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.

From the Archives - The Bars: a Family Saga

Introduction

This tale, from my archives, concerns an emotional tug-of-war between my father and me which ended up putting my innocent 15-year-old nephew John in harm’s way. Here are John and his father looking none too pleased about it.

If you love bike lore, there’s plenty here to dive into. If you don’t, but enjoy a good tale of intergenerational family turmoil and/or have a yen for Schadenfreude, read on. If you don’t care about bikes or families, click here.

The Bars – September 2008

The family saga begins with this email from my brother:

From: Bryan Albert

Sent: Friday, August 29, 2008 1:57 AM

To: Dana Albert, Geoff Albert, Peter S, Mom, Joanne J

Subject: RSVP

Guys,

Guess what? I'm going to tell you about our big RSVP ride, the Ride from Seattle to Vancouver and Party. [Much detail about the route, etc. omitted here; they did “only” the first day, a 108-mile trek from Seattle to Bellingham.] The ride was great—the weather was awesome, even getting good and hot at some points. [More detail omitted here, including details of sprinting to all the city limit signs, which is SOP for all our family rides throughout time.]

The ride was not without incident, however. Sometime before noon, while climbing up a small hill, John announced that there was something wrong with his bike and that we ought to pull over. To my horror, he demonstrated that his handlebar had cracked and was about to break off altogether! All those sprints flashed before my eyes, and I was very grateful that it decided to break on a climb and not some high-speed sprint. Can you imagine? That would be a crash for sure! So what’s up with that—handlebars aren’t supposed to break, are they? These weren’t even the drilled bars [i.e., holes we drilled so the brake cables could run inside … very cool but widely considered a foolish practice for reasons of safety].

Anyway, it was clear that we wouldn’t get far before the whole right side of the bar would fall off and his buzz would be seriously shackled. He’d have to ride along holding the bar up so that it didn’t get stuck in his wheel or something. He’d probably end up throwing his back into a spasm, and he’d never ride again. So we arranged with Jean [Bryan’s wife] to stop at the next town and effect repairs. The whole way there I was contemplating what might work... Anyway we hit the thrift store first, then the hardware store. I eyed a used golf club at the thrift store that I might break into splints. John might have liked that, with the golfing theme and all—I could have even left the club end of it hanging off like a medallion or something. But I finally settled on a hickory hammer handle, which I lashed to the handlebar with a webbing strap. It wasn’t pretty, and John didn’t hammer any of the remaining sprints (though he did power to victory on one sprint from in the saddle, having gotten a good jump on me), but it did get him home without incident. So that was cool.

[The rest of the story is my response to his email, which I wrote with an eye to one day reaching a far more general audience, as I’m now doing.]

On Sep 12, 2008, at 5:46 PM, Dana Albert wrote:

Bry,

What a great story! What a great time you guys had. The misadventures make the experience that much more memorable. Think of how the Donner party would have sunk into obscurity had everything gone smoothly. (Okay, I’m exaggerating a bit here.)

That’s crazy about John’s handlebar. I have to admit I feel some guilt about that handlebar cracking, since I put those bars on the bike for John. I was actually relieved to look at the photos and see that it was the starboard side of the bars that broke. Why, you ask? The fact is, those bars were bent when I put them on there (though on the port side), and I knew it. (You can see it in the photo in fact.)

That bike, when I bought it from my teammate, sported these Scott Drop In bars, which instead of stopping where dropped handlebars normally do, have longer ends that turn in 90 degrees and provide a second platform for the rider to put his hands on. When I started working at Square Wheel in 1990, those Drop In bars were getting a lot of attention as Greg LeMond had just won the Tour de France with them. The shop owner predicted I’d purchase a set within two weeks. I said, “Oh yeah? I’ll bet I won’t.” I didn’t, and within the year nobody else was using them anymore either. [In fact they’ve been called the #1 all-time worst piece of road tech by BikeRadar magazine.]

So when I got that bike I had to come up with some different bars for John. No nephew of mine is going to go around with those ridiculous Scott Drop Ins. Fortunately, I had two pairs of Cinelli bars, either of which would work with the bike’s stem. (They wouldn’t work with the more modern stems of my current fleet so they were just malingering in my old gear stash.) One pair of these bars was old and slightly bent. Another pair was newer and not bent. At this point you’re guessing, “Oh, so Dana simply gave John the old bent pair because children don’t deserve the best.”

