35, I decided to try getting to work using an old Fuji road bike from college, which had somehow followed me through five moves.

During my ensuing commutes, I discovered the freedom and efficiency of navigating the city by bike. I cut my commute in half, got a free workout, and enjoyed the relaxation that comes from a morning or evening ride along the riverside. That is, until I sheared a pedal bolt in half.

By then I was riding regularly enough to realize that replacing that old Fuji would serve me better than trying to repair it. So I ordered a Mongoose hybrid from L.L. Bean, which worked well until it was stolen.

By that point I was really enjoying riding, and thinking about doing a long charity ride; I was committed. After some looking around, I picked up a new blue and white 2000 Devinci Monaco hybrid from a bike shop in Newburyport.

The next year I would put 3,400 miles on that bike and ride it through my first two-day, 192-mile Pan-Mass Challenge charity ride. In fact, it was my companion through my first five PMC rides, gifting me with 16,797 miles of joy and beauty.

On a practical level, that bike supported my transition from an occasional two-mile commuter to a committed endurance rider. It helped me become a serious cyclist, and to learn what equipment would best suit me. So five years later, with the Devinci showing some signs of wear, I did the research and graduated to my first real road bike.

The Devinci saw occasional use when my road bike was in the shop, and served as a commuter during the icy and snowy winter months. But for the most part it sat forgotten and unused in my back room for the next eight years.

For four of those years, the item “Ditch the Devinci” lingered somewhere on my to-do list. And this afternoon… its time had come.

I wiped the dust off the saddle, filled the tires with air, checked out the rusty mechanicals, and saddled up for its last ride: four miles down the Southwest Corridor bike path to the headquarters of Bikes Not Bombs, a charity that takes old bikes and does what they can to refurbish them and move them on to appreciative owners in underdeveloped nations in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

Despite the Devinci’s thousands of miles and years of wear and neglect, BNB accepted it enthusiastically. I signed the paperwork and walked back to the nearest train station, leaving a huge piece of my cycling history behind.

But it would be really remarkable if—after so many years—the Devinci could serve someone who needs it far more than I do. If anything, my final ride convinced me that its steel frame could still cover plenty of miles if given a good dose of mechanical care. After all, the tires still remarkably held air, the gears shifted, and the brakes worked.

However, after coming home, my back room feels awfully empty now. Although it was mostly just taking up space and collecting dust for seven years, the Devinci was also maintaining an emotional link to my early years as a cyclist, when I was learning so much, and first captivated by the beauty, utility, camaraderie, and sheer joy of riding.

Over the past few months, I’ve been re-reading my back catalog of cycling magazines, pulling out points that I thought were worth remembering and/or sharing. I’m publishing my findings in five installments. I’ll start you off easy with this first installment, which contains a handful of interesting historical factoids.

• At the time of their invention in the late 19th century, bicycles were true state of the art technology. Important inventions such as the pneumatic tire and ball bearings were originally discovered while searching for ways to improve early bicycles.
• It is a common misperception that the invention of the automobile was what prompted America to improve its mostly dirt and mud road system. However, it was the League of American Wheelmen—an organization of bicyclists—who founded the Good Roads Movement in 1880, and who led the group for its first twenty-five years. Ironically, although automobile drivers benefited tremendously from this effort, today’s drivers sneer at cyclists, who have to fight (legally and sometimes physically) for the right to use the very roads they created.
• In similar vein, recall that the Wright Brothers used their bicycle shop to generate the capital to build the first flying machine, using bike parts from the shop and mechanical skills they’d gained in producing bikes. One of the bike shop employees even built their first aircraft engine. Despite the bicycle’s contribution to early aviation, today’s airlines require cyclists to pay a surcharge of as much as $175 each way to transport a properly packed bicycle.
• The bicycle was also an important factor in female emancipation and the suffrage movement, because it gave women freedom of travel. The bike also prompted the development of bloomers, driving the first nail in the coffin of restrictive dress such as corsets and ankle-length skirts. Susan B. Anthony stated in 1896: “Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel… the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.” And Frances Willard of the WCTU praised cycling in a book entitled, “How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle”.
• In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower suffered a heart attack and was attended by Dr. Paul Dudley White of Roxbury, Harvard, and MGH. Dr. White, a cycling advocate himself, prescribed bicycling for its cardiovascular benefits. The 17-mile Charles River bike path in Boston is named in his honor.
• Speaking of Boston, our first bike club, the Massachusetts Bicycle Club, was founded in 1879. Five years later, they built their headquarters at 152 Newbury Street. The building is located directly across the street from my condo and now houses the Snowden International School.
• Finally, Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean’s political career began in 1978 when he proposed a bike path in Lake Champlain, Vermont.

There are heroes, and then there are superheroes.

I first started riding with the folks at Quad Cycles in 2002, seven years ago. Even back then, the ebullient guy who led the rides was already a living legend. The name Bobby Mac will evoke a smile from anyone who has ever ridden in the exceedingly popular triangle formed by the towns of Arlington, Lexington, Bedford, Concord, and Carlisle.

Although Bobby’s rides can be whatever you make of them, they’re primarily oriented toward charity riders, and Bobby does an amazing job encouraging novices. He passes on his cycling wisdom by routinely barking out phrases such as “Ride with love in your hearts and smiles on your faces,” or “Be nice to everybody you meet out there”, as well as gems like “If you’re gonna fall, do not fall on me!”.

He is a charismatic leader who never speaks ill of anyone, and his demeanor is always oriented toward fun. Despite riding the exact same route hundreds and hundreds of times over the years, he still finds the enthusiasm to sing a modified version of a 1987 Was (Not Was) song in tribute to his favorite hill, “The Dinosaur”, so named because of a sculpture at the mini-golf course at its summit. Bobby has also named the statue “Sarah”, because he’s Bobby: he can do that.

