Specialized Aethos - The Full Scoop

Introduction

Why are you even here? Are you actually in the market for a $7,000 racing bike? Or do you just love bikes and/or albertnet? Wait, don’t leave, I’m gonna tell you exactly why you’re here, or at least why you should stay.

Most bike magazine reviews are, let’s face it, kind of pointless. They’re based on the fleeting impression a journalist (i.e., potentially a non-racer) gets about a bike, filtered through the lens of not offending anybody, particularly a potential advertiser. (See here for the most blatant example of the pay-for-praise faux-journalism model.) The last negative bike review I can remember in “Bicycling” was of the Motobecane Prolight all the way back in 1982, when the reviewer unsparingly and laughingly decried how flex-y it was, only to recant everything an issue or two later, obviously having caught some heat. So much for that. (Full disclosure: I haven’t leafed through a bike magazine in many years so for all I know they’ve completely changed and are now fiercely honest … but somehow I doubt it.)

Of course you might actually be considering buying a Specialized Aethos and have been combing the Internet for reviews etc. like I did. That’s great, and there were some fairly helpful ones, but what I’d wanted to know is what it’s like riding this bike for months, over all kinds of terrain, and the way it was meant to be ridden—that is, jolly hard. I wanted feedback from someone with decades of experience, a real/former racer who could actually put the bike through its paces vs. some columnist I know nothing about. Well, I provide that perspective here, having put over 1,300 miles on my Aethos over flat roads, short but brutally steep climbs, long climbs, dirt roads, and full sprints. And if you’re interested in road bike technology and in industry trends in general, this post gives some color on that, comparing the Aethos to my high-end 2013-era carbon bike with its mechanical shifting and caliper brakes. I’ll weigh in on whether Di2, disc brakes, through-axles, and tubeless tires live up to their promise.

You’ll also get a handy way to compare frame geometry; a comparison of SRAM E-tap vs. Shimano Di2; an analysis of the important differences between the 2025 Aethos and the 2026 Aethos 2; and a primer on how and why to name your bike. If all goes well you might even get a chuckle or two.

Why the Aethos?

I’ve always liked Specialized bikes. My wife and I crossed the country on them in 1994, she on the Rockhopper Comp I sold her the day we first met, me on my Stumpjumper Comp. (We still have them.) Plus, Specialized supports the NICA high school mountain bike racing program for which I’m an assistant coach. On top of that, one of my most esteemed cycling pals, Craig, rides the Aethos and watching him drop me on it, repeatedly, has made an impression (though in fairness he also dropped me on his Canyon, which he threw over for the Aethos). Finally, the bike looked good on paper, which can mean a lot.

When I shop for a road bike, the main thing I look at is frame geometry. I have to believe that any modern carbon fiber frame is going to be light, stiff, etc. and in my experience the main thing that will differ from one make and model to another, and significantly affect the ride, is the design of the frame: seat tube angle, head tube angle, top tube length, and wheelbase. This is, after all, what differentiates a touring bike from a racing bike. As  explained here, I once bought a frame online without knowing the head tube angle, and discovered on that bike’s maiden voyage that it was too slack, a major letdown. Following that misadventure I rode nothing but custom made frames for the next decade. That was in the days of aluminum; I have yet to encounter a company that will build a carbon frame custom. So you have to choose carefully among stock frame geometries.

Since this might be getting a bit dull, I’m going to proceed with this review in the time-honored tradition of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Cue the Ennio Morricone score of this iconic western (and if you want to quibble about my use of the Oxford comma just now, click here and/or email me).

The Good

If I hadn’t committed myself to this good/bad/ugly structure I’d use a stronger word, like amazing. As you can see here, I’ve had a lot of high end racing bikes, and I’m here to tell you the Aethos is the best I’ve ever ridden. It’s the lightest, at 15.8 pounds (in size XL no less); is just as stiff as its last five predecessors (i.e., I can’t flex it); is the most comfortable in how it soaks up the bumps; and feels the most surefooted on descents. The ride is so plush, it’s as though the asphalt were carpeted. And when I stand on the pedals, the bike just leaps to life, like it’s snapping to attention—“Yes, sir!” I’ve never experienced a bike that’s so lively, and I guess it’s down to overall low weight and the crazy light carbon rims. And the geometry chart of the Aethos doesn’t lie: as expected, the handling of this bike is superb. For the last ten years I was on a Giant TCR Advanced, with a 73° head tube angle, and until I rode the Aethos I didn’t even realize how much I missed the 74° that I had on my custom bikes. (Note that all my geometry figures herein are based on my size of frame. Smaller frames will have differences, but the design characteristics are typically consistent across sizes.)

Here’s the thing about a steeper head tube angle: it does make a bike a bit twitchier, but in the best possible way. A bike with a 74° head tube angle will dive happily into a curve, vs. bike with a 73° that kind has to be coaxed. It’s like the difference between Tigger and Eeyore. Yes, more skill and attention is demanded of the rider, but it’s well worth it. I so prefer the steeper head tube, I really can’t understand why any company producing a racing bike would ever choose 73°. But then, companies produce all types of retarded shit, like social media, aerosol whipped cream, microwave popcorn, and soft drinks. It’s a weird world.

My custom bikes had a 72° seat tube angle which I always thought was crucial. The Aethos has a 73°. I find that a) I don’t miss the shallower seat angle as much as I’d expected, and b) this geometry discussion has gone on long enough.

Of course not all of the enjoyment I get out of this bike comes from the featherweight frame and the great geometry. The wheels are also super light, and though they’re probably not as aerodynamic as the Dura-Ace ones I raved about in these pages, they have wider rims, which—coupled with the wider tires and tubeless-ness—give a much nicer ride and presumably lower rolling resistance. Nothing about this bike feels slower on the flats that my Giant, which had aero head  and seat tubes and an aero seatpost in addition to those punishing wheels. Yes, the Specialized Tarmac and other bikes are more aerodynamic than the Aethos, and if you like to haul ass on the flats, of course you should factor that in.

My old bike had Dura-Ace 9-speed with a worn-out right shifter that barely worked. So obviously upgrading to 12-speed Di2 electronic (albeit only Ultegra) wasn’t going to cause any complaint. Not surprisingly, the shifting is excellent. At first I was a bit bothered by the whirring sound of the front derailleur, but actually it does something really clever: it moves just enough to shift the chain, and then a fraction of a second after the shift is complete, it moves again, just a tad, to give the chain more clearance so it’ll never rub. This gets around a compromise traditional derailleurs have always had to make. And I don’t think SRAM does this—I’ve rented three or four top-end bikes with eTAP over the last eight years, and all of them threw the chain at least once (details here). For road bikes, Shimano is better and if you don’t agree you can come fight me. Now: would I say everyone should be on electronic? My answer is still no. Modern cable-pull shifting, when your equipment isn’t twenty years old and totally worn out, is great.

I’d never run tubeless before (on the road) but now was the time. As detailed here, I see no legitimate reason not to adopt this technology. Oddly, the mechanic who built the bike for me recommended tubes, saying unless you’re going with super fat tires at really low pressure, you run the risk of spewing sealant everywhere when you puncture, especially when the tires are worn. Well, these S-Works tires (which ride great, by the way) are now completely worn out and I never had a problem, other than with a twisted valve as detailed here (and now I’ve got that sorted). Installation was easy. The ride is lovely, reminding me of the plush feel of tubulars (aka sew-ups) back in the day. The slightly wider (28C) tubeless tires are surely part of why this bike is so comfortable.