Logical though this guess might be, it simply wasn’t the case. As a matter of fact, I’d been riding the old bent bars on my main road bike for years, and had been using the newer pair on my rain [i.e., backup] bike. The reason is, when I ordered the new bars, intending to put them on my main bike and exile the bent bars to the rain bike when I was first building it up, I had no idea Cinelli had lost its mind and ruined the design of their Model 66 Campione del Mundo handlebars. It is difficult to describe the folly of this move. The best I can do is to compare it to Coke’s decision, in the late eighties, to change its formula. 

If you ask any road cyclist worth his salt, he’ll tell you (albeit in his own words) that for at least twenty years, the Cinelli model 66 was the platonic ideal of handlebar, the thing that they really just got absolutely right. If ever there was a time to leave well enough alone, to not touch a thing, this was it. Studies have shown that a cyclist casting his eyes upon a bike that had the original 66 bars on it would experience a measurable feeling of good will, of soothing reassurance in our unstable world. By “measurable” I mean that you could monitor this guy’s blood pressure and his pulse as he gazed at the bars, and both would go down. Brain scans would show the same changes that you’d expect to see when somebody looks upon a sleeping cat.

But Cinelli couldn’t leave well enough alone, so in the late ‘80s they came out with the Perfections. The Perfections were really similar to the original 66s, except that they had slightly longer reach. And you know what? They really were slightly better! This was the equivalent of an absurd risk that managed to pay off, in a very minor way. (Kind of like Tiger Woods completely retooling his golf swing even though he was already the best golfer in the world—everybody thought he was crazy, but he came back very slightly better.) Now, I never got the opportunity to own a pair of Perfections, because they weren’t on the market very long for some reason that nobody has ever explained. But no problem, I thought. The regular 66s were good enough for Greg LeMond and Bernard Hinault, after all. I’d just buy another pair of them. 

[Here are a couple of photos of the Cinelli 66 bars. The first might actually be the Perfections. The second are on Bryan’s Team Miyata ... he still has two of these bikes, both with 66 bars!]

I got the new model 66 bars mail-order, and when they arrived I was horrified to discover that Cinelli had changed the bars yet again, and this time they were a disaster. Perhaps in response to the more modern brake levers, which have longer hoods, Cinelli had shorted the reach on their bars, significantly. The result was a handlebar that looked like the ones that came on department store ten-speeds (back before mountain bikes, when there was such a thing as a department store ten-speed). What was Cinelli thinking? It would be like if for the next James Bond movie, the director decided instead of Daniel Craig it would star Vanilla Ice. So these new Cinellis were totally wrong for my flagship bike, and I continued to use the old bent ones.

 This brings us to the sad tale of how those older bars got bent. Now, I can’t exactly remember what year this was, but I’m thinking 2001 or 2002. Erin and I were living in Albany [CA]. Dad was out visiting, and I decided to take him on a bike ride. Nothing really hard or anything, of course, but just a little cruise through the Berkeley campus, maybe up Old Tunnel road. I’d let him ride my road bike since it’s lighter and more efficient and what he’s used to, and I’d take my slower, heavier mountain bike. It seemed like a fine plan.

Of course, I had to take certain precautions. The last time I’d ridden with Dad was in ‘87 or ‘88, in San Luis Obispo, when Geoff and I loaned Dad the Twelve. The Twelve was our spare bike. Having a spare bike was, for people in our tax bracket, the height of decadence. It was a Miyata 912, which was decent (but not pro quality) road bike. We bought it solely for the use of our guests, and even had a quick-release seat binder bolt for quick adjustments. It had these low-profile Ultegra pedals, with toe clips. They were a bit tricky to get your foot into, and—worrying about Dad’s dress sneakers not fitting well—we loaned him a pair of cycling shoes. What a mistake. I have this vivid memory of him flailing to get his foot in, the pedal spinning around and around, the bike lurching this way and that. I don’t think he crashed, but it was scary to watch, and I think he was embarrassed. So when loaning him my road bike this time, in Berkeley, I took my clipless pedals off and put on these big mountain bike pedals with spacious, roomy toe clips that would easily accommodate even the bulkiest shoe.

Well, it wasn’t enough. Riding along Martin Luther King Jr. Way toward a stoplight, Dad was suddenly unable to get his foot out of the pedal fast enough. I’m not sure how this happened, because he had used toe clips on his own bike for decades and should have been an expert with them. Maybe it’s just some kind of jinx. Anyway, he wasn’t going fast and thus wasn’t hurt, but he ripped my bar tape all up, scratched my brake lever, and, yes, bent my bars.

