Rigid is flexible: the versatility of steel, all terrain bikes

I took a train up to Santa Fe yesterday and rode uphill out of town for a few miles into a beautiful trail system called Dale Ball.  The trails transitioned in and out of varying states of smooth and flowy, gradual to steep climbing/descending with rocky and technical sections throughout.  I rode about 8 miles total (of trail) and another 7 or so of pavement.  The ride was amazingly fun, I suffered no flats, my bike performed flawlessly, and riding at my own pace made for a great outing with no stress to rush; though I did ride somewhat quickly overall.  I enjoyed the ride on my beautiful, fully rigid 1985 Kuwahara All terrain bike (yes I did just use that term).  The bike is no frills.  Cromo steel, friction shifting and utilizing "old" technology by today's standards.  I rode on 26" x 2.25" tires inflated to low pressure.  Wide handlebars and a brooks.  No nonsense, good-ol time tested stuff that has worked well for me.  I find myself returning more and more to this style of riding.  A good pavement push up toward some wonderful dirt trail is followed by a ride on yes, the same bike.  You might be thinking "One bike.. for pavement and dirt trail rides?".  The thing is that I like to keep things simple these days.  There is something about riding a diversified bike for multiple disciplines that just keeps you honest.  I don't want to make this post about gear as much as I want to make it about riding fully rigid steel bikes, the type that will get you from your door, to the trail for riding/hiking and back to the place where you started from.

One of the earliest versions of the mountain bike beautifully made by Tom Ritchey.
A fine bike capable of doing just about any kind of riding.  Load it with gear and you have a camping/touring bike.

Wanderlust

I come from a background of riding pavement and lots of it.  My first real interest in bikes began with thin tired road/fixed gear/single speed bikes and thus all my riding was on pavement.  I learned the value of pacing myself, negotiating big hills, maintaining a healthy cadence for my not so amazing knees and overall good riding etiquette.  I loved road bikes and the freedom they provided me but I wanted more exploration.  I knew of vast trail systems that existed in my front and back yard with no real way of riding them on the bikes that I was building and using up until that point. Eventually at one of my local bike hangouts I found an early 90's, fully rigid rock hopper frame/fork and built it up as a single speed with plush 2.3" tires.  I subsequently gave it the full gear treatment, rode it everywhere and loved it.  I was surprised at how amazingly well the bike did for city riding as it did on the loose stuff.  I could roll over massive cracks and breakups in the roads, hop on and off sidewalks if needed, roll over just about any imperfection in the streets and feel very comfortable doing it all.  I definitely noticed a slight gain in weight and reduction in speed with the new "mountain bike" but was having so much fun and enjoying the new freedom on the thing that it didn't much matter at the time.  The bug bit me and I started really getting into off road riding.  I started looking all over and around town for single track, fire road and new hiking trails to explore.

One of the only photos I have of my first ATB.
preparing to carefully descend the rocky La Bajada

Doing it all

 

My skills as a rider went through the roof when I started riding rigid bikes on dirt.  The bike control learned by riding off road was something that would directly translate to my ability on pavement as well.  Conversely my endurance, pacing and technique from riding long road rides greatly enhanced my abilities on the dirt just as well.  It was as if both disciplines of riding mutually benefited one another.  The best part was when I started incorporating road and dirt into long adventurous rides without any particular theme.  Riding paved roads on these bikes to trail heads opened the door to out and back trip that gave me a little bit of everything in one ride.  It was engaging in this style of cycling that began to lay to waste to the mentality of the necessity for dedicated genre bikes.  I was discovering that I could do it all on one modest machine while challenging myself in the process.  Having a jack of all trades bike inevitably slowed me down on both the road and dirt, but as I became more comfortable with doing everything just a little bit slower and stopped comparing my speed with others, I knew that I could have a ton of fun with fewer bikes for fewer dollars.

 Much of this approach came from a time when I started to critically take note of how and why we cyclists endure so much pressure from the cycling industry and cycling culture as a whole.  The pressure to fit into boxes.  The pressure to look the part.  The pressure to be taken seriously as a cyclist by other cyclists.  I wanted to break free from the gear obsessed, mile counting, weight pinching, high speed at all costs culture and enjoy riding with what was accessible, affordable, and easily repairable.  It was and still is in a way to me a form of silent protest, a proverbial middle finger to the marketeers that have often tried to sell us lower quality versions of the bikes that we sometimes had all along.  Like so many others I only felt that I needed more, newer, ever so subtly differing bikes and gear when I allowed myself to be sold the idea that it was a necessity.