Do through-axles make a difference? Well, it’s hard to say, because nobody just goes from old-school quick-release hubs to through-axles without changing pretty much everything else. This technology means carrying an Allen key, but that’s no biggie. (I almost said “Allen wrench” but that sounds too heavy.) But I will say, this through-axle setup must exist for a reason (better stiffness and better disk brake alignment, I suppose) and like I said before, this bike descends beautifully and maybe this is part of the equation.

Speaking of disc brakes, are they a game-changer? Well, I certain can’t complain. The rotors tend to stay cleaner than rims which is mainly a benefit on mountain bikes but does simplify maintenance on this bike, too. Hydraulic brakes are a bit more powerful than the Dura-Ace caliper brakes on my old bike, and if I ever get caught riding in the rain I’ll really appreciate them. I also don’t miss the hiss of my old brakes (particularly when the rims were grimy) but then, I dread the day my hydraulic brakes start moaning for no reason.

It’s a real treat to buy a bike and not feel like you have to replace anything. My Aethos is completely stock, down to the bar tape and the saddle, and even those are great. The saddle is super light carbon fiber and—once I got used to it, which took just a ride or two—is totally comfortable. For a while it started creaking, especially on really steep climbs, but before I got around to troubleshooting the problem, it went away.

The Bad

Okay, I lied about not having to replace anything. The stem this bike came with, though perfectly fine (I mean, it’s a piece of metal…), was too short. I’ve never seen an XL bike before that came equipped with an 11 cm stem. For this much money, the company ought to let you swap it out for free, but this is not the case. Weirder still, I couldn’t find a Specialized stem in matte black to match the bars and the overall matte finish of the bike, and I looked everywhere. I finally had to source a Ritchey stem, for like $130. That kind of stung after all the money I’d already shelled out. And imagine if I’d gone with the Tarmac SL8 Pro, with its integrated cockpit … that’d be over $500 and a royal pain in the ass to change out.

Another minor issue is that I have to remember to charge the battery on this bike. I first realized this about half an hour into a five-hour ride with my pals, after I’d had the bike about a month. (Fortunately the battery did hold out.) Charging my bike is just another ongoing task to keep track of, and there’s so much tech in my life already. I know I could get the Di2 app for my smartphone and thus have an easy way to check the battery, and even to adjust the shifting (I think someone said), but reviews of the app are generally fairly weak, and a few of the 1-star reviews complained that a firmware update that went wrong bricked the entire bike, requiring a trip to the shop to get sorted out. Life is too short to delve into such things, at least for now. With my old bike, I never need an app or a charger, and I can fine-tune the indexing while riding.

I guess the only other thing I could complain about is how expensive this bike was (and of course that’s not a complaint about the Aethos per se, it’s the entire industry). Which reminds me: if you’re thinking of breaking into my house to steal this bike, think again! Since I work from home, the only time I’m not here is when I’m out riding, so the bike will be gone too, duh! Plus, as far as you know I have a pit bull whom I’ve trained to rip the zipper out of a pair of jeans, and/or a resident weird uncle who is a gun nut and fantasizes constantly about defending my home and property.

The Ugly

You can decide for yourself based on the photos above whether anything is ugly about this bike. Myself, I think it’s cool looking. I like the color, and the lines, and the very subtle branding. On the downside, I don’t care for the spacers I’ve kept, for now, in the steerer tube stack, two of them above the stem. At some point I’ll probably cut down the steerer, if I decide I’m confident enough in my ageing back to commit to the current stem height. But that’s a minor point. You know what is ugly, though? The modern aero stems like what come on the Tarmac and on the Aethos 2 Pro. Look at these.

It’s like they’re embarrassed about being mechanical. (I’m reminded of the little knit covers, sometimes with a pompon on top, that some people put over their spare roll of toilet paper, as if ashamed of it.) All that plastic … it’s like the modern car industry, so much window dressing. And consider that in the catalog photos the steerer is cut all the way down … with the stem up a bit, you have to use weird non-cylindrical washers, and the assembly starts to look more and more janky, especially if there are spacers above the plastic cowling as well. Look, a bicycle is a tool, and it’s mechanical, and it’s okay—even desirable—to show that. Stop trying to make everything into a Rivian or an iPhone! Meanwhile, I’m not bothered at all by the looks and supposed wind drag of the exposed hydraulic lines. (Aesthetics aside, bleeding disc brakes is enough of a hassle without internal routing.)

I also don’t like the small rear triangles of so many modern road bikes, including the Tarmac. They look kind of stunted to me. This setup is supposedly stiffer and maybe even more aero than the traditional setup, but I don’t need extra stiffness, and this bike is aero enough, and even Specialized concedes that the Aethos has a more comfortable ride than the Tarmac, which I’m guessing is due to the larger rear triangle. But mainly I just like the look of these stays.

One of my original complaints with electronic shifting is that it makes the derailleurs large and more bulbous. They’ve gotten a lot better, but I still don’t love the look of them.

But then, who looks closely at this stuff anymore? As a teenager I scrutinized every part at length, but now my eyes aren’t even that good and I can’t be bothered to squint. It’s all a blur, it’s all good.

Naming the bike

A bike should mean more to its owner than, say, a microwave oven or dresser does. Because of the way a great bike disappears beneath you, it kind of feels like an extension of yourself. Suffering for hours at a time on your bike kind of bonds you to it as well, like you’re sharing this bold adventure; I wonder if this is how cowboys think of their horses. Thus I name my bikes, as should everyone. My Giant is called Sirius Black (named when my kids were still reading Harry Potter); my 3-speed is the Arseless (short for Arseless Horse, which name I stole from the writer Roddy Doyle); my mountain bike is NOS (for “new old stock” because it had been forgotten in a warehouse for a couple years before I bought it, and as a nod to the rapper Nas).

I thought of my Aethos’s name when I was showing it to my younger daughter. She asked what I liked best about it and I described how the steering is quicker than on other bikes. She asked why all bikes aren’t made like this and I said it’s a bit trickier to handle, like Porco Rosso’s seaplane. And suddenly it dawned on me how good a name Porco Rosso is for this bike. I mean, it’s red; it’s kind of the color of rare pork; it has that quick handling like the plane; and we all love Studio Ghibli. Both my kids agreed with me immediately: not only could I name this bike Porco Rosso, but I had to. Done.

The Aethos 2

It’s probably in adherence to a corollary of Murphy’s Law that as soon as I decided to review this bike, a new version came out threatening to render everything you’ve just read obsolete. But actually, hold on: there are important differences between mine and the new version, and if I were buying a bike today I’d still go with the original Aethos. With new model, they basically wrecked the geometry. Click here for a really cool website that makes it easy to compare geometries, and shows how the Aethos 2 differs. It’s got a shorter top tube, a shallower head tube (!), a steeper seat tube (!!), and a longer wheelbase. It’s basically a touring bike, designed for people who want to sit up straight and tall like the wicked witchy neighbor woman in The Wizard of Oz. The good news is, even if you’re reading this review too late to snap up an original Aethos, the Tarmac geometry hasn’t changed (i.e., it’s still effectively the same as my Aethos). You’ll just have to settle for a very slightly heavier bike that is harder to service and isn’t so pretty (though it’s more aerodynamic).