Bobby barks a lot, but it’s all out of love for the sport and his fellow man. While he casually tosses out aphorisms like “Indifference to the plight of others is a sin”, he backs that up with action, participating in rides that benefit causes from AIDS research to cyctic fibrosis. He even helped organize the Massachusetts Red Ribbon Ride, which carried on the tradition of the former AIDS Rides after Pallotta Teamworks’ criminal mismanagement came to light. Several magazines and newspapers have run features on him and his work.

As you might imagine, Bobby’s an amazingly strong rider, too. But to hear him tell it, it wasn’t always like that. He came to biking when he was over 300 pounds and unable to make it more than a couple miles without collapsing from the effort. Biking helped him lose weight and recover his overall fitness, which he maintains despite his off-season job as a chef for one of MIT’s fraternities. It only adds to his mystique that although he works with food, no one has ever seen him ingest anything but Cytomax.

Bobby’s been our leader for so long that it’s difficult to think there could ever be a day when he won’t be there at the head of our pack. But as much as none of us want to face it, that day is inevitably coming. Bobby has macular degeneration, which causes a loss of vision in the center of the field of vision while leaving most of one’s peripheral vision unaffected. As you might imagine, this isn’t good for a cyclist, especially considering Boston’s monstrous roads and notorious drivers. It’s something Bobby has worked around, but who knows how long that will suffice?

In addition, last week Bobby celebrated his 60th birthday. While 60 is hardly ancient, and it’s not difficult to find 70 and even 80 year old riders, it again raises that question in one’s mind of how much longer Bobby will be able to ride.

On June 17 2006, we held an emotional ride in appreciation of Bobby’s tutelage, and called it the Tour de Mac. Last weekend we held another celebratory ride to observe Bobby’s 60th as well as the grand reopening of Quad Cycles, which has moved into new digs about a half mile closer to town. Although the early April morning was cold and the forecast promised rain, the sun came out and provided a fittingly beautiful day for an early season ride with good friends, and perhaps fifty people turned out, including former US Professional Road Race Champion Mark McCormack.

Bobby Mac deserves recognition for the inestimable amount he has done for cycling in the region. He inspires everyone he comes into contact with and is the undisputed and irreplaceable center of our cycling community. He’s nurtured hundreds of new cyclists, and mentored nearly as many charity riders, and done so with gentleness and flair. Like scores of others, I’ve grown as both a cyclist and as a person in the past eight years as a result of my contact with Bobby Mac and the community he created. He is truly one of the greatest heroes I’ve had the pleasure to meet, and I’m thankful for every day I am able to ride with such an inspiring examplar.

So this week marks the fourth anniversary of my purchase of the Devinci Monaco that has been my faithful ride. When I first got it, I was someone who was basically sedentary but inline skated or biked to work every so often, but I aspired to maybe do a long bike tour or something. With the new bike, I commuted a lot more, even through the harshness of winter, and began training for my first Pan-Mass. The Monaco served that purpose well.

However, today I’m a very different rider. I’ve become an athlete, riding over 200 miles per week and mixing it up in pacelines and sprints on regular club rides. I’ll soon be signing up for my fifth PMC, which now seems less of a challenge, and today’s dream goals include riding the world-class Mount Washington Hill Climb and early-season brevets of 300 to 600k. For those purposes, my steel, straight-bar hybrid is like an anchor. It’s heavy, getting decrepit with age, and has all the aerodynamic attributes of a dumpster.

I’ve been looking at new bikes for more than three years, and there are plenty of fine rides to choose from. Finding the money has really been the only thing holding me back. But one of these days I’ll take the plunge, and the benefit to my riding should be pretty immediate.

But on this anniversary, I should note what I’ve accomplished to date. There have been only ten weeks when I haven’t ridden: seven due to sickness or injury, and one each due to mechanicals, travel, and weather, but I haven’t missed a single week in the past two years. In four years I’ve put 12,267 miles on that bike, with this year’s total being a record 3,800 miles. My annual average is 3,015 miles, which is about 8.4 miles every single day. I’ve spent 855 hours on the bike, which amounts to over 35 minutes every day. I’ve done four PMC rides, one century and three metric doubles (124 miles), and raised over $12,000 for cancer research. In all, I think it’s a pretty impressive set of accomplishments.

However, as I said, the Devinci has been showing signs of age lately. Last year I replaced my rear wheel because my spokes kept breaking or loosening up on me. That worked for a while, but I’m once again having problems. However, this year I tried a new tactic: Loctite! I used a mild adhesive that is designed to hold nuts in place so that they aren’t loosened by vibration. A couple weeks ago, I identified the three non-drive side spokes that were giving me trouble and sealed them down. You’d think that’d be the end of that!

Well, no. While those spokes held fine, suddenly about four other spokes went loose to compensate, including some on the drive side! So now I’m at a loss for what to do. Is there something about the way I ride that just tears up rear wheels? Dunno, but at least I have the winter to figure it out.

Yesterday’s ride featured another unfortunate sign of aging equipment, too. At one of our rest stops I left my bike in a French stand, and a gust of wind came by and knocked it over. Not a big deal, except that my helmet was on the handlebars and the styrofoam body of the helmet cracked straight through in three places! I have been planning on replacing it anyways, but I really didn’t need another expense right now. I’ll continue using it through this winter, because it’s still functional and I’m rough on helmets during the winter anyways, but come spring I’ll have to replace it with something more stylish.

So overall it’s been a good year, although it’s about time to buy a new road bike and admit that the Devinci has become a beater suitable only for commuting and winter riding. Still, as a $925 bike with more than 12,000 miles on the odo, its 7.5 cents/mile is darned near unbeatable value, even for a bicycle!