Have you been mountain biking for a long time? Or, maybe you were a passionate roadie, CX racer, track sprinter, BMX’er, or randonneur? Whatever passion-driven partitions of the cycling world you’ve belonged to, I have little doubt that you’ve come across the concept of the ‘forever’ bike.
I also have no doubt, you can admit it – this is a safe space, that some of the folks reading this have boldly pronounced some past premium purchase for its foreverness. I’m guilty. My Minuteman died long ago. Bone-Spurs-Brent (BSB) has been riding my custom-painted ’14 Honzo for years. My titanium Kona Explosif? Sold. I still have my Waltworks V1 but only because hardtails are re-purposeful and between my lovely WZRD YGWYGAYDGU rack and 6-speed friction drivetrain it makes an excellent ATB.
{Cover Photo: Hardtail.Life}
Yes, I managed to avoid the curse of claiming any full-suspension bike was ‘the one’ but then, there but for the grace of my love of single-speeding goes I. Good thing that Balfa never made a Beady-Little-Eye-esque version of the super rad Belair or I would have definitely owned one and assumed that I was going to have it forever.
Again, no judgment here. Heck, I know a few folks who never planned to buy a bike beyond their BC-made first-gen Knolly V-Tach {over 20 years ago!} and to be sure, most of them will admit {whether it’s long sold or hangs dusty from a hook in their house} that to this day it’s by far the coolest rig they’ve owned. 26″ wheels and all.
Friday afternoon, I was thinking of all of this on a loop. I was rushing to build up my Banshee Freeride BMX {they call it the Enigma} in the ~1.5hrs I had between Fromme-Friday and leaving to grab The Clairebarian from school to go riding.
Why? Well, Claire’s bike is currently setup single-speed and there was no way I was showing up with shifting on the ArctuHawk whilst she was riding #1FG. I swear, it’s not a dad thing. Ask any of my friends who one-speed. I always ride my #JerryWillowsHatesMyBike bike if I know someone else is going to be joining the ride with one cog.
But why was I rushing to build up the Enigma? Thinking about how I was going to get a new chain guide for it. Going back in forth in my mind about how fun the super-short chainstays are vs. the stability of my truculent V2 when trails are steep and chunky. Lowkey wishing that the Banshee cleared my 27×3″ Ground Control tire rather than a 2.6″.
You probably already guessed it, but in case you didn’t, my Waltworks(x)WZRD V2 died Friday morning. Not catastrophically. Like every well-built metal frame I’ve had fail, it provided a fair warning. The click of death as I called it when the top tube cracked on my ’13 Honzo. In this case, the head tube served notice to the top tube but I caught it before the separation actually occurred.
I’ve talked to a couple of folks about replacing the top tube. Everyone said it’s a front triangle. But then the V2 has hundreds upon hundreds of hard-life hardtail hours and it’s a big investment to then Theseus my way through a cracked chain stay, or seat stay, or drop-out weld, etc.
So this is a strange goodbye to the longest, slackest, meanest rigid bike I’ve seen. Strange because my V1 continues on and will likely outlive me with its current ATB use case. Strange because my V2 is so identifiably mine. I’m certain the Walt(x)WZRD will continue to show up here. I mean, the piece for today that I bumped to next Monday will make certain of it.
Riding {my} Steve’s ruined 1981 Talbot to my first aid course on Sunday I was struck by the fact that, never mind the first four decades of its life, I’ll likely ride it for longer than my V2 lived.
“Will there be a V3?” asked everyone upon learning of my beloved bicycle’s demise. For now, no. Maybe not ever. I’m back to playing with ISCG tensioners and you have to admit the massively formed aluminum top and down tubes on the FRBMX make for a significant amount of weld surface for that headtube.
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