Now, at this point I wasn’t angry or irritated with him. Nonplussed, sure, but mostly concerned. But he was okay, and we rode home. Now, it did cross my mind that a person in his position might say, “Gosh, Dana, I’m sorry I crashed your three thousand dollar racing bike and messed it up.” Then I could graciously say, “Oh, don’t even worry about it, I’m just relieved you’re not hurt.” But this didn’t happen. Instead, the minute we got home he went out to his car and said, “Is there a Sears around here?” I asked why, and he said that he ripped his trousers in the crash and had to replace them. And indeed, they had a little rip. But his eagerness to drop everything and head over to Sears at that very moment to replace his pants seemed fishy to me. I mean, what’s the rush? Didn’t he pack any other pants? Or was this a little hint that, since it was my bike that crashed him, I should pay for his pants? And moreover, who buys pants at fricking Sears?

I wasn’t about to offer to buy him a new pair of damn pants. Was this my fault, for failing to recognize that a guy who has ridden a ten-speed bicycle with toe clips since before I was born should not be trusted to ride my bike? Or should I have warned him, as we approached the intersection, that he should start working on getting his foot out well in advance just in case he encountered difficulty? Besides, it’s bad enough when your dad buys his pants at Sears—I’ll be damned if my money is going to pay for them.

There was this awkward silence. He seemed really ticked. So I said, “You know, I have some pants I can give you that look exactly like those ones.” And it was true. Many months earlier I’d been at Ross Dress for Less and found some pants called Bugle Boy Basics that don’t have to be ironed. It was an impulse buy because they were like $8, but afterward I had some misgivings—I mean, what kind of grown man wears pants called “Bugle Boy Basics”?—so I wasn’t loathe to part with them now. The funny thing is, they really did look absolutely identical to Dad’s Sears pants. Probably made by the same six-year-old Bangladeshi for the same four cents, I was thinking. But then Dad pointed out, “I see that they’ve done some treatment to these, probably with formaldehyde, to prevent wrinkles. These would probably give me an allergic reaction.” (I am not making any of this up.) I’m not sure what my expression was at this point, or whether or not Dad noticed it, but upon a moment’s reflection he said, “However, the hair on my legs may be bushy enough to protect my skin.” With that he put the Bugle Boy Basics in his car and I never saw them again. (The next day I noticed that he’d mended his Sears pants.)

So, every single time I rode my bike after that, and noting the bent-in bars, I thought of Dad crashing my bike, not apologizing, subtly suggesting that I pay for his pants, taking my Bugle Boy Basics, and not needing new pants after all—and got just a bit irritated. This irritation became compounded, because the memory of how these bars got bent became intertwined with another father/son episode that happened during that visit. I was pulling up to the curb in front of our house in the Volvo, Dad riding shotgun, and I got a little too close to this concrete outcropping in the curb. It juts way out because of some gnarly tree roots, and it had given us trouble before, and also since. The outcropping just barely reached the car, catching the trim on the lower part of the doors, and it just pushed the trim straight back along the car’s body, maybe a couple of feet. It made a horrible noise, like a robot shrieking.

I finished parking and leapt out of the car to examine the damage. It was not extensive: the trim wasn’t even all the way off the car. When I saw how little the damage was, I kind of laughed. Not a this-is-funny laugh, but a relieved “whaddya know!” kind of laugh. But Dad looked kind of pissed. He glared at the side of the car as I zipped the trim right back on there. He gave me a withering look, and I withered. And at this point I slipped unintentionally into one of those split-second fantasies, like the one about him apologizing about my bike. In this fantasy, he registered my withered look, realized he was being a bit harsh, and said, “Aw, don’t worry about it. Happens to the best of us.”

But of course this was a fool’s dream. What Dad did say, rather angrily I might add, was, “You are real lucky you didn’t do more damage.” That “real lucky” gets me. Dad is so punctilious with his grammar that “real” as an adverb must have been used for effect. Indeed, within his precise vernacular this almost works like a swear word. It’s the Harrison Albert version of, “You are good and god-damned lucky....”

(It’s noteworthy that when Dad crashed my bike and bent the bars, I did not say anything like “you are real lucky you didn’t do more damage.” It wouldn’t have occurred to me. And even if he had crashed my bike after the car incident, I couldn’t have said this because these kinds of indictments don’t run both ways in our relationship. He never hesitates to criticize me, but whenever I’m presented with his failings—which are deeper and darker—I always, always bite my tongue.)

I stood there, reeling, wondering why he was so upset. After all, it wasn’t his car, and besides, it wasn’t even damaged. So what was the problem? After much reflection, I’ve decided the problem was twofold. One, his son is so lame, such a lousy driver, that he failed to account for the broken curb and went and hit it. And two, this lousy son, due to a bottomless well of freakish good luck, doesn’t even have to pay for his failures. It’s like Dad was disappointed that this accident didn’t prove to be my comeuppance.

