Yesterday I mentioned a category of bicycle we’re all familiar with, yet doesn’t have a name: the KITBOYMJICOCUC* bike.
*[Keep In The Back Of Your Mind Just In Case Once Comes Up Cheap]
I then came across this article, which contains two of my own personal KITBOYMJICOCUC bikes:
It’s not a bad list, though I do think it’s ethically bankrupt to publish clickbait about ’90s road racing bikes after you’ve published clickbait about how rim brakes have no place in society:
Sorry, once you renounce rim brakes you don’t get to ride bikes with them, you don’t get to write about them, you don’t get to wax nostalgic for them, you don’t even get to look at them! I realize this sounds harsh, but these people MURDERD THE RIM BRAKE, just because! They’re psychopaths and they deserve no quarter.
Anyway, my own post-traumatic stress disorder aside, one of the KITBOYMJICOCUC bikes in the article is this one:
I’m pretty sure that’s a CAAD3, but whatever. The CAAD4 was the bike I rode when I was at the peak of my racing career, which is to say I had just barely managed to scrape up enough points to upgrade to Cat 3, after which I never saw the front of the pack again. So I think it would be fun to get one and ride it now to see if it’s anything like I remember it–though not nearly fun enough to spend more than what I’d spend on going out to lunch with the family.
Then of course there’s this one, which I addressed yesterday, though I include it mostly because of the photo and how amusingly it has aged:
What a couple of scoundrels! I wonder where that bike is now. Probably on a Caribbean island somewhere.
And while I’m sure everyone has their own idea of which bike should be number one, this seems like a fair choice:
Colnagae really can’t be KITBOYMJICOCUC because it’s unreasonable to believe you’d ever find one that’s truly cheap. However, it does belong in an adjacent category, which is The Bike You Never Thought Would Be Attainable But Is Now Attainable. You could now get a C-40 for a fraction of the price of Pogačar’s Colnago, and if you’re a certain strain of aging contrarian *raises hand* you have zero interest in the latter but still can’t help getting excited about the former. In fact, when Paul from Classic Cycle offered me the choice of either a C-40 or a Litespeed Tuscany, I couldn’t believe my good fortune. These were the bikes I’d coveted, and used to look at and think, “If only…” So agonized over the decision before finally choosing the Litespeed because titanium is forever…
…and naturally I don’t even have anymore, since as we established yesterday this whole thing is a disease. But I do have a beat-up Faggin and a Chris Huber, so who’s laughing now?
But yes, I suppose I owe people like Warren a debt of gratitude in that because of them nobody wants rim brake bikes of any vintage anymore, which means the rest of us can finally indulge our youthful fantasies–and unlike, say, the sex symbols of yesteryear, the bikes are just as taut and nimble now as they were back then. For example, if you once dreamed of going to bed with someone from the cast of “Baywatch,” it’s not quite as thrilling a prospect now as it might have been 30 years ago. But a Litespeed is still a Litespeed.
Of course whether you’re still able to ride the Litespeed or “Baywatch” cast member (as applicable) is an open question. But at least with the Litespeed only one of you is liable to break a hip.