RobbieTunes

Often, before I put both feet in my mouth, I have to get my head out where they can get to it....so I go back to the OP startup...

"It IS about the bike..."

It is, and if I couldn't ride it, it wouldn't be a topic near my widest radar range.
I simply have no use for a bike I couldn't ride.
I assume the ride.

Now, as Keith says, it's a joy when the bike disappears beneath you, and it comes down to motion, and effort, and flicking gears. That could be where it ends for lots of cyclists, because that's all they want. I like that, too, but I like to take it a few steps backwards...

Before there were the uber-modern, uber-light, and absolutely great bikes that propel you like no man or woman before, there were bike bikes. These bikes were also the best of their era, and there was a point with those bikes, when properly tuned, they had their relative moments.

They also disappeared beneath the rider, and allowed motion, effort, and the blurry joy of a fast ride to occur.
They looked just as good sitting still, and if you looked hard enough, you not only saw the bike, you saw the men who made them.

You can tell, just by looking at them, that the performance curve was finite, given the materials and components. You can tell, just by looking at them, that these men coaxed, cajoled, and caressed them to get to the farthest end of that curve. In doing so, these men went beyond the utility, to craft, and, some say, to art.

There was only so much they could do, and they went for it. Unabashed.

Now, I appreciate a fine friction machine, the mental searching, using your ear and the tips of your fingers to find the sweet spot, where noise ends. Then, other noises can take over, the whir of spokes, the sound of fabric on a leather saddle, the soft slipping noise as you modulate that caliper. During that quiet, orderly hum, you have to look ahead, and anticipate, and actually think! man! about what you're doing.

You search for smooth. You have to manage the bike, manage the terrain, and you have to know yourself, understand the climb, and when to change the bike to yourself.

Some, older bikes I assume, are a more complex management of body, terrain, and machine. Different parts of that machine have to be managed, ridden, moved. You have to know what you can do. You have to know what it can do. You have to know what you can do with it.

After that, to indexed, you lose that tense, searching, precise moment of harmony with cog and chain. You anticipate, you shift, it happens. You go back to being a pedaling human. You still have to know the bike, but not as well, because some of the error has drifted away with the detents in the shifter ring. You can now focus more of yourself on power, anticipation, on getting a little more out of it, maybe of yourself. You sure hope so.

With Ergos and STI's, you focus less on managing what you want to do. A dancing chain is no longer a skill, but a flicking of paddles, a thumb on a stick. You can anticipate less, because to err is to simply correct and get on with it. If it's a modern bike, the other things are there, reliable and steady, and you're in workout mode, managing the bike far less, because a lot of it is managing itself. Part of your brain can take a break.

It's about the bike, for me, because I take the ride as my measure. I want the most out of the frame as possible. I want to prove I can do the same things with this "old" bike as those other guys are doing with wheels that cost more than 2 of my bikes. I don't want to have to ride a modern bike to keep up. I want to be just as good on steel. I put the modern stuff on the frames, and I tell the frame, like the quarter horse out back, "show me what you can do, I promise I'll hang on."

I also like the older bikes, the friction groups, the index DT shifters, where I actually have to have some skill besides turning those pedals. It's a much steeper learning curve than what you encounter when you buy a Kestrel RT1000 off the rack and have a go at it. It's probably not as fun for beginners, but boy, does it make you a better rider when and if you do ride a modern bike. If you employ the thinking, anticipation, and tactics from fast friction riding to a modern STI bike, you're going to be better, and faster. When I ride friction or DT shifting, I like to be alone, so I don't have to think about other riders, just being good on the bike.

Knowing all that leaves me awestruck at the guys who ran as fast 25 years ago as they do today. To ride in a 25mph peloton with friction would put me in cardiac arrest.

Now, the bikes. I like shiny things. I like things that look like they were made by hands, not robots. They make me feel that I can bring performance out of them, that they didn't start out already beyond my ability. Which leads to my wrenching mojo: make it live, make it perform, make it show off, make that frame smile, blush, and swagger. Do the Chariots of Fire thing with your bike, feel the intention. Touch the monolith and toss the chain whip in the air.

Drink the wine and not the electrolyte.
Hell, man, live a little.

I've probably said it better but not without drinking a bit....