A cyclist make
“A bicycle does not a cyclist make,” my mother would say, almost certainly.
She’d be right – no bicycle in the world has a chance of transforming me into a Tour de France stage winner – but it’s not all right. While Möbius Trip may not make me a cyclist, it does make me a happier cyclist and a marginally better cyclist or at the very least a less uncomfortable cyclist.
Now, with more than 1,600 miles under the wheels of the bicycle, I can say with authority: This bike is so money. It fits. Its line remains true through turns and bumps. On a descent it runs easy and honest, swift and sincere, coursing as if above the pavement yet intimately connected to the surface. Its powertrain is a wonder of ease and solidity. It is not the two dozen gears – that is to say, not the number of combinations-- but rather the range of gearing available.
Mobius ranges from a mechanical gain of 9.2 to 2.1. In the hardest gear, every foot the pedal travels, the bike travels 9.2 feet. In the easiest gear, it’s 2.1 feet for each foot the pedals advance. The range is significantly wider than my other bicycles along with those 24 distinct combos. That means not only more choices, but more discreet options. It’s almost like a continuous transmission. On the road under different circumstances in grade, surface, wind, and strength I can find just the right gear for the perfect cadence and gain ratio. Speed is a function of cadence and ratio and the ideal, for me, is to find the highest gear where I can maintain 82 rpm or so on the pedals. This bike and its gearing make it easier and more likely I am in the sweet spot. Add in advances to the Campy ergo shifters that make changing cogs on the rear and rings on the front equally easy and reliable, even when the chain is under severe stress while I stand to crank up hills.
Tote up all this and the sum is a nearly seamless marriage of rider and bike. I struggle and labor mightily, but in harmony. Nothing about the bike gets between me and forward progress. The bicycle’s perfection of the form sings in a whisper as it delivers.
An incomparable bike can make me the best cyclist I can be. It delivers me to the foot of my cycling wishes and allows me to pedal to the summit, if I can. It makes me happy.
No, a bicycle does not a cyclist make, as my mother said.
My mom used that construction often, but I remember two instances in particular. Once when she bought me red Converse All-Stars and a second time when she bought me a Wilson Jack Kramer wooden tennis racket. In both instances I was keen on trying out for school sports teams and I failed to make it past even the most preliminary rounds before being summarily cut. Her point was solid: Don’t think this expenditure of money for fancy equipment can substitute for talent and effort. If I practiced enough and had enough talent, I could have made the Pershing basketball team in dress shoes. If I worked hard enough, I could have made the Glendale tennis team with a badminton racket.
However! That version leaves off all the great fun I had playing basketball and tennis with friends on driveways and backyard courts even if I wasn’t really very good. I did find comparably talented friends to make for competitive play, and those shoes and that racket made me marginally better than I would have been otherwise, even if I did not possess any of the qualities required to leverage the benefits of superior equipment into superior performance.
Just so with my newest bicycle, Mobius Trip. Already it has brought me joy aplenty.
A bicycle does a happy man make.