Are there other changes in the Aethos 2? Yes, it will take 35 mm tires if you really want to gild the lily (i.e., if you’re basically looking for a 15-pound beach cruiser). And as the Specialized website proudly proclaims, “no gram was safe from our scalpel”—they shaved 9 grams with the new seatpost, 6 grams with the new bottom bracket shell, 2 grams with the new brake mounts, and 2 more with the new derailleur hanger. Seriously, guys? Grams? These are trivial savings. Why not just wipe off some of the road grime, or blow your nose before your ride?

Conclusion

If your road bike is more than a few years old, and you like to climb a lot, and you’re a seasoned rider who isn’t afraid of a fast-handling bike, what are you waiting for? DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT.

Postscript

In case you were wondering, Specialized did not compensate me in any way for this positive review, and I would be required to disclose this if they had. I truly am just an honest, happy customer.

Related reading

• From the Archives - The CarbonTech Debate
• Test Ride - Specialized Turbo Levo SL 2 Carbon E-Bike
• What’s Wrong With Shimano?
• Letter to a Middle-Aged Cyclist - Buy New Wheels NOW!
• Bomb Pop - A Bicycle Retrospective
• A Cheap Bastard’s Guide to Inflating Tubeless Tires
• Colorado Mountain Road Test - SRAM eTap Electronic Shifting
• Disc Brakes for Road Bikes?
• Carbon vs. Steel & the Bike Geek Divide

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Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

What’s Wrong With Shimano?

Introduction

Some weeks ago, a cycling pal emailed around this article concerning the new Shimano 105 electronic (aka Di2) groupset. I suppose the new 105 release was just a hook, to make the article timely. Most of what the writer focused on was Shimano’s decision to discontinue non-electronic shifting. Surely the point of my teammate’s group email was to kick off a spirited discussion.

Ten years ago, the discussion might have been a lot more lively and long-lived; this group is not shy about expressing themselves, as you can see here. But this time around, though the responses were as insightful and funny as ever, there were only nine of them. I sense we’re gradually tiring of such worldly matters. That said, after some reflection I decided to take the bait—hence this post.

Don’t worry, my thesis isn’t actually as pedestrian as “what’s wrong with Shimano?” but something closer to “is there anything funny, as in ha-ha-funny, about the society that has produced this nonsense from Shimano?” If you don’t get a chuckle out of this post, please be sure to leave a nasty comment below it that will spark an endless, mean-spirited debate sure to propel me from an unseen, unheralded blogger to a global Internet celebrity with my own line of spaghetti sauces and fake Oreos.

In a nutshell

The thoughtful and well-written article, in a column called “Jim’s Tech Talk,” gives four reasons why “it’s a mistake for Shimano to only offer electric shifting road groups.” Jim’s reasons are as follows:

1. Higher prices
2. [Planned] obsolescence
3. Electric derailleurs wear out
4. Greater chance of user error

I won’t go into each reason because a) you can read the article yourself—it’s not that long, and b) everything he said seems reasonable and doesn’t warrant a critique. But he missed a couple points, which to me are the most important ones. Those I’ll cover.

Shifting is already easy

First and foremost, modern mechanical shifting is fricking awesome on any halfway legit road bike (and I’ll define “halfway legit” as “Shimano 105 mechanical or equivalent on up, from about 1996 onward”). Electronic shifting is a solution looking for a problem. It’s erroneous to suggest that the ostensibly improved performance justifies the expense (to the extent that we shouldn’t even be given the opportunity to save money on traditional cable-pull gear).

This Shimano 105 Di2 video enumerates the supposed benefits. We’re told Di2 “makes shifting much easier” with “more consistent performance.” Bullshit. Ever since the introduction of Hyperglide cassette cogs and chains, modern chainrings, and indexed shifters, gear shifting has been consistently easy. (Before that, shifting was more difficult but I didn’t care, just like I don’t mind making drip coffee instead of insisting on the brainless ease of a Keurig.) The Shimano 105 promo video says there are “no cables to stretch over time,” but so what? Adjusting cable tension is really easy. You just turn the little barrel adjuster on your derailleur counter-clockwise a quarter turn to see if it gets better. If so, you’re done. If not, turn it half a turn to the right. It’s simple trial and error, and if you don’t even have a bike stand, you can just do it while riding.

(Yes, there is a simpler way to do this. Put the chain on the second-smallest cog, and look at the derailleur pulleys. They should be directly below, or perhaps very slightly to the left, of the cog. A thousand YouTube videos are just waiting to teach you this. Just like there are a thousand videos to teach you how to adjust your electronic shifting.]

But wait, there’s more!

To be fair, the Shimano 105 video’s initial claims are kind of hard to evaluate as they’re pretty subjective. But what really annoys me is that the video goes on to state something that’s plainly untrue, in the most patronizing and degrading language possible:

“Unlike mechanical shifting you can shift under load. Now, that’s a fancy way of saying you can keep pedaling while changing gears. So you can keep going, even on that steep hill.”

I shift under full load all the time. I’m riding Shimano Dura-Ace 9-speed levers that I bought used, over ten years ago, for $100. They’re beat to hell at this point, but still work perfectly. I routinely shift from a smaller cog into a larger one (i.e., the harder type of shift) under full load, while riding out of the saddle, on serious grades like Lomas Cantadas. I’m similarly aggressive with front shifts. I shift under load for fun. I do it because I can. I’m delighted how well it works because I couldn’t do this before about 1997.

And what’s this shit about “shifting under load” being “a fancy way of saying you can keep pedaling while changing gears”? Does the presumed viewer of this video, who’s supposed to drop close to two grand for a 105 Di2 groupset, or spend more than three grand for a 105-Di2-equipped bike, not know what “shift under load” means? And actually, except with internal-geared hubs, don’t cyclists have to keep pedaling while changing gears? And this bit about “you can keep going, even on a steep hill”—what the hell are they even saying? That with mechanical shifting you can’t keep going? You try to shift, it doesn’t work, so you just turn around and find a flatter route home? Or call an Uber?

The video concludes, “The 105 Di2 energizes you. Now there is nothing holding you back.” I got news for you, Shimano: even if mechanical shifting were inferior, poor shifting almost never holds anyone back. When I’m held back, it’s sometimes age that does it, but more often it’s time, because I’m too busy working (so I can afford my disconcertingly expensive lifestyle). And I’m one of the lucky ones. You know what holds a lot of people back? How damned expensive bikes have become. They’re a luxury item now, pretty much by design: companies like Shimano are obviously happy to cater only to the high end customer, and the more ignorant the better.

I wish this were a live demo instead of a video so I could say to the guy, “Wait, hold on. You lost me with that ‘shift under load’ thing. Despite my vast bicycle budget I’m a complete novice.” And then when the Shimano guy happily explained what that “fancy” language means, I could say, “But shifting while pedaling … does that help? Does a bicycle need to be pedaled at all times?” No, he would explain patiently, but pedaling is always necessary when you’re pointed uphill. He’d be all too happy to dumb it down for me because I would seem like the perfect customer: I’m just absolutely shitting money but I’ll never wear anything out or demand a warranty. I’ll just upgrade my fleet in a couple of years despite everything being in mint condition, so I’ll always have the latest and greatest technology, just like with my smartphone.

(Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against technical innovation and in fact really dig it—when it produces a tangible benefit. I have waxed rhapsodic about Dura-Ace aero wheels, here. And I actually dig Shimano components—I’ve equipped my road and mountain bikes with them for decades. And lest you think I’ve never even tried electronic shifting, I have: click here for a full report.)

Then and now

When I started racing, there was no planned obsolescence in bicycle components. My first Campagnolo derailleur, a Nuovo Record, which I bought used (of course), was from 1974. I knew because the year was embossed right on it. The shifting performance was only okay, which was fine, because the derailleur was light, cool looking, and above all durable (e.g., unfazed by crashes). Back then you could open up a Bike Warehouse catalog to the Campy small parts section and order any replacement bit you could want for the component you needed to repair. (This was the mail-order outfit that changed its name to Bike Nashbar because too many people, particularly teenagers, affectionately called it “Bike Whorehouse,” or at least that’s what I’ve always assumed.)

Back then, an aspiring racer could afford the sport since there was lots of used gear out there, because it didn’t wear out. And components weren’t that expensive to begin with. In high school, I could afford great stuff on a paperboy’s salary: in 1985 I bought a brand new full Dura-Ace groupset via mail-order for $400. According to a quick Google search, that’s around $1,000 in today’s dollars, adjusted for inflation. A Dura-Ace Di2 groupset today, meanwhile, costs $4,600 online (and this no longer even includes hubs). That huge price tag isn’t the end of the world, of course, because nobody needs Dura-Ace, but remember: the new entry-level Shimano 105 is now almost two grand … almost twice the inflation-adjusted cost of early Dura-Ace. Yes, of course 105 Di2 shifts better than my 1985 Dura-Ace, but so what? What good does all that technology do for someone who can’t afford to buy it? What middle-class teenager today has an extra two or three grand available for entry level equipment?

Also back then, teenagers racing their bikes on a paperboy’s salary had to learn how to maintain their own bikes. This was doable because the components just weren’t that complicated. It was a great learning opportunity which for many of us led to gainful employment during high school and/or college. Now, with the more advanced designs, it’s a lot harder.

The yuppie problem

Despite many years working in bike shops, I was initially apprehensive about bleeding the hydraulic brakes on my mountain bike. That repair seemed complicated to me in the sense that I actually don’t have much understanding about how these brakes even work. After putting off my hypothetical DIY “learning project” for many weeks, I finally just took my bike to a local shop to have them do it. I was a bit disappointed in myself, sure, but also figured heck, I have money, why not support a local business? But then the mechanic breezily said it’d be $60 per brake caliper, and he could have it done in two weeks. WTF?! $120 for a routine bit of maintenance? That doesn’t sound like a reasonable labor rate designed to give a bike mechanic a living wage. That sounds like kind of a luxury tax based on the supposition that the modern bike customer is a totally helpless, ignorant yuppie with a limitless budget. (Needless to say, I balked, bought some tools and brake fluid, checked out some YouTube DIY videos, and now I do this repair myself. And I’ll even do yours for you, for $30 a caliper.)

The attitude shown by these shops may be the new normal as cycling becomes an increasingly yuppified sport. A teammate of mine, an accomplished racer well acquainted with the art of bike repair, took his bike to a local shop recently to have the bearings replaced in the headset and bottom bracket. He knows how to do the work, but didn’t have the specific tools required. He told the shop that the brand of bearings he’d selected last time didn’t end up lasting very long, and asked what other brands they carried. “Don’t worry, we always source the most appropriate bearings,” they told him. “Just drop your bike off and we’ll go over the whole thing and figure out what it needs.” In other words, “Based on our assumption that you’re totally gullible and unconcerned with how much anything costs, we’ll print our own money by doing all kinds of unnecessary ‘repairs’ that you don’t need to worry your pretty little head about.” (My friend, duly insulted, bailed and bought the tools he needed.)

I want to be clear here: I have no issue with wealthy cycling enthusiasts paying top dollar to bike shops if they don’t feel like getting their hands dirty. But what I cannot stand is the overall effect that the bias towards the high end is having on the industry, which seems to have learned to equate wealth with helplessness. It’s as though they assume money actually strips us of capability, to where we’re at their mercy.

This business model isn’t restricted to the bicycle industry, of course; modern cars are more difficult to work on as well, and increasingly expensive. As this Wall Street Journal article explains, “Detroit has jettisoned many of their lower-priced compact and subcompact cars like the Ford Fiesta and Chevy Cruze that have traditionally been starter cars for young buyers.” Modern auto makers prefer the higher profit margins of higher-end vehicles targeted at wealthier customers. Remind you of anyone?

But wait, things get worse as you go up the luxury scale. As detailed in this article, in some markets BMW is now charging customers a monthly subscription fee to enable their built-in seat warmers. The cars are all outfitted with this feature at the factory, but it’s locked out in software until you pay up. This seems inconceivably greedy and cynical to me. I totally get it that a tech company like Cisco Meraki charges a license fee for the software on their Internet/WiFi products, because they are constantly working to improve the software, making updates to protect against new security threats. But seat warmers are nothing new, are available in virtually every new car built by any company, and don’t require any updates. This subscription fee is BMW saying, “We know you have enough money to just throw it unthinkingly at any obstacle that you bump up against, so we’re cashing in on that. Because we can.”

Reading that article was painful enough … but what really threw me were the reader comments below it, some of which justified and accepted BMW’s business model. It’s as though wealth is actually making these customers stupid; that is, excess discretionary income apparently leads just shrugging and accepting absurd price-gouging behaviors. Another of my teammates, responding to the “Jim’s Tech Talk” article, wrote, “The next step will be Shifting-as-a-Service: $10/month to use your derailleurs.  Discount for single chainring.” His irony is closer to reality than he might have thought.

So when I see Shimano throwing itself into this model, where the target customer has gobs of money but doesn’t know what “shift under load” means, I feel a little embarrassed to be part of the sport. A neighbor of mine speaks fondly of his childhood in South America playing soccer in a dirt field with all his friends; their ball didn’t even hold air. I love the idea of kids playing stickball in the street in a big city, or pickup basketball on a public court (never mind if the hoop doesn’t even have a net). And then there’s cycling: wealthy and privileged patrons only, please. And the only tools you’ll need are a trash can and a credit card.

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Counterpoint - Shimano and Campy “Design Blunders”

Introduction

An alert reader sent me an article from “road.cc” magazine that isn’t very recent but is timeless: “Retro: Shimano and Campagnolo’s greatest design blunders.” I found the story interesting and entertaining, but I take issue with a few of its points. (As a blogger, this is kind of my job.)  If you’re a bike geek, read on. If not, bail out now and go back to your Sudoku, your yoga, or your Arduino, so you can feel all superior.

Campagnolo Delta brakes

Delta brakes were the “road.cc” article’s headliner. “Looked great, worked indifferently, weighed lots,” we’re told. To be honest, I’m not in love with the looks:

I never got to try these myself; even though most of my friends and I had pretty sweet bikes by 1986, we couldn’t afford top-of-the-line C-Record. Actually, at that time I had a full Dura-Ace equipped Team Miyata and a Campy Super Record equipped Mercian, so I could have swung the Delta brakes had I really wanted them. But I was growing disenchanted with Campagnolo’s sudden spasm of innovation, which brought us lots of low-end components, bizarre designs, and eventually the Syncro indexed shifter, which was about as well-made and well-received as the movie “Gigli.”

