• 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.