do you own a bike?

[dellzeqq]

yes. I know. It's a cycling forum, so the chances are decent. But....what I'm getting at is this. Do you own a bike that is 'of a piece', something you think of as having an identity, or do you own wheels, frame, groupset, panniers (I'm not judging....) and so on and so forth?

My first bike was a bike - it was bright red, had training wheels, rod brakes you'd never separate from the rest of the bike and so on and so forth, but, when I was seven I started to collect bits of bike, and, by the time I was twelve my conception of 'bike' was the bits that made it up (and the bits I wanted'. The smaller bikes that my little brothers rode were, somehow, juvenile - not really about cycling.

I've pretty much stuck with that ever since. The exception was the C40 with Dura-Ace wheels and groupset, which was such a vast leap forward that it seemed, as I rode it, to come together as one single sublime entity. When I cracked it and got what was, ostensibly, a better frame the 'bike' became a collection of parts once again. Lately the C40 frame has been lent to somebody who may repair it, but, in the mean time, is using the forks because his steel Colnago forks offer such a miserable ride. I'm afraid that when I got the frame out of the loft it had reverted to being just a frame, and that the poetic illusion afforded by the ride had evaporated.

However...the Brompton is a bike. Or a mobility aid for shoppers, but, whatever, it's got an identity. Call me a sucker for clever marketing, but the individuality of the bits (not always in a good way) induces in me the romantic notion that all these bought-in components were somehow meant for each other. It doesn't hurt that Susie has a Brompton - it's a bit of a lurve thang. But, still and all, it's a bike.

So......do you own a bike? Or, however, lovely, a collection of bits which are, once they've had their day, replaceable?

 

[Banjo]

Bit like Triggers 30 year old brush. Its had 4 new heads and 3 new handles but its still the same brush.

 

[MacB]

Collection of bits and nothing that I'm wedded to anything that doesn't perform is gone, depending on cost and performance level would depend on whether it was run into the ground first or not. Though I have been known to sell the odd part

But I am wedded to my own brand of aesthetics and in particular colour schemes. For example I keep thinking about replacing my excellent, and currently rarely used, Ortlieb panniers. Simply because they are yellow and I want a set of the red ones instead.

 

[tyred]

I do own a few real bikes but most of mine are a case of being always on the scrounge for bike parts and when I have collected loads, I build a working bike from it.

 

[dellzeqq]

But I am wedded to my own brand of aesthetics and in particular colour schemes. For example I keep thinking about replacing my excellent, and currently rarely used, Ortlieb panniers. Simply because they are yellow and I want a set of the red ones instead.

that, surely, is a step on the road to 'bike'. Or...maybe not. I wear my black Rapha T-shirt with black jeans, and never with blue jeans. That doesn't make the t-shirt/black jean combo an 'outfit'.

Those of you who are across the recent demise (and replacement) of Susie's Ruby Pro frame will see where I'm coming from. All of a sudden she's been pitched from 'bike' to 'collection of parts'. And she's not happy about it.

 

[srw]

As essentially a utility rider who is gradually graduating to other forms of riding every bike I have ever owned has been a bike. I'm not a mechanic, not a scrimshaving penny-pinching gradual builder. Other people are far better at building bikes than me - I'm quite happy to let them.

I will confess to a gradual growing aesthetic consideration, in that every usable frame we own bar one is a shade of grey, silver or black, and that every saddle, saddlebag, pannier or barbag bar one is the same shade. The one exception is the British Racing Green touring tandem, which has one tan Brooks on it. Because the brown leather is less robust than the black leather I'm contemplating a saddle switch.

 

[theclaud]

Excellent! Meditations on the Ontology of the Bicycle. The perfect spectator thread for someone stuck on a train for hours. Oddly I think of my road bike as a bike, even though the frame, in which the bikeliness of the bike might be thought to inhere, is the least distinguished part of it. The frame is a happy accident that gave rise to the idea of the bike. It both is and is not the bike. My commuter is the frameset, although again unremarkable, which was happened upon in a skip. Everything else on. it is just parts, and might be otherwise.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

When is a bicycle?

 

[GrumpyGregry]

As essentially a utility rider who is gradually graduating to other forms of riding every bike I have ever owned has been a bike. I'm not a mechanic, not a scrimshaving penny-pinching gradual builder. Other people are far better at building bikes than me - I'm quite happy to let them.

