My Fiftieth of a Dollar

 I like the bike industry. I like that they make the bikes I ride and I don't have to. Working or, gosh, building bikes cuts into a person's time to ride them, and ironically, that love is typically what leads people to vocation by bike. Years ago a friend told me the joke: How do you end up with a million dollars in the bike industry? (See end of post if you need the gag line.) 

That joke may speak true, but at least a bit of the bike industry functions with the purpose of making money. I won't fault that, and people's quests to obtain the latest and greatest result in a steady supply of partly used bikes for me to ride! And yet, there's always an "and yet". There are times when IN MY OPINION (stressed to show I recognize it ain't fact), the bike industry has it wrong, and here are two of them, a penny each.

Riser bars are what happened when the industry accepted that people who didn't grow into a strange positional flexibility like I did might still want comfort on a bike. One step toward that is to raise the handlebars, so riser bars. Sounds, quite literally, sensible, right?

Riser bars gone wrong.

Courtesy of a Craigslist ad

I'm not opposed to higher bars, and on the instructions of the doctor who cleared my fused neck vertebrae to ride a bike again, I did raise mine, an inch I'll guess. Of course, my body, even after two months off, was used to a certain posture, so my torso and ergo neck were in the same position as ever, but neat, with my hands higher, my elbows dropped, unbunching my neck, and hey, double neat, it seems breaking my neck led to the fix for my historical neck discomfort on a bike. Hmm, there must be an easier way to learn!

But raised bars, for me, that DID NOT  mean riser bars, but instead a 40 degree rise stem. Same effect, different method, gaining rise with a stem has, IN MY OPINION, fewer negatives. To begin, the extension of a stem is welded to the steerer clamp section regardless, so changing that angle requires zero additional processes, which works out to no additional production cost and zero extra chance of error. I'm not sure how many pairs of not-quite-symmetrical riser bars I've seen, but it's definitely more that a handful (and yes, of course, pun intended).

But I don't have to build those bikes, production is not my problem. I do, however, ride them, often from my house to a trailhead, and for those road transits, the positioning of my hands narrow, next the the stem, is rather handy (yup, I did it again!), and it is also more comfortable when an extra pair of bends in the bars is not forcing my wrists at an odd angle.

Ouch! 

The bendy bars off one of my used bikes, 

right before I sold them.

Down side to flat bars and a rise stem? Group think has determined this combo isn't cool, but a long time ago, this individual gave up on cool, so no loss for me there.

Second grumble: orange is a safer color than the new black urban utility bikes. I know, I know, dark tones are urban chic, but to once again use the line I too much love using too much, my brain injury hasn't made me any smarter, but I sure hope I'm noticeably brighter (cue me thumbing out my hi-viz safety vest). Why are bikes often intended for riding in the most traffic likely the most muted, least visible color? If I was truly even more cynical, I'd say it's the industry hoping to sell more lights, but alas, I suspect it's merely a case of function trailing form. Me, I like loud bikes, even better if they clash!

I was so excited 

seeing hi-viz yellow locked to a fence, 

but closer inspection revealed a racy bike, 

not a flash of brilliance in the urban bike industry.

And finally, the punch line: Start with two million dollars.