Though I’d heard Delta brakes didn’t work that well, I sure don’t remember seeing any footage of riders totally stacking because of them. Back then, cyclists (at least, my friends and I) cared mostly about brand, weight, durability, and serviceability—we could forgive less-than-perfect function. For example, it was widely acknowledged even in the early ‘80s that Dura-Ace derailleurs actually shifted better than Campy, but most people didn’t really care—they loved how durable, serviceable, and no-nonsense Campy was. Meanwhile, it was well known that Suntour Superbe Pro brakes, with their weird orange-brown pads, only worked well in dry conditions, but nobody seemed to begrudge them this.

Where I can’t agree with “road.cc” is their calling Delta brakes a design blunder. Sure, these brakes were a nightmare for mechanics, but couldn’t we say the same thing about Sturmey-Archer 3-speed internal-geared hubs, which were phenomenally popular for decades? Okay, I’ll grant that Delta brakes were possibly the first factory recall Campagnolo ever had. But to knock them for their overcomplicated design is to wrongly assume that their main job was to provide optimum braking performance to pro racers. That’s kind of backwards: it was the pro teams’ job to use and promote whatever their sponsors gave them. And while these brakes were heavy didn’t work that well, they had one thing totally going for them: they were distinctive.

I challenge anybody to deny that the Delta brakeset was the most recognizable bike component anyone ever made. You could spot them a mile away. And since pro road teams didn’t generally mix and match components, the Delta brakes signified that the whole bike was Campy-equipped. This was important for Campagnolo because after years of dominance (as of 1986, 16 of the previous 20 Tours de France had been won on Campagnolo equipment), they were suddenly being seriously challenged by totally reengineered Dura-Ace and Mavic components. Lots of budget-conscious riders had been riding Suntour components for years, but now Campagnolo was battling to maintain leadership at the high end. (Over time they have certainly lost their prominence; amazingly, only 2 of the last 20 Tours de France were won on Campy-equipped bikes.)

In the mid-’80s, for Campagnolo to show the casual observer they were still on top demanded that their gear totally stand out, and at this job the Delta brake did brilliantly. Check out this famous cycling photo:

It’s plainly obvious what components Stephen Roche was riding when he won the 1987 World Championship road race. Adding the logo on this Campagnolo ad was almost beside the point:

Who cares if highly skilled pro racers had a harder time braking? Using Delta brakes enhanced their ability to showcase their sponsor’s product line, which was their job, after all. To the extent this improved sales for Campagnolo, the revenue growth was probably in the rapidly growing lower-end groups like Victory, Triomphe, and Athena, which had traditional brakes that worked fine. In other words, the crummy design of Delta brakes probably helped the company without hurting anyone.

When Campagnolo finally retired the Delta brakes and needed something else to differentiate their C-Record brakeset from lower models, they gave it a fake blue gemstone in the center nut and called them Cobalto.

These were a big step backward aesthetically, particularly because the gemstone wasn’t a real stone—it was a cheesy-looking fake, affixed to the (flat-topped) center nut with adhesive. In other words, it was basically a sticker, and these stickers tended to fall off. I remember ribbing a friend about all the Cracker Jack he was going to have to buy to find another set of Cobalto “stones.”

Actual braking be damned … the Delta brakes at least did one thing well.

Shimano Dyna-Drive pedals

I also cannot agree with “road.cc” that Dyna-Drive pedals were a blunder. I loved these pedals and used them until 1992 (i.e., 8 years after they were discontinued). Alexi Grewal loved them too, and in fact used them on the otherwise Suntour-equipped bike he rode to victory in the 1984 Olympic road race. (Since they weren’t standard issue for his team bike, he probably paid for his Dyna-Drive setup—pedals, crankset, and bottom bracket—out of his own pocket.)

Why did I like Dyna-Drive pedals? Is it because, as “road.cc” attests, they cornered better? Naw, that was never the point. The benefit was that they enabled you to lower your saddle by two centimeters, for better aerodynamics. For a tall guy, it was great—you could get a better draft. I finally didn’t feel as much like a big gawky dork sticking out above the peloton. (I know I’ve left myself wide open here … please add your insult in the Comments section below.)

Dyna-Drive pedals also offered an adjustable toe clip, which no other pedal did at that time, and they were light. And yeah, they also did have better cornering clearance (especially the Dura-Ace AX version). Meanwhile, by having no axle, these pedals put your foot right at the axis of rotation, instead of above it. This just felt better. Why? Hard to describe, but think of a unicycle … pretty ungainly, right? Now think of one of those “giraffe” unicycles, where the rider is way up in the air, with his bottom bracket at least a couple feet above the wheel axle. Waaaay more unstable. That’s kind of how my foot felt on a traditional pedal, compared to the Dyna-Drive.

Another benefit of this no-axle arrangement is that it was really easy to get your foot into the toe clip. Maybe this wasn’t a huge deal, but if you ever rode with toe clips you know how tricky that could be, giving the toe clip just the right downward tap to spin the pedal around so you could jam your foot in at the right point in the spin. Screwing this up at the start of a criterium was a perennial danger, and I never screwed it up with the Dyna-Drives.

Yeah, the bearings were hard to adjust, and needed servicing more often than, say, a Campy pedal, but compared to overhauling a Dura-Ace Octalink bottom bracket, or seating a new tubeless mountain bike tire, or truing a modern wheel with its paucity of spokes, this was really no big deal. I was such a vocal fan of this system, my nickname on the UC Santa Barbara cycling team was “Dana-Drive.”

(I do wholeheartedly agree with the comment “road.cc” made about how pedals, with their ubiquitous 9/16” thread diameter, are “the last true standard in bike parts.” Check out these three pedals, from the 1960s-era monstrosity to one of the last high-end non-clipless pedals to a fairly current Dura-Ace … any of them could be installed just fine on my old three-speed’s cottered crank.)

Shimano Biopace chainrings

Don’t get me wrong, I always thought Biopace was a completely lame innovation. But when “road.cc” describes it as “ill-fated” I have to protest. This is one of those products that is so universally reviled in retrospect, nobody wants to admit having ever embraced it. It’s kind of the bike industry equivalent of the expression “YOLO.” Everybody groans at how utterly stupid that expression was, and yet it was insanely popular—for a time. As the “Huffington Post” reported, “the expression ... quickly went from a simple motivational phrase to a social death wish.” In contrast, Biopace, though similarly denounced by bike veterans now, was hugely popular for almost a decade, from 1983 to 1993. I worked at bike shops for much of this period, and I can tell you, Biopace chainrings (and their down-market cousin, SR OvalTech) were everywhere. They were a real pestilence.

Why did I hate them? Well, for one thing, they made adjusting a front derailleur really hard. Derailleurs of that era were barely up to the task to begin with, and setting them high enough to clear the tallest tooth created a big gap for other parts of the chainring. Given other common problems certain bike models had, like bad chain lines, getting the front derailleur to shift well with Biopace rings became a real chore.

