Originally Posted by deadprez012

New lessons in the last week:

1) Proper form trumps lightweight fancy equipment, price tags, and stretchy gear in all but sanctioned competition. Met a guy with an ego out on open road and outrode his sexy Jamis bike. I'm no judge of great equipment, but I know that my $160 bike beat out his $700+ bike. Proof that a touch of athleticism and dedication means way more than great tech!

2) Crap components are crap components are crap components...but the benefit is that everything from here counts as an improvement!

3) A guy with a crap bike wrenching on it with focus and a touch of mechanical skill is worth his weight in Ti against a guy with an awesome bike asking what to do when he gets a flat. Observed that at the shop today. Was tuning my derailers specifically for my riding style, filling a cheap inner tube with Slime (R), and fine-tuning my brakes on the Denali while a real cool, overpaid (or way spoiled) 20-something comes in with his Trek-something, snags the first guy in a shop apron he sees, and says, "I just bought a new tube last night and it popped today. Can you fix it?"

To which the shop guy responds, "I'm not the mechanic, but a few different things could have happened. It could have been..."

5 minutes later, the shop guy asks, "Did you check that you were buying the right size tube? This one is about 3 inches too much tube." And the owner responds, "They come in sizes?"

Meanwhile, I'm finishing up my job, wiping my hands clean, and rolling away to another great ride.

4) Very few people actually know anything about their bike. Which is fine in lots of cases...but if you drop over half a grand on a machine, and are a kid in college, surely you owe it to your parents to at least have researched what you spent those pretty pennies on? Like the guy who hesitated to confirm that his Sonoma was wearing a carbon front fork & shot a blank on what the machine weighed.

5) Being able to tell people the real good & bad about a cheap road bike has inspired 3 bike purchases this week--some cheap, one not-so-cheap. All newcomers to the bike scene equipped with a little bit of objective information for once. Perhaps one of them will still be going strong in a year.

Check & out,

Dunte