I will confess to a gradual growing aesthetic consideration, in that every usable frame we own bar one is a shade of grey, silver or black, and that every saddle, saddlebag, pannier or barbag bar one is the same shade. The one exception is the British Racing Green touring tandem, which has one tan Brooks on it. Because the brown leather is less robust than the black leather I'm contemplating a saddle switch.

The brown leather of the Brooks on my fixed* is demonstrably more robust than my scalp, forehead, eyebrow, thumb, etc..

*currently back in two speed coaster hub mode and sat in the dining room.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

So.... the black bike is a bike. My best bike in fact, and remains almost as it left the shop. The white bike (mtb) is a bike, but has been tweaked. The green bike is a bike. The other white bike (ex-MacB f&f and odd bits) is a bitsa and will forever be a work in progress, never, ever to be completed, the third white bike is, at the moment, just a frame a fork and an idea.Rhubarb the Brompton is definitely a bike even though it has been severely interferred with since it came from Brixton Cycles. The blue bike is a chameleon, changing form from fixed to singlespeed to two speed at will. The Strida is a bike but isn't really a bike in any sense, it's an alternative to walking. The purple bike isn't a bike and never will be, it's a joke, a poke in the eye, a raspberry blown at the whole fetish of mtb-based retrobiking.

 

[dellzeqq]

When is a bicycle?

wise words, Gregster, wise words...

 

[Boris Bajic]

I've never thought about it before.... I think I have some unusual and unhealthy attachment to my bicycles and I certainly see them as entities.

I think my middle child has adopted the same approach. He rides an old road bike of mine, but while it was damaged used my 'best' bike. I offered it to him in exchange for the older one when his new parts came. It is a significantly better bike. He looked at me as if I was mad. It is not his bike...

Last summer I did a charity ride with my eldest (125 miles to Trafalgar Square). The morning we left I felt a wobble in the front wheel bearing of the fixie, so I took a Superfandango wheel from another bike. All the way to London I felt that I'd somehow sullied the fixie by my use of a much posher wheel than it usually wears.

After lending a nice bike I get all serious about putting the bars and saddle back in just the right position... There are saddles I ought to replace, but it would somehow be like surgery.

Apart from tyres, cables and pedals, I do (sadly) see my bicycles as sentient, sensitive beings of a sort. I hope they're not members of this forum... They'll use this post for emotional blackmail.

 

[tom_e]

Funny one this. The bikes I've bought whole definitely started as 'bikes', even the 2nd hand one which is far from new-spec. But as I've changed bits they feel more a collection of parts.

New heavy tourer I've just built up from frame and might reasonably expect to feel like a pile of bits? Not so simple - it has two wheelsets. The heavy one with nice fatter tyres which is mainly intended to go with it?: it feels like a 'bike'. The alternate lighter narrower tyred wheels shared with another bike on it?: it works well, it goes, feels much lighter. But somehow feels like a collection of parts which does the job rather than a 'bike'. <shrugs> As an engineer, I kind of feel it's nice if it does feel like a bike, but as long as it works well I don't really care.

 

[Flying Dodo]

I guess I'll be derided as being devoid of imagination, but I've never felt a bike as being a separate entity. I've never named a bike (nor a car for that matter) for example.

Some of my bikes are more comfortable than others, and (unlike Adrian) my Planet X Ti Sportive is the most trustworthy and the one I feel most at home on, but I don't see it as anything else than a collection of parts, some of which have already been replaced.

Surely the concept of a bike having an identity is purely down to whether or not it has some particular characteristic which makes it stand out in a special way, such as odd handlebars, or a specific way of handling, that's all?

 

[theclaud]

I guess I'll be derided as being devoid of imagination, but I've never felt a bike as being a separate entity. I've never named a bike (nor a car for that matter) for example.

Some of my bikes are more comfortable than others, and (unlike Adrian) my Planet X Ti Sportive is the most trustworthy and the one I feel most at home on, but I don't see it as anything else than a collection of parts, some of which have already been replaced.

Surely the concept of a bike having an identity is purely down to whether or not it has some particular characteristic which makes it stand out in a special way, such as odd handlebars, or a specific way of handling, that's all?

It's not so much about it having a personality, as about what constitutes its being. As in Banjo's gag above. People will say that they have put new handlebars of a bike, and what they usually mean is that it remains the same bike. They rarely say the same about the frame, but there is no inherent reason we might not see the frame purely as the thing that holds the other parts in a particular geometric configuration. You might argue that the frame is the main determinant of the character of the ride, in which case I would let your tyres down and ask you if was still the same bicycle. Not because I think it isn't, but because I have spent too long on this train...