The West Side

In the late 80's and early 90's I worked for a bike shop that sold Bridgestone bicycles. I'm sure many of you have never heard of them. The small group that made up Bridgestone US turned out some amazing bikes back then. In some cases they swam against the current of popular thinking (which often times produces great results). The public (and bicycle magazines) never fully embraced the brand, and it lasted a short 10 years before the Japanese parent pulled the plug. Going back through the old catalogs I discovered something amazing.  The catalogs were not only trying to sell you their bicycles. In fact, in the 1994 catalog (the last model year) you had to go more than 20 pages in before you got to the first bike! There were stories, and illustrations about how to operate a quick release, how to shift, how frames are made. It struck me that they were selling cycling . I wonder what the business would look like if Grant Peterson (head of Bridgestone US...

I seem to have had a shift in my thinking. I written about this a couple of times in the last couple of months, but I'm still trying to sort it all out. Here's the question: if you could have one bike that did most everything really, really well would that interest you? Of course it would. Here's the catch. It's not going to look like all the bikes that the magazines are telling you you must have. Still the same answer? I've gotten older....and slower...and less inclined to put in the kind of effort it takes to hang on to the snap that I once had. I've spent enough time trying to hang on what once was. At some point over the late fall I stopped caring. Caring about what people thought about the bike I was riding. Caring about how high the handlebars were. What I did care about was the enjoyment I got from the bicycle. It was a terribly liberating experience. It's funny because moving forward has made it necessary for me to look back. Look ...