It’s a warm summer day, and I’m out in the busy parking lot for the third time in thirty minutes, trying to SBW* some early-generation Shimano Rapidfire shifters into driving a fresh-enough chain up-and-down some okay-ish stamped steel cogs & rings of a 3×7 varietal. We’re talking ST-M520, EXAGE ES, for any spanner spinner, ‘HEXerter’, trying to fully flesh out a picture of the situation. It’s one of those works-surprisingly-well-enough-in-the-stand-does-not-work-in-real-life situations; yes, fresh cable and housing are already in the game.
So, I’m spinning around, micro-adjusting the cable tension and trying to will the slightly-sloppy shifters and lightly-rusted derailleurs to obey my commands, working my brain to remember this quote from the old-old Mighty Riders website**:
“We consider it an embarrassment to be defeated by bits of metal, plastic, and rubber, so we work hard to solve whatever problem you’ve got with your bike.”
Suddenly, whether down to a couple of quarter-turns of the barrel adjusters or the stream of Rust-Off that I hit the derailleur pivots with, and with no EXAGEration, the whole system is shifting with as-new mediocrity. Meh, it was never great to begin with. We’re talking about the final iteration of a short-lived, budget-focused, but full-featured groupset from ’93 that was promptly replaced in ’94 by the significantly better STX family.
*{Shit Bike Wizard}
**{It’s from a long time back, but according to me, in 2020’s A Suicide Shifter Story, it’s accurate. Hahaha}
{Photo: MEATengines}
With a smile on my face and a small fist-shake-of-satisfaction I turn back toward the service door, prepared to celebrate my victory over time, neglect, the elements, when a tiny, but loud, voice cuts through the calamitous clangor of the car park. It ruptures the rattle of the diesel RAM that has been idling right outside the shop for fifteen minutes. It busts up the back-and-forth of car horns at a nearby ‘No Left Turn’ that a panoply of people ignore. Without being too over-the-top dramatic, slashing, it acutely assails my very soul.
There’s nowhere to hide. My mechanic’s livery and the fact that I’m riding a bike two sizes too small for me clearly place me as an employee on a test ride. Having garnered no response from their parent, the voice rings out on repeat, crisp and clear, and slightly louder:
“Dad, dad, dad, dad, dad! That Guy’s Not Wearing A Helmet! No helmet, dad! He has NO helmet.“
Sure enough, though I’ll boldly claim as a minor defence that I was sporting a pot for at least my first lap, and maybe my second, my only protection from the distractedly orbiting jalopies was my thick skull and proudly protruding sniffer. Not the smartest play; not the best example.
‘Dad’ looked at me with more exasperation than judgement. And, though I could not hear him reply to his grom, I could imagine it word for word. I remember being in the car once when a tiny Clairebarian, practically forced to wear her helmet even when looking at her bicycle, saw Model-T pedaling by with one arm in a sling and his Cipollini-esque coif cutting the wind. “Papa! That’s Terry Walker And He Has No Helmet!“
I didn’t shirk. I look at ‘Dad’ and mouth ‘I’m Sorry‘ and then pedal back to the shop. Any joy I was feeling over the chain crunching through twenty-one cruddy clicks evaporated. Oof. That was my last test ride without a lid.
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