Hugh Trenchard

Now having considered a couple of scenarios itemized in the first installment of this short series, we can move to consideration of others.

As a brief refresher, recall that in the first installment, one scenario involved training in January, a time of year when it is well known to rain in spades almost continuously on the west coast; a time when there is no racing and it is arguably not particularly onerous to ride with fenders that can be installed for the long term without any reason to alternate between taking them off, if it happens to be dry, and putting them back on if it is raining. In other words, the time and hassle and the general temptation to use a hammer to straighten the fender housing, and the litany of curses that generally accompany fender installation – these need only happen once.

But now let’s imagine that it is late March and the first race of the racing season has taken place just last week. There is no race this weekend, but the local hard-butts have gathered for a training ride and, as might be predicted, it is sprinkling lightly. Everyone dutifully sports their fenders with mudflaps.

There is general chuckling and chatter in the air about the spring racing series among the local bike racers: who was displaying good form at the first race of the year? Who is peaking too early and will be flat as a pancake in June? There is more chuckling. That sort of thing. No one, though, discusses the absence of fenders during the race – they are simply not used during races, rain or no rain.

Now recall from Part I that the riders departed without Fenderless Joe, who, unbeknownst to the group latched on later, somewhere along the way. So has this occurred again.

Your good strong pull is over and you decelerate along the paceline, collecting your well-deserved brownie points as you go, which come in the form of hard-breathing and the general look of suffering on those behind you, a few cordial back slaps and breathy congrats on your good pull.

Glowing, but glad to be heading to the back for shelter, you arrive at the rear and, much to your dismay, you realize that Fenderless Joe is present again. Momentarily it sticks in your craw that he’s not breathing very hard. But he is a human being after all, and so you say “hey”, and seeing the space he leaves for you, you move to occupy it. Just then you hear him mutter something apologetically about having removed his fenders before the first race – which you are quite aware that he did not win because you would have remembered this, and actually recognize him only because you saw him at a ride in January without fenders – and that it’s now racing season.

You can barely believe your ears. Was it not enough to extend greetings to him, and now you must respond to his inane utterances? During a moment of stunned silence, you stare at Fenderless Joe from under your currently clear Oakleys with contempt and disbelief. Uncertain whether it is beneath your dignity even to respond, eventually you say, in a sort of Schwarzenegger monotone: “most people have two bikes.” Then you rise quickly from your saddle for two or three rapid forward thrusts on your pedals to ensure that you are riding ahead of him.

Now Fenderless Joe is in a quandary. Unlike you, Fenderless Joe does not have a winter bike permanently set up with fenders, and a racing bike (actually you have a time-trial bike too, but that is needless detail). Fenderless Joe has only one bike. It is multi-purpose and he uses it for both winter training and for racing, sometimes a little off-road and the odd commute to work and back. Ordinarily he doesn’t use it much during the winter, training mostly indoors or running or some such.

And so the questions arise: is Fenderless Joe obligated to have two bikes, a racing bike and a winter bike? If so, how does this obligation arise, particularly when Fenderless Joe does not train much outdoors in the winter? If he uses only one bike, should he be expected to put his fenders back on before a training ride after racing season has started?

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 16th, 2009 at 11:51 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.