In the middle of the journey of my life, I am--as always--a woman on a bike. Although I do not know where this road will lead, the way is not lost, for I have arrived here. And I am on my bicycle, again.
Yesterday, dear reader, I subjected you to another one of my "I remember when" posts. If I do say so myself, I suspect some of you may have liked it, as the thing I was remembering is the sort of bike that's, sadly, not made anymore. Today's post will also begin with "I remember when". What am I recalling from the good ol' days? Listening to a song with the lyric "all of the colors of black" with rainbows of polyester all around me? Hearing Bruce Springsteen before the rest of the world would hear of him? (Yes, I did!) Seeing Michael Jackson when he was still black? No, I'll tell you about something that, if you're not of a certain age, you will find truly incredible. No, I'm not talking about a time when the Rolling Stones and Joni Mitchell were actually worth listening to. (Believe me: There was such a time!) I'm also not talking about the Knicks winning the NBA Championship. (Yo lo vi, I swear!) Instead, I'm about to tell you something you may find even more unbelievable. But I swear it's true. Here goes: Saturday Night Live was once actually worth watching. In fact, it was the funniest, and simply the best, program on TV for a time. Really, it was. In those days, it offered skits like this: It's a dessert topping. No, it's a floor wax. Dan Ackyroyd, Gilda Radner and Chevy Chase were parodying all of those products hawked on late-night TV that try to serve disparate functions. Can you imagine what the original SNL cast would have done with smart phones when they first came out? Now, I'm not against products that can perform more than one function or task. But just about every product has at least one thing it should never, ever be made to do. As an example, I don't see how any device could be a juicer and a deep fryer at the same time. At least, I don't think I'd want to eat or drink anything that came from such a device. I have seen bicycles used to generate power for hair dryers and laptops, or spin grinding stones used to sharpen knives and cut keys. I have even seen them used as amphibious vehicles. I don't mind such uses; in fact, I applaud them. But I don't think I like this: If the bars and stem can flex enough to double as a gym machine for upper-body workouts, I'm not sure I'd want to ride them. And, really, you have to wonder just how good of a workout someone would get---whether in the upper body or legs--from the Revolution.
You know the '80's were, like, totally, about big hair and leg warmers. Yeah, totally. And neon. Neon, totally. The '80's were just awesome! All right. I didn't talk like that in the '80's. Even though I was, like, young enough. That is the '80's everybody seems to remember. Or, at least, that's the stereotype of the decade. You had to love it, though. In what other decade could The Cosby Show and Miami Vice have made their debuts during the same week? Those '80's really began, I think, around 1984. Before then, during the early part of the decade, the '70's were hanging on: Men were wearing ridiculous moustaches and even more ridiculous sport coats and ties, and young women could be seen in butterscotch-colored leather jackets and boots. But leisure suits were gone--thankfully!--along with men getting perms. And--something else for which I'm thankful--some very, very tasteful and functional bikes were being made. In 1983, while I was working at Highland Park Cyclery (before I embarked on life as a New York City messenger), it seemed that every bike manufacturer--at least the ones whose bikes I assembled and we sold--offered at least one model in charcoal gray with red highlights--whether the decals or transfers, head tube, seat tube panels or bands, or some combination thereof. The red really was a highlight: It accented the understated nature of the gray finish rather than called attention to itself, as the red-white-and-black blocks and and bands on every other new bike sold today seem to do. That year, I assembled bikes from Panasonic, Motobecane, Trek, Miyata, Peugeot and Ross--the latter's "Signature" series as well as their cheaper bikes. I saw red and gray in every one of those brands' gray bikes. But I didn't get tired of it: Those bikes all seemed tastefully finished, especially this one:
The 1983 Miyata 310 was--is-- a very nice bike. I think they, along with Panasonic, made some of the best mass-market bikes I've ever seen. Their lugwork was on par with all but the small builders. Their component choices always seemed to be made with function and value in mind: lower- and mid-priced alloy parts from Shimano, SunTour, Dia Compe, Sugino, KKT, MKS and the like. And, of course, SR Laprade seatposts.
It seemed that every bike and component maker had a product or line called "signature". I know, it was a marketing gimmick, but it was pretty inoffensive, I think, compared to some that I've seen since.
Shmano made derailleurs with the "arrow" you see. This version, as far as I know, was made only for the Miyata 310 and a couple of other manufacturers' models: The derailleur was usually finished in silver and the arrow was gold-toned. Shimano didn't call them "arrow"; they just had some boring numerical designation. Nobody--not even the Shimano sales rep who came to our shop--seemed to know what, if anything, the arrow meant. Sarcasm aside, seeing the bike reminded me--in good ways--of what bikes used to be: nice lugged frames and components that had real functionality. Today you have to go to small builders like Mercian or Royal H to get new bikes like them. I wish that Miyata weren't locked up behind a fence: I would've liked to have taken better photos. I hope that I still managed to give you a taste of what people could buy off a showroom floor in the moment before reason and taste vacated much of the bike industry. Note: There's one thing I don't like about the 310: the shift levers. But they're forgivable on a bike that has so much else going for it!
