Sometimes the urge to splash some cash on a new bike is almost irresistible. You may have convinced yourself it’s an essential purchase, rationalized the expenditure, prepared your excuses for your blissfully ignorant other half, figured out where it’ll fit in the shed and even spoken to that lovely salesman who understands you and your needs better than anyone – anyone – else.
But hold on there a second. Before you part with your hard-earned cash, it makes sense to ask yourself a few difficult questions. That argument you cooked up to persuade yourself it was an essential purchase…is it really quite as water-tight as you seem so happy to think it is? Will parting with that four-figure sum really address all the issues you’ve told yourself it will?
Let’s be honest here. The chances are, there’s nothing wrong with one of the bikes you’ve already got. You’re probably just a bit bored with them and have decided that you deserve a new one.
Goodness knows there’s nothing wrong with that. Don’t get us wrong – we haven’t swapped sides and joined the ‘you paid how much to save 500 grams?!’ brigade. If you want to give in to the N+1 impulse, Simpson would never dream of standing in your way.
But if there’s a little part of you deep down inside that knows it’s actually a rather bad idea – that you’d spend as much time feeling guilty and regretful as you would enjoying your new bike – sometimes you can scratch that infuriating new-bike itch at a fraction of the cost by simply gussying up your existing bike. It’s truly amazing how efficacious it can be to fit new forks or handlebars or even just a new seat post. (Pro tip: try all three! We did!)
So for those times when N+1 = a whole lot of trouble, why not consider N+0.5?
The term cycling community has an American ring to it somehow. For us, it evokes a small town where everyone calls each other by their nicknames and high-fives are the order of the day. The real meaning of the term has long been a subject for debate in the letters pages of UK cycling magazines, where cycling etiquette and cyclists’ sociability are discussed at length.
The underlying philosophy that motivates us here at Simpson is that cycling brings together like-minded people, regardless of age, religion, social status or wealth. Like it or not we are all bound by our love of the bicycle. How we've arrived at this point is secondary to the immediacy of where we are now.
Shared experience tends to bond people. From families with young children to dog owners to the drivers of VW camper vans… all are likely to be sympathetic to each others’ needs. We believe cycling does exactly the same thing. If you pull up at traffic lights with another waiting cyclist the chances are you'll strike up a conversation. Be it about the weather, the road surface, bike comparisons or just 'which way are you heading out mate?' you'll always get a response.
While out riding this weekend we shared some miles with a cyclist we meet in just such a fashion. It's good to ride with new people, to share the unique pace of another; both mind and body benefit. It's a shame a broken spoke cut short a very enjoyable ride but we swapped numbers and will hopefully buddy up again soon. Having nursed the stricken bike back home it was great to receive a text from our new cycling friend making sure we got back safely.
As our thoughts turn from platefuls of turkey and sprouts to the challenging business of winning back our pre-Christmas fitness, there is a seasonal dilemma to face: do you risk cycling on icy roads or do you resign yourself to the sweaty drudgery of the turbo?
Unless you’re a special kind of masochist, you’ll probably opt for the road whenever possible. The turbo is tough at the best of times but hauling your stiff and bloated frame on board in a frozen shed in the deep mid winter knowing that nothing but solitary pain lies ahead takes self discipline to a whole new level. Riding on the road is so much more fun…and more sociable…and more rewarding. The risk of a bit of ice here and there seems a small price to pay.
But this blog post will appear less than a week after a Simpson team member came off on the ice and turned his hip and elbow into a purple and black bruise-fest. It will also be almost exactly a year since another one of Simpson’s finest came off on invisible black ice at no more than 15mph and ended up with mild concussion, some nasty bruising and a broken helmet. One of the riders we were with that day also went over but he wasn’t so lucky. His broken hip took months to mend.
Of course, nine times out of ten you’ll get away with it. You’ll spot the occasional glistening patch on the road and glide past it without so much as a wobble. But every once in a while it’ll go pear-shaped and then, if you’re really unlucky, you’ll have a few weeks of enforced inactivity during which to reflect on whether it was really worth it as you watch your cycling buddies build their fitness for the season ahead.
