• Editor’s note: My old pal Hal Walter hasn’t been writing much lately. He’s a busy fellow, with a jackass ranch in Crusty County, a coaching gig in Weirdcliffe, and a kid at college in Shredville. But he dashed off this paean to the humble beater bike the other day and slipped it under my door.
By Hal Walter
Let me just start by saying that writing is just like riding a bike. If you haven’t done it in a while then you might as well embrace the squeaks, rust and scratched paint. Similarly, since I won’t likely be entering the Stone King Rally or even the Leadville Race Series MTB in my final 14 years of average life expectancy, I ride beater bikes.
Or not. My road bike, a 32-year-old Trek 1200, has been hanging in the garage for about 31 years. Because: I live four rugged miles from pavement and Colorado drivers are cray. Aside from the rotted rubber, it’s in mint condition.
My other bikes are off-road contraptions, what I call SUBs (Sport Utility Bikes). They are mostly bikes people have given to me over the years. A vintage Specialized Rockhopper was “gifted,” which certainly is not a verb, by friends when their guide service went belly-up. Also, I have an antique Trek Liquid 30 cross-country deathtrap with deadly brake-lever shifters. The third is a Trek Farley fat bike I actually bought as a demo for $500 — a massive sum for equipment that gets treated like a rock hammer on a college geology field trip.
My bikes ride tailgates on dusty roads (at least on the newer truck, which actually has one) or get tossed into the bed of the beater truck. They get left out in the rain and snow and cosmic rays. When they squeak I hose them down with WD-40. Well, sometimes, anyway. Usually they quit squeaking if you just keep on riding them.
Why do I even have bikes? I use them quite regularly — probably more than most cyclists — for cross-training and recovery exercise. I often ride a bike while coaching high-school cross country athletes or my son who runs college cross and track.
I also use them as transportation in my side hobby of training wild burros for pack-burro racing. I can trailer a burro away from the ranch, run it home. Then I hop on the bike, ride back to my rig, throw it in the bed and drive home. I don’t care how this looks and I often don’t wear a helmet.
A couple weeks ago the fat bike flew out of the bed of the gateless truck on a stretch of washboard. It glanced off the stock trailer I was towing, then cartwheeled into the borrow ditch. I saw this in the rearview mirror and stopped to find that, other than a scuffed handlebar grip, it seemed fine. I rode it at cross-country practice that evening.
I had planned to send that bike to college with my son, so I ended up taking it to a shop to have the frame assessed and for a tune-up: $106 total. Now the thing is like new and standing unlocked in a rack in front of the dorm. Basic transportation for a college kid. I understand they have security cameras in place, and it is at least under a roof.
During my recent travels I stopped at a high-end bike shop to see the wares. I was astounded that these things now cost thousands of dollars. I mean like $4,000 to $10,000. I got the hell out of there at high speed.
I could never own such a bike and it’s not only because I can’t afford the payments. I don’t even want one. Then I would have to take care of it, keep it indoors, worry about people stealing it, etc. This is one borrow ditch I’m steering clear of.
Besides, sooner or later someone will give me a new beater. Somebody has to ride these things.
Mad Blog Media 
Beaters are good to have around. My old Motobecane Mirage worked well as a commuter long after it became pretty obsolete. I finally saw it had a cracked seatpost lug and sold it to an undergrad after I found a Univega Specialissima garage queen at a yard sale in mint condition. Think I paid fifty or so bucks for it. Same when I found a Miyata 310 full of ants for about fifty bucks. They both served as work bikes, getting me to work in Honolulu.
I have to agree on the cost of the new stuff being beyond the reach of so many people around here, which I find rather annoying in a city that claims to want to get away from the Almighty Car. Bicycles have gotten to be the Latest Shiny Expensive Object for consumers rather than riders.
I did buy a new bike as a retirement gift to myself a couple years ago, that Litespeed Gravel to which Nick Legan gave a glowing review in Adventure Cycling. Everything else in the garage is 10-20 yrs old. And Nick was right about that Litespeed. I really do enjoy the damn thing.
I don’t know that I could call any of my bikes “beaters.” Even the comparatively inexpensive ones. Some have lacerations, contusions and abrasions, and/or weird bits like seven-speed cassettes, bar-end friction shifter(s), mismatched cantis, etc.
But I love them all like the unhinged, ugly children I never had.
