The Calfee Bamboo Road bike. The height of organic bicycle lust.

By Christopher Cudworth

When the annual new bike issues of cycling magazines arrive in the mail, it is hard not to leaf through the pages wistfully imagining yourself riding one of those $7,000 machines. Or take a look at online road bike reviews and just think of it: gliding up the hills on a perfectly balanced Orbea, or passing your group ride on a flashy new Trek Madone.

Same goes for the shoe catalogues that seem to arrive by magic at certain times of the year. Flip open those pages and it’s like you’ve fallen into the fantasy world of a video game, like Wreck It Ralph going rogue (or whatever) in the land of Sugar Rush.

Sensual shoe and bike overload

There has never been a time in history where more brands and styles of bikes and shoes are available to the general public. Even casual riders can now luxuriate on bikes that feature technology that was once cutting-edge just 5 years ago.

And running shoes! You’ve got your minimalism market, and your maximalism shoes, and all points inbetween.

But its the colors and the engineering and the fabric and the textures and the paint jobs and the logos and the sculpted steel, carbon fiber, aluminum, titanium and two colors of rubber on bikes and shoes that are so beyond the former imagination and somewhat beyond reality even, that we must face the facts.

We are living in the age of bike and shoe porn. 

That’s right. All that marketing and editorial flash surrounding the bike and shoe industries has reached the level of pornography. And if it’s not porn, then at least it is propaganda. Or if it’s not propaganda, it must be public relations. Realistically, it is probably none of the above, but the imagination and expectations of cyclists and runners are rather easily excited by technology, it seems, and that can result in product lust bordering on obsession.

Admit it! Your feet lust for a new pair of shoes every time you slide by a running store. And your butt longs to come in contact with the saddle of that Pinarello in the window.

It’s all. So. Exotic. The names of shoes alone can cause some people to break into cold sweat. The Vibram FiveFingers. Reebok Smoothflex. Adidas ClimaCool. It almost doesn’t matter whether these shoes are the best pieces of rubber for your feet or not. Do you get the picture here? What they’re doing to you? You are being seduced. It is easy to see. These shoe companies want to slide their pretty little puppies over yours and own you. Own you!

The same goes for smooth-riding bicycles. You cannot possible look at the $13,200 Pinarello Dogma without collapsing in a fit of bike lust. In fact there is even video online to make you want to want this bike even more than you do right now. Just watch Martyn Ashton freestyle on a Pinarello Dogma road bike, technically designed for winning races like the Tour de France, and you may find yourself collapsed on the floor in a mass of quivering jealousy. This is the best bike porn ever made.

But if you, like me, are more into organic sex with your machine, check out the lines on this Calfee Bamboo bicycle. It’s a road bike. Made from bamboo. To ride this bike would be a dream come true. Someone buy it for me please. Send it in a giant wooden crate. One that says “FRAGILE” on the outside, like that box that held the Leg Lamp in that movie The Christmas Story. Bikes like this deserve to be canonized. Lionized. Everything but Specialized. Although I’d take a Tarmac Elite in bubble wrap pack just as easily.

Go take a cold shower

Now that you’re back from your cold shower and can think logically about your next pair of technically superior running shoes or fastidiously assembled everything-on-it-hotdog of a bike, let’s get to the root of all this shoe whoring and bike lusting. What causes it, and is there a cure?

This is your brain on shoe and bike technology

The psychological roots of a shoe whore are pretty simple. When you’re starting out in running and have only tried on a couple pairs of running shoes, you really can’t understand the plethora of alternatives that await you. But then you get involved in racing, and the search for the perfect racing shoe begins. Then you do some trail running, and get all knobbed up about toe protection and heel strike. Finally you slip into minimalism and get back to the earth running on nothing more than what amounts to a pumpkin pancake microwaved into the shape of your foot. Have at it, you little shoe whore you! You’re in deep, now. It’s like an addiction. People can be addicted to drugs, sex, chocolate or guns. Take your pick. Choose your vice.

Being addicted to running shoes is the best of the lot. So congratulations. You have a health addiction. Even if you are a little whorish about it.

As for bikes, you really can’t afford to indulge too much, now can you. Forget that fact that I own a few bikes myself. There’s the Felt 4C, the Red Rocket. Then there’s the Waterford criterium racing bike my brother-in-law gave me last year, that I’m fixing up for racing with a buddy. My Specialized Rockhopper mountain bike is ready for winter riding. Hidden in the rafters of our garage is my wife’s Schwinn Varsity, circa 1965. It is so heavy there are rumors that is composed entirely of Dark Matter. Also lurking around my garage is the steel framed Trek 400, also a gift from my brother-in-law, Paul Mues, and the bike that got me riding seriously about 15 years ago. It is a classic. Red in color. Not quite light, but not heavy either.

That Trek was the bike that hooked my brother-in-law Paul on riding as well. He was young and impressionable, and I said to him when he bought the bike, “You know, you might want to get some toe clips. I hear they help you ride better.”

That was the beginning of an intense and fruitful relationship between Paul and his bikes. He upgraded to an aluminum frame (sexy silver!) Cannondale road bike, then bought a Trek 4300 Carbon Fiber road bike only to get knocked off by a dog in the first mile he rode on the machine. The frame cracked and Trek gave him a new one. Apparently they understand the power of obsession. Finally Paul bought his Waterford pro racing bike through the club team for which he raced. Add that to his mountain bike and it all starts to add up. My brother-in-law was a bike slut just like me.

Going vertical 

Paul quit riding a few years back and took up sky-diving. It filled his need for speed, apparently. He even got to jump with television news hottie Jackie Bang. Now there’s a named you do not soon forget. But it turns out she’s quite sweet in person. Paul did tell me it was hard not to stare when she showed up in her little skydiving jumpsuit. Naturally.

It was not Jackie Bang but some other adventurous gal that accompanied Paul on a skydive. She got rid of all her clothes and jumped out of the airplane naked, except for her chute and goggles. Paul admitted to me that some strange things happen to the naked female body when hurtling toward earth at 100+ miles an hour, but it was the thought that counted.

Getting into what you get out of your sport

All of this goes to show that there is no such thing as getting “too much” into your sport, whatever it is, so long as you accept that sooner or later you will have to reign it back in somewhat.

When your closet overflows with $100 running shoes that you can’t bear to recycle or throw away because they’re still good to walk around in, or your basement fills up with bikes and bike parts that have little purpose but to fill the visual synapse that you are indeed a cyclist, it might be time to step back and take a little breather. Consider whether you are really in control of your emotions.

Then get rid of the junk and go out and buy some new shoes or a new bike. Because new and different is always better, right? Right?