This notion Dad has of other people’s unfair good luck has precedent. He’s fond of saying, when noting somebody’s wealth, “He really landed with his nose in the fat.” No pulling up by bootstraps for him; no, just unearned good fortune. This would be laudable if he applied it in a general way to people of privilege like us, acknowledging that our own hard work in life comes on top of a mountain of circumstantial luck, like being born in America to a middle-class family in a good community with decent schools and plenty of opportunity. But Dad doesn’t seem to recognize his own overall good fortune, preferring to focus on specific incidents—the “knuckle-dragging cretin” boss who wouldn’t give him a promotion, the university dean who wouldn’t give him tenure because he (Dad) wouldn’t socially promote the dean’s son, the Navy ROTC overlord who interfered with his application, etc.—that show how he never got a fair shake.

And then there’s the case of the drinking glasses. When Dad visited Erin and me in our San Francisco apartment a few years before, he purchased a dozen drinking glasses from the restaurant supply store down the street, for something like ten bucks. Then, his visit became awkward right at the end, because I got in an argument with him about his stubborn refusal to buy health insurance. (He was about 60 at this point, still too young for Medicare.) He was arguing, amazingly enough, that he didn’t need insurance, that it wasn’t worth the money. It was rare for me to disagree with him, much less argue about anything, and he didn’t know how to deal with it. So he ended his visit abruptly, and in his haste to pack up and drive off he forgot his box of drinking glasses.

I was a bit chapped at having to mail them to him, especially since I’d have to pack them really carefully, which would be a lot of hassle. But then I had this great idea: I’d kill two birds with one stone by mailing the glasses without any padding whatsoever: just sitting in the box, nothing but that single layer of cardboard protecting them. And, the masterstroke: I wouldn’t insure them. He’d get this box of totally smashed glasses, I mean just fricking powder, and he’d call me up and say, “How could you not pack them carefully, with some padding?” I would shrug it off and wait for him to ask about insurance, which I could casually mention I didn’t bother with. When he erupted afresh about this, I could say, “Wait, let me get this straight. You won’t pay to insure your own health, but I should insure these cheap drinking glasses? I’m a little lost here. You valued those glasses more than you own life?!”

Alas, my plan backfired. He called me up and said, “A miracle has occurred. The glasses arrived intact.” This incident would have naturally struck him as more proof that some people are simply blessed, and can stroll blithely through the minefield of life without even looking where they’re going and be just fine, whereas other people like him were constantly beset with unfair challenges and setbacks.

And that’s how I came to associate the concrete outcropping of the curb with Dad’s preexisting sense that nothing I’ve achieved in my life is my own doing—that I’m one of those guys who fall with their nose in the fat. When Dad crashed my bike, it was one more example of the bad luck that follows him around. When I screwed up with the car, and when I foolishly mailed something with neither padding nor insurance, I got away with it because I’m just lucky. It’s no exaggeration to say that every time I drove up to my house and saw that broken curb, I thought of Dad’s stern words.

Some time after Dad’s visit to our Albany home, my wife Erin drove up to the curb and did exactly the same thing I had, only this time the curb outcropping zipped the trim all the way off the car, and it got a bit bent and I couldn’t get it back on there. I tried as hard as I could to keep a straight face as I said to her, “You are real lucky you didn’t do more damage.” By this time it had already become a running joke.

Erin knows there’s nothing she can do to prevent this curb/scorn association, but when I mentioned at one point that every time I rode my bike I thought of the crash/pants episode, she said, “Dana, this is obviously bothering you, why don’t you just ditch those bars and get some that won’t bum you out every time you look at them?!” She had a point. So I finally swapped out the old bent bars for the new, inferior ones. Sure, the curve of the new bars wasn’t as elegant, but that’s just a bike industry problem … it doesn’t bring home bad blood, doesn’t cause me to hear “you are real lucky” or “a miracle has occurred.” And when it came time to get John’s bike ready, I naturally gave him the better bars, with the original design—the ones I’d have wanted if they didn’t make me think of Dad’s reproach. After all, John wouldn’t have any negative associations with these bars, and he deserved the proper, perfect Cinelli bend.

So, now I’ll be sending you the newer Cinelli bars to get John’s bike running again.  Of course the young lad will have to make do with the inferior curvature, like the bars on a damn Huffy, but shoot, these young whippersnappers don’t know a proper handlebar bend from Shinola. I wonder if John had even realized that the left side of those original bars was bent in. Anyway, I’m so glad he noticed that the right side had cracked, before catastrophic failure. You might say that he is real lucky....

Love,

Dana

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