Old School is Back in Session

Just came back in from an extremely enjoyable New Year's Eve ride with BeanSS. She rode her 1994 Cannondale M700 and I rode my even more vintage 1989 Fisher Montare.

I got turned on to singlespeeding in 2000 while living in NorCal. It was largely in response to having demolished my fourth or fifth freehub body - I needed a reliable aft drive mechanism and the BMX freewheels were shit one. An indirect effect of taking up the gearless lifestyle was that every trail felt entirely new again. The solid-feeling drivetrain allowed me go harder, and the lack of a bail-out/granny gear, not to mention the rigid P2 fork my Kaboom came with, meant I had to. The trails were the same, but the way in which I rode them was different. I definitely drank the Kool-Aid, and since that time, I've more or less ridden and raced singlespeeds exclusively. And I'm talking primarily about off-road riding here. My skinny bike is geared, though my commutant is an SS convert.

Anyway, the last time I rode a geared mountain bike in the dirt was 2 years ago today. Riding the old Fisher therefore felt like yet another brand new experience. Rather than attacking each hill with momentum, I just rolled up and downshifted. Moving along the flats and descents without spinning maniacally was nice, too. But it wasn't just having 17 additional gear ratios on tap that felt nice; there was a nostalgia thing going on. This bike, you see, represents the sort of ride I lusted after when I went to Northern Arizona University from '88 to '92.

I'd never really seen mountain bikes growing up in Phoenix, but when I got to Flagstaff for college, the campus and town were full of them. Cosmic Cycles was on San Francisco Street then, next to the Inner Basin, in what was later the Sinagua Cycles location. I remember seeing all sorts of rad (yes, rad) bikes lined up in there. They had Cannondale (those tubes!) and Specialized to cover most folks' needs. There was a classic Ritchey with bull-moose bars hanging from the wall. I saw a Moots frame, and a WTB Phoenix was in there for a time. Yod rode a Mantis Valkyrie X-Frame. And there were Fishers, not the Trek-subsidiary Gary Fishers, but Fisher Mountainbikes. Teal, magenta, aqua, and team tricolors. I didn't know one bike from another back then and I wasn't particularly enamored with the Fishers, but the sport of mountain biking sure got a hold on me. I eventually bought a well-used, low-end Raleigh Mountain Tour with 650B, rather than 26", wheels, and the rest is (my) history.

And so it was that this afternoon's bike ride was both new and old. A fresh experience overlaying a blast from the past. And because I will always be a gear-queer, I'd like to point out some of this Montare's Jurassic-era components: BioPace chainrings; SR Low Fat pedals with toe clips, straps, and my prized WTB Toe Flips bolted up; a chainstay-mounted U-Brake with a shark tooth; an original CatEye All-Terrain cyclometer; and a Selle Italia Turbo saddle that I can't seem to remember having being so uncomfortable back in college.

I wonder how many months it'll be before I click shift on a trail again.