The other problem with these stupid oval rings was that they put me in a tough moral position. When customers came to the shop looking to buy a set (or, as happened surprisingly often, using Biopace as an excuse to buy a whole new bike), I had to pretend to support the idea. “My doctor says these will reduce knee strain!” a customer would say, and I had to offer some noncommittal response like, “Well, you should always listen to your doctor!” rather than express my true opinion, which was that Biopace was complete malarkey.

I never actually owned a set of these chainrings. I’d just jump on my friend’s bike and ride around a bit, noting how awful the pedaling felt, and particularly how exaggerated the effect was in the little chainring vs. the middle and outer ones. Why should this have been the case? If the effect of this shape is good, wouldn’t you dial in the same improved pedaling characteristic for all three rings? It never made any sense to me. (I think there were limitations in what could be economically produced.) My intuition told me to avoid these silly chainrings, and even when a new bike came with them, I’d incur extra expense to put round rings on there.

So yeah, I completely agree that Biopace was lame—but “ill-fated”? As with the Campagnolo Delta brakes, we have to concede that bike component companies are for-profit corporations. Their job is to persuade people to replace their perfectly good equipment with new (also perfectly good) equipment. In an ideal world, everything new the industry came up with would be demonstrably better, but innovation just doesn’t happen that fast. If companies don’t keep that hype- and gimmick-driven money coming in, they can’t afford the R&D that produces significant improvements. When I ride my modern mountain bike, with its carbon frame, hydraulic brakes, and super-crisp shifting, I’m pretty blown away … and if this technology was funded on the backs of suckers who wasted money on the drivetrain equivalent of snake oil, I can’t bring myself to care. Given its long period of cash production, to write Biopace off as “ill-fated” is a bit of a stretch.

Will oval chainrings ever make a comeback? Of course, so long as there’s money to be made. Certain Team Sky riders have used them, such as Chris Froome. I think oval chainrings’ main benefit to him is the ability they confer to poo-poo accusations that his power stats are “not normal.” He (and others) claim that oval chainrings will cause the power readings to read anywhere from 4% to 6% high. This is pure bullshit of course, just like the myth that Froome is clean. All this being said, I have no issue with oval rings enjoying a resurgence … after all, the industry can use the money, and I don’t work at bike shops anymore.

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Selecting Bicycle Wheels - Part II

Introduction

In my last post I described how teenagers of my generation—at least, the bikeful ones—chose their racing wheels.  Well, with adulthood came money, and in the early aughts, after riding the tired old gear from my youth for many years, I decided to head out of the stone age.  (I got some momentum after buying my first non-steel road frame.)  This began an era of periodically throwing a whole lot of money at high-end equipment, which means cooler wheels than you read about last week.

If you read my last post you can skip this paragraph, which is an advisory to burglars.  Look here, burglars:  if you’ve found this blog in your Internet-scouring efforts to plan your next heist, think again.  No, I don’t have an attack dog trained to rip the zipper out of a pair of jeans, but the new wheels I recently bought were only $700.  Surely my neighbors have a lot of fancy electronics that are not only easier to stuff into your bag, but easier to fence.

How to select a modern wheelset

I hope I haven’t created any expectation that I’m a connoisseur of modern bicycle wheels.  Who is, besides the pro who gets the latest & greatest stuff every year, or the (somewhat rare) extremely wealthy guy who actually rides?  Besides, being a reluctant consumer in general, I can’t possibly keep up with the state of the art in high-end anything.  I occupy a precarious position as a person who a) is always reluctant to spend money, b) tends to buy pretty high end, cool shit when he does finally cave, c) has a soft spot for technology that was recently cutting edge but is now drifting into supposed obsolescence, and c) has trouble numbering his itemized lists.

Man, it used to be easy picking out wheels:  the hubs were seldom replaced, and the rims were mostly the same basic design, so the main thing you looked at was weight.  If you were a heavy rider, you picked a heavier rim.  If you thought black looked cool, you got hard-anodized (aka “heat treated”).  If you were weird and retro, you bought wood (though nobody really did this).  If a rim didn’t end up meeting your expectations, it was no big deal; they weren’t all that expensive (i.e., were usually cheaper than your hub, and sometimes cheaper than your tire).

These days the wheel-buying decision is harder than ever.  First of all, so many wheelsets look incredibly cool.  Gawking at them online, I felt like a Midwestern hayseed at a big-city strip club.  (If you thought the photos in my last post were kind of boring, well, that’s the 1980s bike industry’s fault, not mine.)  Carbon rims are common, many of them are super deep, lots have big, bold graphics along the side, and you see spokes of various materials & orientations.  (For an examination of the debate between modern factory-built wheelsets vs. old-school lace-your-own wheels, see Appendix A below.)

Why choosing is so hard

When you start to research modern wheels, you can get lost pretty fast.  Oddly, and in defiance of one of the most hard-and-fast rules of bicycle equipment, some of the more expensive wheels are heavier than the cheaper ones, and not just because some brands are cheaper than others.  Dura-Ace C35s are like $700 more than Dura-Ace C24s, despite being almost 100 grams heavier.  Why would I pay more for heavier wheels?  Ah, they’re more aerodynamic.  Will that help me, though, given that most of my riding is in the hills, where I’m going 6 mph up the hill and then (being a grandma) using the brakes on the way back down?

And then there’s the matter of carbon vs. aluminum.  Well, if carbon is lighter, and looks cooler, and has been proven many times over to be strong enough for just about anything, why is aluminum still here?  Is it just for cheap bastards like me?  Well, I’ve heard lots of complaints about poor braking and the need to use weird and expensive brake pads (e.g., “Try Black Prince pads and Basalt brake surfaces”), and also there’s this little matter of overheating.  Overheating, due to carbon fiber’s inefficiency at shedding heat during braking, can warp your rim.  A friend told me that carbon wheels were banned at Levi’s Granfondo at one point because so many riders had trouble with overheating rims on a particularly steep descent.  It’s an instance where technology trickling down from the pro teams may not be a great thing:  the pros probably brake far less than, say, rich dentists or even veteran former racers who have lost their mojo after a bad crash.  I recoil from the idea of wheels that require me to brake sparingly.

But that’s not all.  There’s a school of thought that brand names don’t mean anything anymore since just about everything is made in the same Chinese or Taiwanese factory.  So now there are impressive-on-paper wheels available for relatively little money.  Should I be tempted by the cheap route, or play it safe with a known brand?  One friend advised, “Open mold, Chinese carbon certainly sound like the best deal but your wife would surely kill you if they contributed even the slightest way to a crash.  From what I’ve read, ENVE and Zipp are the best, but your daughters will have crooked teeth.”  (That is, I wouldn’t have any money left over for their orthodontia.)

Of course, cyclists are fickle, so a used wheelset, ideally from somebody who got bored with his wheels despite not riding much, might be just the ticket.  One pal advised cheap Mavic Ksyriums on eBay:  “Buy ‘em.  Run ‘em.  Wreck ‘em.  Do it again.”

Not lost yet?  Well, there’s still the question of whether it’s time to go tubeless.  According to Dr. Tyre, this technology will either go the way of Biopace and the McDLT, or will become mainstream and thus much cheaper down the road—so either way, it’s too early to adopt it.  Of course, that column was over a year ago.  Still, almost all my pals use inner tubes, even a couple who bought the tubeless-style wheels.

