Friday, October 17, 2008

Jewelry

I always enjoy taking my bike to the bike shop. I guess it's bitter- sweet, of course because the fact that I'm taking my bike there in the first place is because there's a problem with it that I just don't feel comfortable tackling on my own. But I digress. The reason I like taking it in is that it always gets a reaction from the mechanics. It's not that it's an expensive or high end bike. A gray teen-aged mid level steel bike may be fun to ride through the woods, but you wouldn't put it up in the shop window.

What gets the attention? Very simply, the brakes on my bike are a bit odd and they're bright red against a gray frame. These days, in the world of mountain bikes, if you want simple, you go with direct-pulls. If you want power, you go with discs. If you want even more power and nice feel, you go with hydraulic discs. If you told most people these days that they can also have hydraulic RIM brakes, the reaction would probably be "why".

Well, because the clamp down like a putbull. A good set of direct pulls with boosters could likely do as well, though. They have a positive feel and they're virtually maintenance free, but even that isn't all of it. In addition to working well, they're out of the ordinary. The make a bike which isn't much to look at (at least not for most) into something wild and exotic. One of the mechanics mentioned that he had only seen hydraulic rim brakes once before, but there's a chance he's only remembering the other time it was in the shop. That's what I like to think. Real bike geeks appreciate stuff like that. Those brakes are my bike jewelry.

2 Comments:

At 11:55 AM, Blogger Philip Williamson said...

I saw orange hydraulic Maguras on an orange steel Ibis Mojo once. That was a cool bike. It had "shop bike" stenciled on the down tube and orange pedals.
Gray bikes are really pretty.

 
At 9:49 PM, Blogger Cafn8 said...

Back when I bought my brakes I had a choice of either bright red or bright yellow. I suppose the red looks better with the "mango" fork than the yellow would have. Either way it looks like my parts may have been specced by Ronald McDonald.

 

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