What’s extra seductive than a ribbon of highway vanishing into the autumn foliage?
And what’s extra repulsive than the sight of a late-90s’ freak bike?
However right here’s the factor about bikes: if you happen to actually love using them, all of them win you over ultimately. (Okay, not all, however most. Or many. Or a whole lot of them.) For years, I ridiculed the Y-Foil, a wildly dork-tacular bike that was the very antithesis of the basic supplies and silhouettes I maintain sacred. However you already know what? I actually like using it! There, I mentioned it. See, right here’s the factor concerning the Y-Foil: you already know that phrase, essentially the most clichéd 5 phrases in all of cycledom?
Laterally Stiff Vertically Compliant
For the reason that daybreak of time, bike reviewers have advised us that this materials or that materials possesses magical qualities that may render a motorcycle laterally stiff but vertically compliant. “Crabon filters out high-frequency vibrations.” “Titanium has a springy trip high quality.” “There’s nothing just like the magic carpet trip of basic metal.” And so forth–none of which actually stand as much as scrutiny, since regardless of the bike’s fabricated from you’re mainly simply sitting on high of a inflexible diamond. Sure, some bikes are undeniably smoother than others, however you’re by no means certain if it’s the fabric, or the geometry, or the seatpost, or the saddle, or the tires, or simply the way you occur to be feeling that day. (I’ve completely discovered a motorcycle to be sublimely snug sooner or later and borderline painful the following–your “health” corresponding to it’s on any given day informs fairly a bit about how your bike feels.)
However the Y-Foil is completely different: it’s not a diamond. (Properly, principally. I suppose there’s sort of a diamond in there.) As a substitute, you’re sitting on a beam–and the beam flexes. And in contrast to, say, the rolling diving board that’s a Softride, the flex is sort of refined–adequately subtle that it appears like a standard diamond highway body, till you hit some tough pavement or one thing, at which level you notice you’re the truth is undeniably suspended. It climbs like a standard highway bike, it sprints like a standard highway bike, it does the whole lot else like a standard highway bike, however on the identical time you’re remoted from essentially the most jarring shocks and vibrations. Is the body design more practical than, say, a 32mm tire or a leather-based saddle? Not essentially. Are these a greater means to enhance trip really feel? Virtually definitely. Nonetheless, the actual fact stays: the Y-Foil is certainly laterally stiff but vertically compliant, a high quality that few if any historically designed frames can unequivocally declare to own whatever the elements which can be bolted to them.
Once more, the issue of harsh-riding highway bikes has since been addressed due to wider tires and all the remainder of it, however at a time when something wider than 25mm on a race bike was thought-about unthinkable, the Y-Foil did certainly “enhance” upon the standard racing body by being concurrently extra aerodynamic and extra snug, qualities that have been lengthy thought-about mutually unique. Does that make the Y-Foil a noteworthy success within the context of the period by which it was designed? Or is it the rolling embodiment of how ridiculous it was that everybody insisted on utilizing slender tires always?
I say it’s each, and that we should always snicker at it and respect it.
However sure, earlier than the UCI cracked down on non-traditional body designs on the finish of the Nineteen Nineties, it’s onerous to understand simply how intent body designers have been to remove the seat tube as soon as carbon fiber made it doable to take action. Right here’s one other instance, which a reader jogged my memory of just lately:
The Y-Foil can confound the attention if you’re anticipating to see a diamond body, however on the identical time it’s a design with its personal inside logic, and when you notice it’s not a standard body your mind shortly come to phrases with it. That doesn’t imply you like it essentially, solely that it’s what it’s, which is a bicycle unto itself. The Kestrel nonetheless is mainly a standard body solely with no seat tube, so irrespective of how lengthy you take a look at it your mind desires to place that seat tube again:
Talking of the Kestrel, my time with a 4000 was probably the most vital bicycle relationships in my biking life, and just lately I occurred upon yet one more modern evaluation:
These phrases have been each chilling and prescient:
Granted, the timeline was a bit off–Trek’s top-of-the-line bikes have been full carbon 5 years after the 4000, however most others’ weren’t:
However right here we’re in 2024, and if you happen to head out onto the favored roadie routes in your space you’ll see that the “mantle of progress” (I’m not even certain what which means) has definitely received out:
Although I’d argue that the prognostication concerning metal being relegated to the “nostalgia market” was not borne out. Certain, nostalgia could also be a part of the explanation metal’s nonetheless round, nevertheless it’s principally since you nonetheless can’t beat the mixture of sturdiness, worth, and efficiency:
The large tires give it Y-Foil smoothness, you may put fenders and stuff on it, you may carry a couple of water bottle, and as a bonus the seat tube helps defend you from highway spray. (You don’t need to be out on a motorcycle with out fenders when it’s actually moist exterior, however you don’t need to be out on the Y-Foil when it’s even barely moist in any respect.)
Some go for progress whereas others lament it:
In the meantime, it’s not all deserted Citi Bikes round these elements:
I imply there are a whole lot of them, however the metropolis has additionally added a whole lot of bike lanes, which suggests we will now take a household trip to Little It’ly virtually fully by way of bike lanes and greenways:
In fact I took the Platypus, because it’s my devoted leftovers hauler:
That’s additionally bread from the bakery of the man who wrote an op-ed in opposition to the very bike lanes we used to get there:
I can’t inform if the joke’s on him or us.
Truly, the joke’s on all of the folks sitting in visitors–aside from the ices man, who like us was profiting from the Indian summer time heat fall climate:
I suppose progress is what you make of it.