Please … get help

As you’ve already gathered, I sought advice from my cycling pals, via our e-mail group.  I’ve already quoted a few responses above.  My favorite e-mail, sent to the group around this time, was titled, “23mm wide wheelset for sale – perfect for Dana if he loses some weight.”  (Can you imagine an e-mail with such a title going out to a women’s team?  A feud would break out, people would take sides, friendships would end….) 

I got lots of good advice, but of course not everybody had the same answer.  As I’ve described before, the problem with soliciting advice from a number of people is that ultimately you have to ignore a lot of people’s advice, which can be socially tricky.  But we’re a thick-skinned bunch (thick skin with a lot of scars, to be precise).

So here’s how it broke down.  Two guys recommended Easton, though two others said they’re garbage.  (One of the detractors said of one of the proponents, “Ken likes them, but he’s, what, a buck twenty wet?”  Indeed, I put more stock in input from heavier riders.)  Three guys recommended Zipp, but those are a bit too pricey for me.  Four heartily recommended the superlight Dura-Ace C24s, carbon with aluminum braking surfaces.  These became a front-runner, despite my bad experiences with Shimano wheels (see Appendix B for details).  Four people recommended cheap Chinese wheels.  Five recommended the HED Ardennes SL, which are wider than traditional rims, and three more recommended wide rims in general.

Not that I was thinking of these responses democratically.  The guys I ride the most with get extra attention because they know where I ride and how.  Since the HED Ardennes SL and the Dura-Ace C24s were the most widely and enthusiastically recommended, I was particularly interested in my pal Mark’s recommendations, as he a) owns both brands of wheels, and b) doesn’t weigh a buck twenty wet.  He recommended the HEDs for a rider like me.

The theory of wide, phat rims

So, the HED wheels aren’t made of carbon or any miracle alloy, don’t have the most radically deep cross section, and are no flashier than other wheels.  Their innovation, which they call “C2,” is remarkably simple:  their rims are wider than pretty much every road rim before them.  They’re wider, in fact, than the Wolber 58 rims on Full Slab, my commuting bike.  The idea is that this improves the profile of the tire, increasing its contact area on the road, allowing it to deflect more uniformly in cornering, and allowing you to run lower pressure in your tires without causing a pinch flat.  Supposedly, they also offer lower rolling resistance and greater comfort.

I like the idea of these rims:  instead of using ever more expensive materials, making the wheel both more expensive for the consumer and more expensive to make, these guys apparently asked a simple question—“Why are all road rims so narrow?”—and discovered that lack of imagination and rote imitation of an ancient design seem to be the only reasons.  So this C2 thing doesn’t really cost that much to do, since companies retool every few years anyway, and yet it seems to have been a game-changer.  (Lots of other wheel companies have copied the wide rim, further legitimizing the design or at least the marketing of it.)  

Best of all, HED themselves have gone from 23mm to 25mm with their latest wheels, so I was able to find the 23mm ones—no longer the cutting edge—on closeout for a mere $700.  This is chump change as modern wheels go.  (Mark approved of this strategy:  “500 bucks for 2mm seems unnecessary and contrary to your inner cheap bastard.”)  I love buying things right after they’ve become officially obsolete.  (I think I have the best tube-style TV ever made.  If you’re a burglar, good luck un-cabling everything from the back in time to make a getaway, and good luck trying to sell it.)

So how are the HEDs?

On paper (i.e., according to published weights) he HEDs should be about 50 grams heavier than my “old” (actually, dead at two years of age) Ksyrium SLs, but I weighed them and they’re exactly the same.  They look really, really cool because the lettering is giant and reflective (it catches the sunlight, not just my camera flash) and the fatness of the rim is just, well, phat.  

What’s more, the handwriting scrawled on the rim suggests that the wheels really did come from the HED factory in Minnesota.

I guess these wheels are kind of American.  I say “kind of” because the spokes are from Belgium and the rims from Taiwan.  The implication from this article is that they’re actually American-made.  (Even if they’re not, Belgian spokes is totally badass!)

Since my last wheels rode no better than the ones before them, which rode no better than the ones before them, I found it pleasantly surprising that these HEDs really do ride better.  Actually, they ride better than anything I’ve had before, since my old tubular wheels had too many spokes and weighed too much.  The ride is really plush.  Maybe it’s just the lower pressure (95 psi rear, 85 front), and I could get the same benefit from lower pressure on my other wheels.  If so, this is an impressive bit of marketing.

(Could I actually run my tires at lower pressure with standard-width rims?  Many times in the past I’ve forgotten to pump up my tires before riding, and the ride was poorer, not better.  HED claims that with these rims, the air volume is increased.  Intuitively I sense this is impossible, but then I’m just an English major.  Maybe I’ll do an experiment with my floor pump one of these days.)

Whatever the case, I now find the stretch of Wildcat Canyon Road between Summit Reservoir and the Brazil Building—which is so rough it’d be smoother if they just broke up and removed the rest of the asphalt—oddly fun to ride on.  My bike has never felt so sure-footed.  The newly configured tires just soak up the bumps.  And cornering on descents feels much better.  Braking seems smoother than with my Ksyriums.  So far (i.e., after 500 miles), the rims have stayed perfectly true.  If these last a good number of years, I think they could end up being the best wheels I’ve owned.  On the other hand, if these turn out to be frail over the long haul, I’ll update this post accordingly.

Update - July 2018

Well, I’ve had these wheels for about four years now, though I haven’t gotten four years of use out of them. How’s that, you may ask? Well, within the first year or so, the rear rim cracked. HED gave me some hassle about the warranty, making me go through a local dealer which was a problem because I bought them online. A local shop owner did me a solid by pretending to have sold me the wheels. But, I had to pay for shipping, which due to the usurious practices of UPS cost me like $80. HED did fix the wheel right up and even upgraded the rim, so I was satisfied by the end.

Alas, another year or so later, after the warranty was up, the rear hub and freewheel started binding. So I had to go back to my 2003 Ksyrium again until I (eventually) got around to taking the wheel to a shop. They discovered some broken part inside the hub, and ordered a replacement from HED. This wasn't terribly expensive but still a drag. Fast-forward less than a year, and the rear hub is making so much noise it’s hard to have a conversation while riding. So once again I’m back on the 2003 Ksyrium until I find the time to take this wheel to shop yet again.

So, overall I can’t say I’m thrilled with the durability of these wheels. Caveat: as I believe I mentioned above, I'm notoriously hard on my wheels, so take this with a grain of salt.

Appendices

And now, in case you’ve actually been enjoying all this text, here are some appendices offering even more bike wheel lore.  Read them aloud while hanging out with friends, or driving motorcar, or boarding on snow.

Appendix A: the modern wheelset dilemma

In the good old days, when bike parts were cheaper, heavier, tougher, and simpler, you didn’t select a wheelset per se.  You selected some hubs (or stuck with whatever your gruppo came with), picked out some rims, and chose between DT and Wheelsmith spokes.  Everything was interoperable so long as your hubs had the same number of holes as your rims (unless you were being really sly and lacing a 36-hole hub to an 18-hole rim on your team time trial bike).  Colorado Cyclist—then a small enough outfit they’d recognize my voice when I phoned them—had a service where you sent them your old thrashed wheels, and they’d cut the spokes out, repack the hubs, and lace new rims to them.

