or revel in polishing a rare mint condition vintage Rene' Hearse in the garage, we use our bikes for social value. Just as people do with cars, we tend to identify ourselves with the type of bike we have. When I went to meet several people from the over 50's bike forums, we found a lot of lugged steel and leather saddles.
My bikes always raise a conversation and I am always pleased to get the attention. Sometimes it's a simple question about an accessory, or a comment about the build itself. I enjoy it more than I would owning a BMW or Mercedes because I have a lot of thought and personal handwork in each of my bikes.
Recently on a tour, my Hunq
drew a man into a 30 minute conversation reminiscing about his cross country trip, his old Raleigh and how much he missed it.
Another example of somebody giving me the "high road" came after a recent chamber concert. I walked out to find several of the more fashionable people in town admiring and discussing Byron outside the restaurant.
One gentleman asked about the Nuvinci rear hub and how many gears it had. I gave him the 10 second explanation of the Nuvinci technology. He was suitably impressed and to put things into a perspective he said, "I'm looking at a Ferrari then?" I said, "No, this is not a speedy crotch rocket, if you put it in car terms this would be like a Bentley Roadster." He was satisfied with that, it was a value to whichhe could relate. As much as he liked the bike, he had to convert it to the carcentric values he understood.
Gee, think how cool I could feel if I was driving around with this on top of my car.
They say it's made from stuff beamed down by the Mars probe and as yet is undiscovered by man.
Now that's beemer bling.
No comments:
Post a Comment