2011 Streak 53/365: The lure of a new bike

2011 Streak 53/2011: Cycle - 23.2 miles, Time - 1hr 44min, Weather - hazy grey damp (once again)

Time for another bleak misty picture - I have to give some impression of what it is like out on the road. Somehow the mist makes everything quieter and when there is no one else about it enhances the emptiness.

I actually rode quite hard for part of today's route but my average speed does not show this. One of the reasons, apart from a long, slow hill, was that I cycled along the main street of Berkhamsted and this was totally clogged, with slow moving/stationary traffic, where I might even have reached walking pace at some point.

This reminded me of  a paper published in the BMJ just before Christmas, which I knew of but had not read. It was the result of an experiment of one, whereby a doctor recorded his commuting times when riding an old, cheap steel bike and a new, more expensive, carbon bike. There was no real difference and so he didn't think the extra money was really worth it.

When I heard about this on the radio I dismissed it because my experience of commuting was that times were more affected by the traffic than anything else - so it didn't surprise me that the times were the same.

However after thinking about the article today I thought I ought to read it - and it is great fun. I especially like it because it is the sort of thing that I or most people reading this blog might have done (almost by definition runners and cyclist like collecting stats), but it is written-up in the standard BMJ way as if it were a full trial, which add a bit of amusement (especially the bits about funding, competing interests and ethical approval)

My initial rejection of the findings was completely wrong as his route had enough open road to show if the bike would make a difference. The conclusion is quite sound that, providing both bikes are working efficiently, the differences from the bike are small compared improvements that can be made by the rider losing weight or increasing fitness.  Also when, improvement in fitness starts to plateau, the biggest gains then come from aerodynamics not the weight or stiffness of the bike. (However the more streamlined the position, the more uncomfortable it is).

Although I can accept his findings it does alter the reason why one always lusts after a better (or newer) bike: there is a romance in the history of the bike and the social liberation it caused; there is the continuing history of innovation; there is the satisfaction of seeing something both well designed and executed; there is aesthetic pleasure; and finally there is pride of ownership.

The best expression of all this is a book by Rob Penn 'It's all about the bike', which describes the making of his custom-built dream bike.  By visiting all the component manufactures he explains what is special about every bit of the bike and how it evolved. it is both a history of his bike and a history of the bicycle.

Reading that book you are caught up in the romance of it all and you know why almost every cyclist is interested in what is shinny and new.