Today, I rode. I just rode.

I rode a bike with round tubes. It was carbon, but, old-school carbon. Yes there is such a thing. Tube to tube construction; common composites. In a lab test of stiffness, it would get crushed. If I took it to the A2 windtunnel, it would be so far north on the drag chart I’d need to zoom out to find it.

It had 50mm deep carbon wheels, but inexpensive ones. Narrow V-shaped rims. Nothing wide or blunt about them, like the new wheels I’m told are so much faster than everything else.

Vittoria EVO CX tubulars, even though I’ve seen tests that show they’re less aerodynamic than a Conti GP4000. Inflated to the minimum pressure printed on the hot patch. Because I didn’t want to think about what the ideal pressure might be.

I did not wear my Giro Air Attack. I did not wear my Castelli Aero Race shoe covers. I did not wear my shoes with three Velcro straps, even though an aerodynamics expert told me shoes with mechanical closures are slower.

Look Keo Max pedals: not the Aero Blade version which supposedly saves 5 watts or something. Not Speedplays which I’ve been told are more aerodynamic than other pedals.

I wore my Kapelmuur Independant kit. Because it is comfortable and I like the way it looks and I’m proud to be part of this club.

I had one Vittoria Pitstop, my iPhone and two dollars in my pocket.

Without a Garmin. No heart rate strap. No power meter. The iPhone was running Strava, but it was out of sight in my pocket.

The saddle feels slightly nose down. I obsess about it for a moment. I did not bring a tool. Should I go back home? Should I divert over to the San Juan Cycles and borrow a tool? Nah. I’m just going to ride.

I turn onto Florida - floor-ee-dah in these parts - Road towards the Edgemont climb. Past the stoplight the Strava segment begins. 3 miles; 4.6% average grade; 739 feet of gain.

I wanted to ride my anger and frustration away, so I pushed. I would listen to my body and push as hard as I could. If I broke before the top of the hill, so be it. But I wanted to push.

At Whippoorwill Drive I am breathing heavily. At Ute Pass Road, the sweat had overwhelmed my helmet pads and began to trickle down my face. As the ‘Welcome to Edgemont Ranch’ sign slides into view, it gets steeper. I bury myself. My legs began to tingle and my jaw began to ache.

I did not know my wattage, but the weight of the effort in legs tells me I am pushing hard.

I do not know how fast I am going, but I am deep in my cassette and spinning, so I know it is pretty fast.

I do know what my heart rate is, but it feels like a coconut is trying to pass though my chest, so I know it is high.

Out of instinct, I look down where my Garmin would usually be, wanting the display of watts and heart rate and speed and cadence to confirm that I was working hard. I wanted it to tell me that I was red lined and that what I was doing was a very bad idea and that, if I was smart, I would back off. Instead there is only handlebar and stem; a rotating tire; a shadow bobbing on the tarmac.

I pedal ugly. Jerking and bobbing; fucking the bike. No panache. I see the top. I lose track of everything. It’s only when I feel the weight lift that I know I’m there. My body relaxes, my focus returns. I think I was fast today, but there is nothing to confirm it. No times, no averages. All I know is that pushed as hard as I could. Almost.

From the top of Edgemont, I lollipop. I ride fast on dirt. I sprint up some hills. Everything by feel and only what feels right and satisfying.

It’s warm today. I unzip my jersey all the way, ignoring every aerodynamic expert who has told me that loose and wrinkled clothing devours watts. The wind picks up and drops the jersey playfully. I like the way it feels. The warm spring air feels good on my chest. I love being released from the tightness of the race-fit jersey.

I get home, tap ‘finish’ on the Strava app and open the garage door. As it lifts, I look at the Cervelo S5 VWD with Zipp 303s and Quarq powermeter. That’s the fast bike, I think. Everything I’ve ever been told tells me that is the fast bike. Today wasn’t about fast, tough.

Or so I thought.

I look at the ride on Strava and find a PR on the Edgemont climb, one KOM and a overall 9th fastest time. I was over a minute faster than my previous PR on the Edgemont climb. A PR I had set on the Cervelo S5 with the 303s. Over a minute faster on a bike that, comparatively, is a brick.

I do admire all the hard work companies put into advancing and differentiating their products. Does it make a difference? Yes. Does it matter? That is a question I can’t answer.

