{"id":262547,"date":"2026-09-14T11:41:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T11:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/14\/the-spirit-of-meh\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T11:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T11:41:08","slug":"the-spirit-of-meh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/14\/the-spirit-of-meh\/","title":{"rendered":"The Spirit Of Meh"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

All this talk of Meh-roica bikes last week<\/a> compelled me to head out on one this past Friday as soon as I concluded my broadcast day:<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

This in turn finally compelled me to do a little more primping:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

After acquiring this bike very inexpensively last April<\/a>, I pledged to spend absolutely no money on it, and so far I\u2019ve been successful\u2026with one (well, technically two) exception(s)<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Ironically, those things cost almost 25% of what I paid for the entire bike. However, they still only cost about what you\u2019d pay for lunch for two at Chipotle, and they were well worth it to salvage what was otherwise a perfectly good pair of wheels. Furthermore, with this latest round of improvements, I still<\/em> haven\u2019t spent any money. Well, at least not directly.<\/p>\n

Oh, speaking of money, the resurrection of my archives<\/a> last week also prompted me to go back in time to the mid-aughts and find Chris Huber\u2019s price list:<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Wow\u2013and keep in mind that\u2019s mid-aughts money. Factor in the inflation and that\u2019s like twenty million American Fun tickets\u2122 for an aluminum frame.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what did you do to the bike?,\u201d you\u2019re now not asking, because who the hell cares about a stupid Craigslist bike except me. Well, having addressed all the most serious deficiencies, what it now needed most urgently was new bar tape and new hoods:<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Fortunately, having recently engaged in some shady backroom deals during which no actual money changed hands, I had both, and so on they went:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Less crucial in terms of functionality and ride comfort but nearly as bothersome psychologically was the absence of the little o-ring thingy on the rear brake adjuster:<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Well, I now had that too, thanks to a surprise package:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

So I took care of that, and while I was at it I also put the original brake pad holders on there because I finally found my stash of Campagnolo brake pads:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Then there were the tires that came with the bike, which I\u2019d kept on there in the name of frugality, even though you can see they\u2019re sort of starting to come apart:<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

So I put on a pair of 23mm tires I\u2019d been saving, nearly breaking my thumbs in the process because holy crap those rims are a tight fit:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

By the way, nobody has asked, but yes, there will be a tire width limit for the Meh-roica Ride<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n
\"Poster
[This flyer is 100% AI slop and therefore at least 45% inaccurate.]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Simply put, tires wider than 25mm will not be permitted. Arguably this is unnecessary, since many Meh-roica compliant bikes can\u2019t go wider than that anyway. But the point here is to preserve the integrity of the event at all costs, which more than anything else is about telling GRVL to go FCK TSLF. Seriously, it\u2019s enough with the Very Small Rocks already. Plus, we all know how it goes: first you allow 28s, then medium-reach brakes, then come the dick breaks, and before long there\u2019s a 500-mile MH-RCA XL and all the twisted love triangles that come with it and jilted lovers are killing the riders.<\/p>\n

Frankly I don\u2019t need that kind of publicity.<\/p>\n

So you can keep your Panaracer tires with the boutique branding and the huge mark-up at home, and if you\u2019re afraid of pinch-flatting or whatever then you\u2019d better open the windows, lock up the cat, and start gluing:<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

And so help me if I catch anyone with tubeless tires during the pre-ride inspections that will be grounds for the confiscation of your bicycle.<\/p>\n

Oh, and I\u2019m also banning handlebar bags for the same reason:<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

If you can\u2019t carry it in a jersey pocket or under your saddle or in a water bottle with the top chopped off in your second water bottle cage then don\u2019t bring it. This is not some kind alt-cycling love-in and we will not be stopping to make pour-over coffee and go skinny-dipping. Meh-roica is a ride for cranky old fusspots, and the only thing higher than the tire pressure will be the blood pressure.<\/p>\n

Anyway, in addition to the above I switched from mountain bike pedals to road pedals, because if Meh-roica is about one thing it\u2019s telling GRVL to go FCK ITSLF [see above], but if it\u2019s about two things it\u2019s about that and inconvenience in the name of performance:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Finally, speaking of Performance, I added the ultimate Meh-roica flourish by changing the perfectly good but mismatched skewers that came with the bike for these flimsy Fort\u00e9-branded ones:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Because nothing evokes the Meh-roica spirit like flipping through a paper Performance catalog.<\/p>\n

I daresay this is now nearly the Platonic ideal of the Meh-roica bike:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

All it needs is crabon wishbone seatstays.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All this talk of Meh-roica bikes last week compelled me to head out on one this past Friday as soon as I concluded my broadcast day: This in turn finally compelled me to do a little more primping: After acquiring this bike very inexpensively last April, I pledged to spend absolutely no money on it, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":262548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6804],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-262547","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}