greenspark

Oops you have shifted the debate from bicycles to cars... dangerous ground. Recently, when my wife was in Europe for a month, I was driving our Toyota Ractis, purchased a year ago, and realised I could not stand it. Tinny with a CV transmission that was continually changing rpm. So I went on the hunt and found a Mercedes B180, also with CV but a world of difference. Quiet, smooth, almost as economical, sporty, huge hauling room for a small footprint and no door sill. The finish is pleasant and it cost me NZ$2,000 difference once I flogged off the Ractis which was four years older, but about the same miles. I bought my first Benz 33 years ago, a 1986 e-class, the last "real" Benz, and frankly find this B180 to be a better ride. I also own a SLK and a 82 G-wagon and find each to be a brilliant design fit for purpose. Haul 2 tons of marble in the back, take the G (rated for 850kg). Beautiful day, drop the steel top on the SLK. Go shopping, the B180 does the job. Go racing? Well, the 1969 boattail Alfa Spider needs to be put back together, which I hope to do before they ban internal combustion engines.

Now back to bicycles. When your only tool is a hammer, everything gets hammered. It generally is better to understand the job at hand and then seek out a tool maker who makes the right tool.

I discovered a three-person factory near Milan that makes bicycle frames using lightweight (as well as conventional) bike tubing. They have been doing so for over 50 years. I commissioned a one-off with no badge and no decals since they are a factory not a brand. I had hoped to set up a direct mail order for them, but global shipping costs more than the bike. Nice idea, but it's time has not yet come. When Amazon offers cheap shipping in Italy, then it will be a nice solution-provider for those who know what they want, and will ensure small businesses in Italy survive the onslaught of Chinese mass production.

Bikes are made for intended purpose, at least in Europe. City bikes absorb shock, ride upright so you can see and be seen (social not safety). Try to load too much on the back of an Italian city bike and the frame waggle is downright dangerous. Road racing bikes are face down, so even if you ride from Paris to Milan, mostly what you will see is pavement. Courier and long-haul bikes are stiff and heavier, and now are transitioning to ebikes, as are city bikes that are allowing older riders to not give up their utility in hilly or windy regions.

Then you have America. Americans can be divided into people who have no clue about bike intent and buy whatever the store sells them, and ultra-aficionados who become precious about bikes. For the former, it usually ends up being a spontaneous buy that soon is left in the garage gathering dust. For the latter, it becomes a sacred object, admired, discussed at parties and taken out in full regalia to impress others in the tribe and snear at mere mortals in their stinking cars trying to pass three-abreast riders asserting their road rights. More recently, the road warriors have been joined by the MTB clan. These emerged from the youth market where boys who grew muscles but never grew up found their kids bike needed more strength to crash down California mountains and not break. Soon the trend-setters found their bikes copied by Chinese firms with stickers warning the MTB should not be used offroad. Enter the clueless shopper who previously was seated on a road racer now being sold a "hybrid" MTB which means it looks like one, but, like too many SUVs will never be used off road... or for that matter used much at all, since it's not that much fun except when used to crash down mountains.

Next, one has the collector. When new bikes become old, some end up in garage sales where one in a hundred turns out to have been a brilliantly engineered tool selling for the same $10 Kmart bike next to it. Snapped up, lovingly restored and reported on bikeforums.net, it becomes an object of tribal identity, with a mix of love of excellence (a good trait) and measurement of the size of ones appendage (a bit primitive).

Finally, one has the businessman (yes very few are female). The businessman recognises that brands can have value, so he buys a premium brand that fell on hard times, and slaps it on a made-in-China bike where cost cutting was paramount. Collectors moan, clueless buy and we repeat the same cycle, pardon the pun.

Me? I have three Bella Ciao bikes whose frames are made in that Italian factory, as well as one frame made for me by them but without the Bella Ciao label for a lot less money. All of them have ebike kit motors attached, since we have killer hills and I am interested in transport, not purity with pain. I have a Velorbis with ebike kit when I plan to bring back a bag of cement on the ferry. I also have two cheap $45 garage sale aluminium frame bikes with ebike kits on them for our HelpX workers. My other experiments in retrofitting, like a 1951 Raleigh DL-1 have been retired as too much trouble and my 1972 Peugeot PX10 remains hanging from the ceiling, with perhaps 10 miles on it since I bought it new - a testimony to the clueless being sold a bike that was not fit for purpose. Oh, and I sold my Gary Fisher MTB that I bought in 1996 in 2013, again with about ten miles on it. I am a slow learner.