Gotten Too Slow

"I think I need a new bike, mine's gotten too slow."

It is not me who said that, it was the mrs. who informed me that some sort of backwards physics logic thing was affecting her road bike. I mean bikes can't really get slower over the years, right? Or can they? Technically, and in practice, they can get slower. Bearings will wear and chains will get gunked up with that tacky mixture of dust and old lube. Either of those, singly or combined, will cause a bike to get slower independent of the rider. Both of those can be easily ameliorated with regular maintenance, and since the mrs. has the mr. to give her chain a new coat of lube every few months or so, I knew right away what she was really talking about. 

She can't fool me. At least not again. And certainly not about this.

So, after laughing outright at her suggestion and recommending she re-examine the problem to find a more satisfactory solution, I tried steering her toward a more economically feasible answer: "Bikes don't get slow, people do" I said. "Maybe more miles, more riding would help" I said.

It had been another long day at work, but the boss man had invited us out for beers at a local brewery, and things were looking pretty good. I was confident that I had dodged that bike bullet and sat down to relax. 

It was while in that slumped down, completely relaxed, position on the couch (we need a new one) that another thought entered my mind: What can happen, of course, is that we can grow beyond the ability of our current bikes, they can hold us back and thus seem to be getting slower. What if, while out on her group rides, she takes a notice of all those nice new bikes people have. And what if, as her miles increase, she realizes that her bike is the oldest in the house, and so deserves to be next in line for a new one. Maybe I didn't think this through. Maybe I just backed myself into a corner.

Maybe now is not the time to mention that my mountain bike has been running a bit slow lately.