Weight, weight, don't tell me

The tax dragon has been slain; normalcy returns. It is only money. At the end of the day, paying my tax bills did not change my life much. I suspect the same is true for most people. What does this have to do with bikes and weight? Taxes and bike weight seem to have one thing in common: less is more. At least that is what we have been conditioned to think. The financial press overflows with articles on how you can reduce the amount of income taxes paid, as if your ultimate financial goal should be to pay less taxes, rather than simply being happy, healthy, and secure. The cycling marketing machine treats weight similarly. Why is it so important?

You cannot read too much related to cycling without finding mention of the topic of weight. Bike weight, rotating weight, and yes, occasionally even rider weight. As a marketing topic, weight presents the ultimate talking point, because unlike taxes, weight will always be asymptotic, never reaching zero. Lighter can never go out of style. Sadly, cycling is about marketing. Think about the Tour de France: what might be the largest sporting event in the world has no paid admission. How do they pay the bills? Marketing. The same thing goes for the Pro Tour teams, which are known only by the name of the sponsors who are using the the sport as a marketing vehicle.

In America, when you say bike race, most people would immediately think of the Tour, or the American guy who has won it a bunch of times recently. Because of the events of the last seven years, the American general public is now seeing some Tour-related marketing of non-cycling products such as computer services or pharmaceuticals. (wait a minute, maybe those are cycling-related...) I can understand that outside of towns like Fitchburg and Altoona, the public has never heard of any race but the Tour. Within cycling though, you would think the participants would understand that there is more to bike racing than a three week tour through the Alps and Pyrennes each summer. Yet you would never know it from the products riders choose, and the way they are marketed to them by the cycling industry as a whole.

In the Tour there are mountain passes climbing thousands of meters. The athletes who compete for the overall earn salaries of a million euros per year or more. Product endorsements (marketing!) are worth far more. Hell, the salary would be non-existent too, were it not for the signage literally pasted across the rider's asses. So the Tour exists for one reason: too sell stuff. Winning sells more stuff than losing, so winning is important. Weight is hard to carry up alpine passes, so in the Tour, light weight is very important to these people. You might be able to justify a pair of $6000 carbon rims if they are going to help you earn $10 million dollars in marketing-related income.

Pan the camera to Phred Q. Trekrider, out for his Saturday morning ride through the suburbs. Getting ready for the Cat 4 races later in the spring, Phred massages the pedals on his Madone 5.9 SL with his hairy legs. Phred has read the ads; he knows the light weight of his $5000 steed is giving him the edge he needs. Phred might have more than a few extra pounds around his middle, but who cares? Phred has disposable income, and after watching the Tour the last few years, he knows it is best spent on a lightweight bike just like Lance's. But this bike is getting a bit old. Phred bought it almost a year ago, right after win #6. Technology marches on. Phred started out on a Trek 5200. Nice bike, but hell, with Ultegra, it weighed almost 19 pounds! For races like Ninigret and Wells Ave, that would never do. In fact, Phred would buy the newest Trek Yellow Jersey signature edition, a $500/ pound beauty that came out this year. No though, not yet. Phred has heard the marketing buzz. Next year, Trek will come out with an even better model, the Lance DNA, one on which the man himself ejaculated all over the top tube right before the clearcoat was applied.

Maybe Phred doesn't really exist, but there are legions of riders and racers out there who think just like him. What is good for the Tour must be good for us. Light weight at any price seems to be the mantra of the racing public. Light weight at the expense of durability. Light weight at the expense of safety and piece of mind. These days every race seems like the Boulevard of Broken Wheels. Hell, Hincapie broke his steerer tube in Paris-Roubaix, a race without hills. Did the weight saved really make any difference? Does all this light stuff that requires constant maintenance and frequent replacement really make your cycling experience better?

The irony is the same deep-pockets cyclists driving the Zipp revolution are also the ones buying the Power Meters. I guess once you drop 8 grand to get your bike down to 16 pounds, you need to spend two grand more to get the weight back up. Maybe worrying about the rider weight, and the power the rider produces is the key? You never see a car ad talk about the weight of the vehicle, just the horsepower, right? We train for fun, so power improvement is free, theoretically.

So is is power, weight, or both? Fitness of fortune? I guess all of the above IS the answer. Personally, I can't have it all, but somehow, despite not training too much, I have my April weight down to record lows, approaching my summer level. Maybe this will make up for the fact that my bikes weight 2-3 pounds more than the rich guys, and that much of that weight is rotating. It would be sweet to beat them. There is no point in being jealous, after all, it is only money. Keep riding, keep smiling, thanks for reading.