Lifer

I didn’t know Sheldon Brown personally but I still enjoy visiting his Website www.sheldonbrown.com and immersing myself in the details of internal hubs and thread pitch. The cycling community lost Sheldon last year to a heart attack after being diagnosed with primary progressive multiple sclerosis. If you have a moment, take a quick trip over to his Website and poke around.

The thing about Sheldon, and the thousands of other bike people that have bearing grease soaked skin, chainring scars and bodies of all shapes and sizes that have seen many miles go under their tires is that we are “lifers.” The term “lifer” is usually tied to convicts with no chance of getting out of prison. For us the term is a badge of commitment that we have made a choice and are doing time (joyously) in the world of cycling.

Being a lifer is a wonderful way to go through life. You see and hear everything differently. I was in the locker room at the gym and I heard a ratchet sound from the next aisle. I almost called out “Sidi mountain shoes?” but don’t believe in small talk in locker rooms. Sure enough, the man from the aisle next to mine came walking by with his blue Sidi MTB shoes on his way to spin class. The Sidi ratchet just makes a different noise than the rest.

I remember pulling out my new Wound-Up carbon fork (back in 1996) from the box only hear my boss Chip (another lifer) comment “Your new fork is crooked.” I thought he was full of it and giving me grief because he was a frame builder and loved steel forks. Well we put the fork on the alignment table (damn frame builders) and sure enough the legs were off! He had just eyeballed that sucker for 2 seconds and knew. Chip was the one who hired me after cross threading a BB shell into a new carbon frame. It took us three hours to get the BB out (sawed the cup with a hacksaw blade with a rag for a handle) and he enjoyed the challenge so much he didn’t charge me. The frame survived Chip hired me a month later. I learned almost everything I know working for him.

There’s an old joke about the cycling industry that goes: How do you make a small fortune in the cycling industry? The answer: Start with a large one. No, money doesn’t fall from the sky in the cycling industry. Lifers would rather spend the day counting spokes than dollars. We can tell you the BCD (bolt circle diameter) of a Campy road crank versus a Shimano road cranks and wax philosophically about lugged steel frames but couldn’t explain Keynesian economics to save our lives. A dollar to us is a tire boot after a bad cut in the middle of a ride.

So I’m a Lifer. For the rest of my life cycling will run through my veins and my thoughts will always come back to the simple joy of pedaling. We Lifers find therapy in our shop late at night standing in front of a bike watching the chain snake through the pulleys and glide over the cogs. We enjoy the smell of chain lube and our hands are a testament to the life we have chosen. We are proud of who we are but do not boast. We are problem solvers and life savers (just ask anyone with a derailleur issue moments before a big race). We get as much reward from watching a child get his or her first bike as we do watching the pros win races on bikes we built or tuned. Most of all we have chosen a life (or did it choose us?) that allows us to be around bicycles and ride them, produce them, repair them and enjoy them. Yeah, I’m a Lifer. Would you really want anyone else making bikes for you?