They’re chasing shadows, carving away ever-diminishing returns, with less and less daylight between one product and another. They’re using computers and software and lab testing to design and “prove” their products in highly controlled circumstances when we all use it in the incredibly variable, random and unpredictable real world.

Could I have been even faster up the Edgemont segment with an S5 VWD, Zipp 404’s, Conti GP4000s tires, Speedplay pedals, three-strap shoes, a Giro Air Attack, Castelli Aero Race shoe covers and San Remo suit? I’d say probably. Could using a powermeter, heart rate monitor and Garmin to precisely monitor my effort have helped me eke out every bit of speed? Also probably.

But it doesn’t matter to me. Today I was faster than I’ve ever been before on a slow bike. I did so many things wrong, and still I was faster. I was faster because I lost 15 pounds and I’ve been riding more. I was faster because I was angry and stubborn and I didn’t know anything other than what my body told me. I was faster because I just rode and I loved it.

I’ve been in a lot of conversations lately about what makes an ‘X’ bike an ‘X’ bike. Mostly, the conversations revolve around “new” categories like enduro and gravel road. The newness of a category begets a lot of experimentation and interpretation, which makes defining the equipment tough. But there are larger problems that plague defining even mature categories.

Rides and riders define the “right” equipment on regional and personal basis.

A lot of the dirt roads around where I live in Durango, Colorado can be comfortably ridden on a road bike - race or classics style. With 25mm tires I’m set. I hear something similar from my colleagues in Emmaus, PA. 

But, the dirt roads in, say, Iowa, might be much different. If I showed up on my Wilier Zero.7 with 25s, which I can ride for hours on the dirt roads around me, I might not make it one mile in Iowa.

Cyclocross bikes seem like an obvious choice for gravel road riding, and are used a lot for gravel events. And they might be the right equipment, but, again, it depends on the ride and the rider.

Salsa’s Warbird is specifically designed for gravel road racing. I recently asked them what made the Warbird different than a cyclocross bike. 

The following was pulled from my email chain with Salsa’s Sean Mailen, the Warbird’s engineer:

“-Considering that some events such as Trans-Iowa and the Dirty Kanza get above 200 miles in length you want a geometry that is stable and smooth rather than something that is quicker such as a cyclocross bike.  The Warbird has a slightly slacker headtube angle and longer wheelbase that provides the rider with more confidence in descending loose, marble-y gravel roads.  A lot of race promoters like to find the steepest gravel descents they can, and some washout is always a plus!

- Today’s cyclocross bikes have a big focus on power transfer, which can make the back ends pretty stiff.  The Warbird uses the flattened seatstays and some other tube manipulation to focus more on smoothing out the constant vibration of rough gravel roads and less on power transfer. 

- Also as Mike mentioned mud clearance is a must and the ability to shed corn husk laden Iowa B-road mud can be a huge advantage if you are able to keep the wheels turning.  This is the same reason the Warbird has all top tube full-housing cable routing, a top pull front derailleur, and no chainstay brace.  We wanted to avoid any places for mud to build up onto the frame.”

There are huge differences between my dirt riding and the riding the Warbird was designed for, even though they might both be lumped under gravel grinding. I’m not riding 200 miles on mostly dirt, my roads aren’t loose and marble-y, and it’s very dry around here, so I don’t need to worry about mud clearance. 

Of course, there’s Tom Ritchey’s opinion, “I thought all road bikes were gravel bikes?”

I’ve also had a couple of Twitter fights with people about the definition of an enduro bike. Ash from TransProvence thinks a dropper post and chainguide are required if a bike is to be called an enduro bike. And, based on his event, he’s probably right.

But, I’m not so sure that the enduro bike that’s right for the Maritime Alps would be required for an enduro in Rhode Island. 

The rider plays a role in defining equipment as well: the equipment Mark Weir requires for an enduro competition isn’t the same as the equipment I require. He’s riding faster and harder; hitting lines I can’t or won’t. That fact changes the equipment that’s “right” for each of us, even though we’re on the same course. 

Financial considerations play a role in the definition of “right” also. There’s no question that you can find equipment that’s finely tuned for a specific purpose. The downside of specific equipment is a loss of versatility. The downside of versatile equipment is it is not “perfect” for a specific situation. The scalpel or Swiss Army conundrum. 

With tons of money, a person can buy a fleet of bikes each designed for a specific purpose. But, if your budget doesn’t allow such a luxury, you need to start sacrificing purpose-built performance for general-purpose versatility. 

