The More Things Change......

I am 53 years old and riding my carbon fiber bicycle with racing geometry and a stiff frame is like going a couple of loops on the Cyclone.  The adrenaline rush is great but the numb hands, neck, and shoulders?  Not so much.  So, I just bought a new touring/cyclocross/city bike with a relaxed frame geometry for a more comfortable ride.  I feel like a kid on this bike and I have already begun to dork it out just like the old days:  contrasting red reflective tape (because it is all black), rear rat trap carrier (ok, so it's not an original Pletscher but I still call my sneakers, tennis shoes), a front light (no, it does not have a generator that is activated by a gear rubbing on the front wheel) and a rear tail light for extra safety. It even came with a bell. Here are a few pictures:

Headlight, bell, odometer, reflective tape.

Rat trap, bungee cord, tail light, saddlebag, reflective tape.

Here is a photo Tammy took of me with my new bicycle:

Black Beauty II (The bike, not me).

After Tammy said, "It looks like your old bike," I found this picture, taken exactly 35 years ago in June of 1978 with the bicycle I built from scratch in 1977:

The Original Black Beauty.  Complete with reflector tape and rat trap.

You can't make this stuff up.  The only thing that has changed in all this time?  The size of my bank account and bicycle technology. Which brings me to the point of this blog.  People don't change.  Only resources and technology change.  Who do you think is buying all those Chargers, Challengers, Corvettes, and Camaros?  Sixty-five year old men trying to relive their youth that's who.  When is the last time you saw someone under the age of forty riding a Harley?  The biker bar full of Hell's Angels drinking shots of Old Grand Dad has been replaced by a bar full of old granddads drinking Blue Angels.  (That doesn't really prove my point but it seems like a great line).

Sure, some forty year old will wake up one day and decide to do a thru hike of the Appalachian Trail even though they never backpacked or even camped before.  But I'll bet you a hundred dollars that they are the type of person who was always intense in whatever activity they were engaged.  They probably spent a year at an ashram in India staring at their belly button.  I hope they never find whatever it is they are looking for, by the way, because for them, the pursuit is the product.

Lucky for me, I have always been fond of bicycles, backpacks, and bonhomie.  OK.  So one thing has changed.