Choosing rims was easier, too.  Your only criteria were weight, brand, and looks.  If you didn’t weigh much and thought you could get away with it, you chose something light.  Perhaps you had a brand loyalty, as I did, maybe tied to country of origin.  (Most of my friends agreed that Japanese rims just weren’t any good, even if post-1984 Dura-Ace components were the shizzle.)  And one rim looked about as cool as another, frankly.  Ambrosios had white letters on them which was pretty fly, but not really all that noticeable. 

Well, things either changed quickly in the aughts, or they evolved while I wasn’t looking.  In 2003, when I built up a new bike, suddenly it seemed like a whole lot of people were riding factory-built wheelsets made by a single manufacturer.  Maybe this seems unremarkable to you, but it sure threw me.  “What?  Shimano is making rims now?  And spokes?”  It seemed inconceivable to me that guys were going around on wheels that didn’t have DT or Wheelsmith spokes—and that were possibly even built by a robot.  To me that seemed as weird as getting my hair cut by a robot.  (In the good old days, only cheap, basic bikes came with robot-built wheels.)

So yeah, I had some catching up to do.  Needless to say, I stumbled into a ferocious debate (still raging in some circles) between those who favor the modern, light, stiff, factory-built wheels, with their higher spoke tension and (generally) lower spoke count, and the old-school types who not only favor hand-built wheels but this or that personal wheel builder (who in high-end bicycle circles command even more respect than a Hollywood hairstylist).  Among other factors, hand-built wheels could be trued easily and would last a good long time.  Factory-built wheels are very hard to true, and they’re great until they’re suddenly not.  And there’s just something cool about a person in a bike shop starting with a pile of spokes, a hub, and a rim and applying magic to turn them into a wheel.  (My brother Geoff, a great wheel builder, could always reach into a box of spokes and—without looking—grab exactly the right number of spokes.)

Appendix B:  My “great leap forward”

As I mentioned, in 2003 I got one of those (then) new-fangled aluminum frames and decided to modernize my wheels while I was at it.  Dazed by all my new options, I followed the prevailing advice, from guys on my bike team, to get the (then) cutting-edge Shimano wheels.  (Not that you’d find anybody now who would admit to having given such advice; the first generation of Shimano wheelsets went the way of lactose intolerance and bell-bottoms.)  I was impressed by these wheels because the spoke nipples were moved to the hub flange, a bold re-imagining of wheel design that seemed to make sense.  After all, spoke nipples were historically heavy, and rotating weight (I’m told) makes a bigger difference.  (Yeah, hub flanges rotate too, but closer in.)

So I broke my own rule, about only riding European (preferably French) rims, and got the high-end Shimano wheels (which, oddly, weren’t called Dura-Ace).  They were really light, really aero, and at the time struck me as really cool-looking.  They had only 16 spokes, front and rear, which did seem totally absurd.  After all, I had a history of being hard on my equipment, and weighed like 185 pounds, and normally rode on tough, no-nonsense equipment.  I felt like a construction worker switching from steel-toed boots to ballet slippers.  But I was giddy at getting a new bike that was at least five pounds lighter than my old one, and everything seemed possible.

Well, I got about a year on those wheels.  Then, during a training ride, I broke a spoke on the rear wheel.  I’d just done a U-turn at the bottom of a climb and was starting to ride back up, which was fortunate because the wheel locked up instantly.  It was as abrupt as being clotheslined.  Then, no matter what tricks I did with the rear wheel in the dropouts, I couldn’t get the wheel to spin without it hitting the frame.  My bike wasn’t even walkable, much less rideable.  I had to put it over my shoulder and start walking, and almost a whole minute went by before a friendly motorist offered me a ride home.

What if the spoke had broken when I was going fast?  I could have totally stacked!  And the idea that breaking a spoke makes your bike unrideable?  Completely stupid.  Those wheels eerily foreshadowed what Lance Armstrong taught us years later:  if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. 

(Nobody stayed on those early Shimano wheels for long.  A friend, knowing I had them, showed up at my place for a dinner party bearing his pair, which he donated to me to use for spare parts.  He announced this notion with a single word—“rubbish!”—which caused another partygoer, of the hand-built school, to burst out laughing.)

Appendix C:  The problem with brand loyalty

Needless to say, after my catastrophic early foray into Japanese rims, after gnashing my terrible teeth and roaring my terrible roar and rending my garments, I decided to go back to French rims … but what would I do for hubs?  It’s not like I could use those wacky Shimano ones that were designed for backwards (in fact, ass-backwards) spokes.  Besides, I’d had a taste of the performance of these modern wheels and couldn’t bear to go back.  (Maybe this is how a guy feels who has switched from caffeine to crack—he knows it’s the wrong path but can’t bring himself to care.)  So when my brother suggested Mavic—one of my few long-held brand loyalties—he got my interest right away.  But a factory-built wheelset meant Mavic—i.e., French!—hubs!  That went against my long-held belief that the French can only competently do rims (and, in one special case, shifters).

On the other hand, what did the Ksyrium SLs have to offer?  Were they light?  Yup.  Known for strength?  Yeah, people said so—I even heard of guys doing cyclocross on them.  Cool-looking?  Yeah, totally!  (The graphics of the Shimano wheels suddenly seemed so … eighties.)  Did I bite the bullet and buy the Ksyriums, and have my wife pick them up from the shop for me so she could have a sticker-shock-induced heart attack for a change?  Yes.  Did these wheels end up being a pain in the ass because I had to continually field-strip the rear cassette and lube it with mineral oil because the French did a crummy job of engineering it?  Yep.  Was the hassle worth it because the wheels really did seem bulletproof?  In fact, yes.

I got six or seven years out of those wheels, after which they were still totally true (though the bearings were shot).  During that time I broke a spoke on each wheel, without any catastrophic consequences.  But I decided to retire them, in accordance with my new policy of replacing my equipment before it wore out and failed.  (I adopted this policy after a high-speed crash on Mount Diablo— click here for details—caused by my Dura-Ace crank snapping in half.)

I didn’t feel like doing any research, and my love affair with Mavic had been rekindled, so I went right out and bought another pair of Ksyrium SLs.  These ones weren’t quite as cool.  They had red anodized bits that have nothing to do with the aesthetics of almost any bike.  And weirdly, as I discovered too late, they weren’t even French.  They were made in Romania.  Was this necessarily a bad thing?  Well, low-end Mavic wheels had been built in Romania for awhile, which didn’t bode well.  I’ve since read an article in which a Mavic guy is quoted as saying, “The Romanian factory is identical to the French factory; the French factory just has prettier people.”  

But wait, don’t people matter?  I would have to think that the French, who are notoriously unconcerned with meeting consumer demand, would be great at quality control.  They probably flunk every third pair of wheels on principle.  (“Cette roué?  C’est impossible!”)  What do we know about the Romanians?  Very little, in my case.

As it turned out, the Romanian wheels sucked.  I broke spoke after spoke.  The guy at my local shop said he’d seen a lot of problems with the late-model Ksyrium SLs.  Finally, the day after what would prove to be my last spoke replacement, the rear hub cracked.  (I’ve broken at least seven frames, and three forks, but I’ve never broken a hub before.)

As Murphy’s Law would have it, the wheels were about two months past the warranty period.  Romanian Rhapsody?  I think not!