Fetishizing the bicycle-toy in the name of the "greenness"

So I wrote a post earlier this year titled "The Green Paradox" that asked some questions about the seemingly ass backwards mentality that pushes some of use to buy a labor intensive, cost prohibitive, toxic in production methods/materials and often disposable bicycle as a form of "transportation" in the name of greenness.  It talked about the act of mindless upgrading, the pressure to have the most future-tech bike possible and all of the issues that come to mind when contemplating the nature of mindless consumption for the promise of lighter, better and stronger.  You might almost forget that we are talking about bicycles here, but the lets remember that this is happening all around us in the typical guise of "green cycling".  You know, spending that $3k+ on a full suspension mountain bike or full carbon road bike is full of anti global warming merit after all; because when we aren't busy commuting for work, family life and leisure purposes in our 20-something mile to the gallon petrol guzzlers, gallivanting about on our mostly-plastic framed, hydraulic hosed, electronic filled, suspension oiled play toys is synonymous with a truly green pastime.  Yeah...

I was once visited by vaguely cyclist-looking riders that told me I needed to ride my local trails like this

Bikes are great.. mostly

Obviously I enjoy bikes and riding them, just as nearly anyone who is probably reading this does; but one of the biggest aspects that underscores the differentiating factor between sensible and "green" purchasing habits vs the contrary is a semi-concise awareness of the resource sapping that incurs in the form of labor, mining/extraction, refinement, manufacturing, packaging, advertisement, reallocation and upkeep/repair of such produced bicycles.  I am talking about the foresight that comes with knowing that the hobby (for most people) that is cycling comes both literally and figuratively at a massively exhaustive cost.  Getting out on the road with this years new play-thing is in every sense of the word taxing, and I can't seem to see it in any other light here.  Of course the input/output (resources used to miles traveled) of nearly any bicycle will stand strong against the automobile if leveraged in terms of miles per dollar, but that seems to be the equivalent of comparing the efficacy of a leaf blower to a rake made of pure gold, or ivory for that matter: as if to say that there is inherent goodness based on the fact that one uses human power vs some form of hydrocarbon-whatever.  Just because we are pedaling our way around neighborhood and trail systems with our expensive "green machines" does not mean that it holds enviro-clout under the scrutinizing eye.  

So where do we really draw the line?  What does the all too subjective notion of greenness really amount to anyway?  Its difficult to answer in short, and my observations above are certainly just that; subjective.  They come from places of personal observation, weighing moral values, asking challenging questions and embracing new changes.  Though the realizations that I come to and adhere by may be differing to many, I have to think that there can be a fairly general consensus as to what the hell we are really doing with bikes, what the cost/value of it all is and if it is really "green" at the end of the day.  My goal here is not so much to sit down and crunch various metrics, to shame any particular person or to encourage people to get off their already acquired bikes (be it the aforementioned varietal or not) as much as it is to encourage positive steps in forward thinking with regard to future consumption.  I am talking about embracing new ideas revolving around increased longevity, enhanced foresight, reduced redundancy and having a higher understanding of what goes into our "hobbies" and what in turn comes out of them.

non-fitness model female cyclists get rad on
 relatively normal/useful/repairable/affordable bikes!!!?
That KOM jersey on the right though... :)

We can't all be commuters.. but...

There is a huge number of people out there who would love nothing more than to commute by bike but for varying reasons can not.  From epic millage between the work place and home to physically debilitating conditions that prevent them from extended periods in the saddle, it is not my place or anyone else to shame and blame here.  Most people will only ever mount a saddle (or recumbent/"adaptive" bike seat for that matter) on the weekends, days off, after work or whatever else downtime is available.  Though we cant all be commuters, we can certainly exercise discerning levels of educated purchasing for these equally important times of cycling.  Maybe its just a short ride for exercise, a long ride from one cafe to another, or simply trying to develop good balance; a modestly priced, realistically designed, comfortably setup, repairable, strong and replaceable bike can and certainly will get the job done.  

We seem to forget that we can exercise, get around short distances, be outdoors and embrace cycling altogether with out subscribing to the notion that we need the ultra expensive, toxic bike toys that we are being sold as we try to look the part of the "serious" cyclist.  By attempting to "hang with the guys" we sell ourselves the notion that recreation riding "for fun" needs to be synonymous with ultra-luxury oriented bicycle/component consumption habits.  There is no reason why we can't get out there on a non-race-machine and get exercise, adventure, traverse from place to place and most importantly have a good time doing it all.