Or, you buy a bike for what you love to do most and just deal when using it for other stuff. If you’re doing only one gravel race per year, you can probably put up with a Specialized Secteur Expert Disc’s 61mm of trail (size 54 w/30mm tire) or a Crux’s 67mm trail (size 54 w/30mm tire) even though the Warbird’s 78mm or trail (size 53 w/30mm tire) might be more ideal. A 29er mountain bike makes a pretty decent gravel road bike with just a tire swap. 

If you’re out there and doing it, nobody has the right to say you’re on the wrong bike. 

The world is a big place and every rider is unique. That’s why there is so much different gear and so many different definitions of what an “X” bike is. The only opinion that matters is your own. 

Back in the December 2012 issue of Bicycling, I reviewed a Kent Eriksen custom titanium road bike. In the review, I say that the Eriksen was stiff (which I asked for), but, didn’t have the damped titanium ride I desired. 

I don’t know if this came across strongly enough in the review, but, Eriksen built me exactly the bike I asked for. During our pre-build conversations, Kent gave me two choices: a smaller diameter tubeset, or, a larger diameter tubeset. The smaller tubes would be smoother but less stiff, the larger tubes would be stiffer, but less smooth, he said. 

I want to make this part very clear: Kent was very upfront that the larger tubes would definitely make my bike less smooth, and the resulting ride might be less compliant than I desired.

But, when he brought up the smaller diameter, less stiff, tubeset, I kept flashing to my memory of watching a former Litespeed employee wrestling with his flopping Ghisallo as we descended Pacific Coast Highway at 40mph towards Carmel Valley 

Give me the stiff tubeset, I said. 

The bike rode almost exactly like Kent had described. Stiff: oh yes; compliant: not so much. I was disappointed because I was really looking forward to an amazing titanium bike, and, I felt like a total asshole for not listening to Kent. He knows his craft; he is the expert in titanium, and yet I thought I knew better. 

I didn’t have a tremendous amount of time to tinker with the Eriksen before the review deadline. I tried some Schwalbe 28mm tires; I did a short ride with my reference wheels. Both helped, but, the bike still didn’t feel right. 

I didn’t give up on the Eriksen, though. One of the fascinating, and frustrating, things about bikes is the way all the parts interact with each other. Sometimes a frame can be totally transformed with just a few parts swaps. There’s little consistency: I’ve found frames that feel completely transformed by one wheelset, but, with any other wheelset, feel like dogs. And, that same wheelset that so transformed that one frame, it feels just ‘meh’ on many other frames.

Seatposts, saddles, handlebars, stems, bar tape, wheels, tires and even tubes: every individual part influences how a bike feels. I’ve found the same frame can take on a different character with a Campy drivetrain than it had with a SRAM drivetrain. 

This past week, I came across a parts combo that made the Eriksen almost right. I had been through several wheelsets, many tires (and a variety of widths), several saddles, and even a few different handlebar tapes. The winning combination was: Zipp 303 Firecrest Carbon Clincher wheels; Challenge Criterium 23mm tires (with Challenge latex tubes); a Ritchey WCS Carbon FlexLogic seatpost; a Fizik “original” Arione saddle; and Fizik Superlight 2mm bar tape. 

One of the biggest surprises was the tires and tire pressure. After a trying a variety of 25s to 28s and pushing pressures down to the low 80s, it was narrower tires and pressures in the mid 90s that felt best. I’ve nearly given up trying to explain this kind of stuff: bikes are mysterious and what feels “right” is often counterintuitive.

With these parts, the Eriksen became more forgiving in and out of the saddle; was less chattery in turns; and took on a new character that was somewhere between a really fast aluminum bike and a really smooth steel bike. It finally felt like it settled into the road, when before it felt like it was fighting the tarmac. The quickness was still there, but, the bike was better. 

I’m not going to call it my perfect titanium bike. It is still firmer ride, particularly the front end (the Eriksen has a 1.125/1.5” tapered steerer fork. In my experience, bikes with 1.5” lower-fork-steerer diameters tend to ride more firmly up front), and, overall, the feel is a touch closer to my ideal aluminum bike than my ideal titanium bike. But, the Eriksen is transformed and instead of disappointment, I now look at it and see beauty, speed, and something that wasn’t there before: a bike that floats and flows.