I think you can still find a functional bike for a G or a little less. But not much less, and maybe just a little more. Marin has the Nicasio Plus and the Four Corners in that general vicinity.
I reviewed a Nicasio in 2018 and a Four Corners Elite in 2016. I wish I’d bought that bad boy.
Damn, your video reviews were good! I haven’t watched one in quite a while. Are you getting big residual checks from them?
Thanks, Paddy me boyo. I enjoyed doing them, despite my shortage of talent, skill, gear, and competent assistants. As one-man bands go, it could’ve been worse. Sometimes it helps to have no idea what the hell is it exactly that you think you’re doing, anyway. …
Or…one can hold onto the bike(s) until they can register to vote. Sachs,Masi, Litespeed….
Shoot, some of my bikes are nearly old enough to run for the presidency. And their only crime was helping a slow old dude impersonate a bicycle racer.
That’s gotta be a misdemeanor, yeah?
Worth a trip to the Group W bench for sure.
Well, a fully suspended Trek with hydraulic disc brakes doesn’t seem like a “beater” bike to me. Everyone has there own definition I guess.
If it’s not a beater when Hal gets it, it will be before long. When the Machines come to rule us all he will be one of the first filthy meat-things to be processed into chain lube.
Meanwhile, here I am putting new Donnelly X’Plor MSO 700×36 rubber (thanks, Donn!), plus a fresh eight-speed KMC chain and 11-34T Shimano cassette, on my old Soma Double Cross. It has a few dings but has yet to be bounced out of the bed of a truck, possibly because I don’t have one anymore.
Fining writing Hal ! Thank you.
I only disagree with you about one thing; even though my fine bicycles are also several dog and cat’s lives old, , they have taking me places for a long enough period, that as in their youth, I will continue to transport them inside a vehicle and house them in comfy garage. Mud, dirt and grime shall not foul them for too many days.
Regarding purchasing a new bike, has anybody out there also been looking at the new BMW motorcycles. At least you can ride across the country a few times on one of them. Nope, I follow your (Hal, Khal and other wise sages) philosophy, that picking up old bikes and refurbishing them (or maybe not in Hal’s case), and riding them is a lot more pleasurable to me. I always have my eye out for those ’80’s and ’90’s bikes that a lot of folks now seem to think that are not suitable.
I amend – the Sachs is older than Vivek and the litespeed is eligible in ‘28…..
Hmm… I see Trek is now dealing in used bikes with their Red Barn launch. I’m only guessing but I’ll bet pricing will still shock me out of my Chaco’s and I was an insider in the bike racket. Yea verily I find the price of cycling products not just astounding but ridiculous. Still, there are some killer bike’s appearing on Craigslist for square deal prices IF you know what you are looking at/for. By god Hal is the real-deal when it comes to cycling. Just ride…..
Here’s one for ya, Herb old scout. Starting from $11,999. Chiiiiiiiiiiihuahua. I love me some Moots but a feller has to draw the line some’eres.
JFC. I paid less than that for my three year old BMW R1200 RS and a quarter of that for more Ti gravel bike than I could justify. I suppose Moots can charge what it wants, and someone will buy it.
Herb, I looked over at The Pro’s Closet recently as I wondered if I could swap the components on my undersize CAAD5 to a bike frame that better fit me, and the stuff there was in the stratosphere as far as prices. Maybe Trek is serious about not wasting old bikes, or maybe it is a marketing gimmick, but at least there is a chance that existing bikes will be recycled to humans at an affordable price instead of sitting in the back of a garage. I hope so, anyway.
K, if you’re still in the market for a new steed, have a look at the framesets from Soma. The Pescadero, which I wanted to review when I was still scribbling for Adventure Cyclist (alas, it was out of stock) is said to be a swell road machine.
I’d have steered you in this direction earlier had I known you were shopping around. They’ve been running a few sales and the deals were pretty spectacular.
Looks like an interesting bike.
I second the SOMA nod Khal. You gave the once over to my Double Cross Disc at the Santa Fe ride. If I was still riding, that bike would still be in the garage.
Testing, one two three
Looks like you’re back on board, matey. Try not to fall overboard again; there’s sharks in them waters, arr.
Now I am back to only being able to comment in the WordPress Reader window.
I too am an old guy with too much month at the end of the money, so I ride a beater bike.
//treated like a rock hammer on a college geology field trip//
pure gold