Frame and Wheel and the rider of the future

Frame and Wheel was out on a ride on Saturday afternoon and caught up with a dedicated local rider on a route that is very pleasant and quiet, but for some reason not frequented by cyclists. Seeing another cyclist on this route was unusual; seeing another cyclist on this route riding the finest bicycle Frame and Wheel has seen so far this year was downright strange. The rider was on a carbon fiber Colnago EPS with Campagnola Bora deep dish carbon tubulars. Frame and Wheel is pretty sure that the components were Campagnola Record or Super Record. The rider, who is fifty-three years old and the CEO of a local start up, was clearly not the sort one is likely to encounter in Central Park on a Saturday morning. The pace picked up and after a few miles of conversation, Frame and Wheel learned that this rider spent a portion of his youth racing bicycles professionally in the 80s. This helped Frame and Wheel understand why he was riding a modern incarnation of a classic racing bicycle.

It was interesting to learn that this rider had obtained the frame in New York from a contact and had it built up at his favorite local bike shop in Maine. He said that the whole process had taken a while, but that he was happy to wait. The rider said that he considered himself a dedicated "Euro" brand buyer and noted that local bike shops did not carry the brands he wanted to buy. Not too surprisingly, the rider remembers the Austro-Daimler brand given that the Team, Ultima and Superleicht were in the market in the 80s. 

Frame and Wheel recognizes that this rider is perhaps the only cyclist in the entire state of Maine (or perhaps New England) with such a refined and classic taste in racing bicycles; it is a stark reminder that the number of people who seek classic brands and obtain their bicycles in this manner are the exception rather than the rule (most consumers are "ride it now" consumers and are happy with the Big Three). Nevertheless, Frame and Wheel believes that as Internet literacy increases, bicycle consumers will change their buying habits even more and this will put pressure on the existing push model of bicycle distribution to change. No independent bike store can carry every brand that the Internet carries, but the one thing the IBS carries that the Internet does not is the mechanic and the community. As Frame and Wheel and this rider parted ways, the rider mentioned that he was bringing his bike to the local bike store for a tune up, convincing Frame and Wheel that this rider is the Rider of the Future, rather than the Rider of the Apocalypse.