Singlespeed, religion and identity

On this date in 2009, I got my first cyclocross bike, a Trek X01. Over the next 2 years, I broke the derailleur (the gear-shifting gadget on the back wheel), the seat, the rear wheel, another derailleur, and the frame. With a new frame and new wheels, over the next 2 years, I wore through the front wheel, totaled another derailleur, broke the right shifter, and finally crashed the derailleur into the spokes, taking out both derailleur and back wheel. I replaced the wheel but swore off gears - I converted to singlespeed.

Singlespeed is what it sounds like - one (1) gear. On a hill, you pedal harder; on a straightaway, you pedal faster. When your legs tell you "it's too hard", you can't shift to an easier gear, you just say "shut up, legs".  When you're clipped into the pedals of a single-speed, you and the bike are primally connected like some kind of cyclo-centaur: half-bike, half-man. The mythical beast image helps going uphill - you can't rely on gears to ease the pain, you have to charge like a bull and use every fiber of your being to get to the top. But going downhill, you pedal like a half-clown, half-tricycle.

Singlespeed has been compared to a religion. Not as has been suggested, an Amish-like renunciation of gears, but a kind of cult with sacraments, vestments and rites. Beer is its sacrament, gorilla suits are its vestments, and climbing hills in a single gear is its rite of self-flagellation. Of course, if you pass someone on the hill, it's a rite of passage.

Back to the bike - after all those changes, is this the same bike? A person's identity is determined by continuity of consciousness. Descartes famously said "I think, therefore I am", but sadly, he is no longer with us because when a bartender offered him a drink, he said "I think not". 

What determines a bike's identity?

Everything has a line where identity breaks down. Those '50s groups like the Drifters are still at it even though the original members are dead, but the Beatles could never be the Beatles after John Lennon was gone. The line is somewhere between Queen with Adam Lambert instead of Freddy Mercury, and Genesis with Phil Collins instead of Peter Gabriel.

A bike's identity is where your own identity meets the bike. The three places where you connect to the bike are: pedals, seat and handlebars. A school of thought says the seat is the most intimate contact, but(t) this is not where my identity is centered. I contend that the handlebars are the Line of Identity - in the drone video, they're the first thing you see. They are where I steer and brake (and used to shift). I can change the frame, the wheels or add a Mary Poppins basket, but until I destroy the handlebars, it's the same bike. The Line of Identity is so decreed.

Destroying the handlebars could happen this weekend - I am entered in two singlespeed races at the Sly Fox Brewery, 3:30 and 4:20, Sunday, November 8th, 331 Circle of Progress Drive, POTTSTOWN, PA  19464.  I have no gorilla suit, but I do plan an alternate identity, if I can finish my Spock costume.