What could be more attractive than a ribbon of road blending into the fall foliage?
And what’s more disgusting than the sight of a weird motorcycle from the late 90s?
But here’s the thing about bikes: if you really like riding them, eventually they all win you over. (Okay, no allbut above all. Or several. Or a lot of them.) For years I derided the Y-Foil, a wildly silly bike that was the very antithesis of the classic materials and silhouettes I hold sacred. But you know what? I really like riding it! There, I said it. See, here’s the thing about Y-Foil: You know that phrase, the five most clichéd words in the entire cycle?
Laterally rigid Vertically compliant
Since the dawn of time, bike reviews have told us that this or that material has magical qualities that can make a bike stiff laterally while remaining soft vertically. “Crabon filters high frequency vibrations.” “Titanium has a springy ride quality.” “There’s nothing like the magic carpet ride of classic steel.” And so on – none of them really stand up to scrutiny, since no matter what the bike is made of, you’re simply sitting atop a stiff diamond. Yes, some bikes are undeniably smoother than others, but you never know if it’s the material, or the geometry, or the seat post, or the saddle, or the tires, or just how you feel that way. that day. (I’ve absolutely found a bike to be sublimely comfortable one day and borderline painful the next – your “fitness” as it is on any given day says a lot about how your bike feels.)
But the Y-Foil is different: it’s not a diamond. (Well, mostly. I guess there’s some sort of diamond in there.) Instead, you’re sitting on a beam – and the beam is flexing. And unlike, say, the rolling dip board which is a smooth ride, the flex is quite subtle – subtle enough to feel like a normal diamond road frame, until you hit a rough curb or something, at which point you realize that you are in fact undeniably suspended. It climbs like a normal road bike, it sprints like a normal road bike, it does everything else like a normal road bike, but at the same time you are isolated from the harshest shocks and vibrations. Is the frame design more efficient than, say, a 32mm tire or a leather saddle? Not necessarily. Is this a better way to improve driving sensations? Almost certainly. Yet the fact remains: Y-Foil is indeed laterally stiff but vertically compliant, a quality that few, if any, traditionally designed frames can unequivocally claim to possess, regardless of what parts are bolted to it.
Again, the problem of tough road bikes has since been solved thanks to wider tires and everything else, but at a time when anything wider than 25mm on a racing bike was considered unthinkable, The Y-Foil has effectively “improved” on the traditional racing frame by being both more aerodynamic and more comfortable, qualities that have long been considered mutually exclusive. Does this make the Y-Foil a notable achievement in the context of the era in which it was designed? Or is it the epitome of ridiculousness that everyone insists on using narrow tires at all times?
I say it’s both, and we should laugh about it And appreciate it.
But yes, before the UCI took on non-traditional frame designs in the late 1990s, it’s hard to appreciate how intent frame designers were on eliminating the seat tube a time that carbon fiber made it possible to do so. Here’s another example, which a reader reminded me of recently:
The Y-Foil can confuse the eye when you’re expecting to see a diamond setting, but at the same time it’s a design with its own internal logic, and once you realize it’s not of a traditional frame, your brain quickly accepts it. . This doesn’t mean that you as necessarily, only that it is what it is, that is to say a bicycle in itself. However, the Kestrel is basically a traditional frame without a seat tube, so no matter how long you stare at it, your brain wants to put that seat tube back in place:
Speaking of the Kestrel, my time with a 4000 was one of the most important cycling relationships of my cycling life, and recently I came across another contemporary review:
These words were both frightening and prescient:
Granted, the timing was a bit off: Trek’s high-end bikes were all carbon five years after the 4000, but most others weren’t:
But here we are in 2024, and if you head down popular driving routes in your area, you’ll see that the “cloak of progress” (I’m not even sure what that means) has certainly won out:
However, I would argue that predictions that steel would be relegated to the “nostalgia market” have not been borne out. Sure, nostalgia may be part of the reason steel is still around, but it’s mainly because the combination of durability, price, and performance is still unbeatable:
The wide tires give it the smoothness of Y-Foil, you can fit fenders and stuff in it, you can carry more than one water bottle, and as an added bonus, the seat tube helps protect you from road spray. road. (You don’t want to be on a bike without mudguards when it’s very wet outside, but you definitely don’t want to be on the Y-Foil when it’s even slightly wet.)
Some opt for progress while others deplore it:
In the meantime, it’s not just abandoned Citi Bikes in these areas:
I mean, there’s a lot, but the city also added a lot of bike lanes, which means we can now take a family ride to Little It’ly almost entirely via bike lanes and greenways :
Of course, I took the Platypus, because it’s my dedicated leftovers hauler:
It’s also the bread from the bakery of the guy who wrote an article against the cycle paths we used to get there:
I can’t tell if the joke is on him or on us.
In fact, the joke is aimed at everyone sitting in traffic except the ice cream guy, who, like us, was enjoying most of the traffic. Indian summer warm autumn weather:
I guess progress is what you make it.