Saturday, December 26, 2009

Gone But Not Missed

Here's an old Outside magazine article by Jason Gay lamenting the disappearance of the angry bike mechanic.

Although he exerts a noble effort to make those characters and their record store counterparts seem necessary, even beneficial, it is hard to cover up the fact that they are jerks.

2 comments:

Jeff said...

Michael - don't know if you ride, but if you do, you know that this is a geeky group who love their clothing options and equipment choices.

Got a Trek myself but hung it up around 5 years ago. When I was on the bike, I had hurt my back and was warned by the doc that riding on the aluminum road bike frame was doing its damage.

So I switched out the seatpost for a hydraulic one that's usually used on mountain bikes. And also swapped out the handlebar stem for one with a rubber shock absorber.

Caused quite a stir. But the guy that owned the bike shop who was also our club's go-to mechanic - wiry, dark haired, hands chronically calloused and black - was fascinated by what I did. Almost as if I had bravely broken away from the church to start my own sect.

The other mechanics were not quite so forgiving...

- Jeff

Michael Wade said...

Jeff,

It is interesting to see the near-religious devotion to certain practices and equipment in various sports. I don't even want to be around runners when they argue about running shoes.