My bikes as 90's NBA players.

[Baron Blubba]

If there's one thing I might love more than bikes, it's basketball. I can't play much anymore, my body just won't let me, but I'll never lose my love of the game. I know opinions differ on which era was best, and many folks prefer today's fast paced game to the 90's slugfest, but to me it never got better than 80's and 90's NBA. The game might not have been as graceful, but there was more diversity from play to play, and the league itself had an almost WWF/WWE like personality, with the kind of true rivalries that just don't exist in the #grateful #blessed era where everyone is everyone's best friend (at least in public). As a kid, I existed on a diet of basketball, playing and following, the way normal humans exist on diets of solid food and hydrating substances. As an adult, it's kind of the same thing, but with bicycles.
With that in mind, let's dig into this game of severely smushed metaphors and attach a 90's NBA Player Personality to each of the bikes in my collection. (Well, most of the bikes in my collection.)

[IMG]Untitled by Michael Lock, on Flickr[/IMG]
Slide 1: The Enve Mog. This is Hakeem Olajuwon. A center/gravel bike that has the rugged power to bang it down low no matter how rough the going gets, yet it is also agile, nimble, and surefooted like a guard/road race bike.

[IMG] by Michael Lock, on Flickr[/IMG]
Slide 2: The Purple Steel All-Road Bike (technically a very customized Norco Section S). This is Scotty Pippen. It's the all-rounder. It can score, it can play defense, it can rebound, it can facilitate. It's confident on dirt and fast on the road. And when the pure road bike (MJ) is out of commission and it needs to be step up, sometimes it does such a good job that I wonder if it's not flat out the best bike on the team, after all.

[IMG]Untitled by Michael Lock, on Flickr[/IMG]
Slide 3: The Ritchey Logic. This bike is Allen Iverson. It shows up to the park and folks look at it and think 'Really, this thing is going to keep up with us?' Well, sometimes you don't have to be 6'6"+, 200 lbs+ to lead the league in scoring, and sometimes you don't have to be carbon, aero-optimized, electronically-shifting, and less than 15 lbs to lay the smackdown on the group ride. Also, it's got compact gearing, which makes my legs spin as fast as AI crossing someone up and sprinting down the lane for a layup.

[IMG]2023 Propel Advanced SL 0 Size M $8800 by Michael Lock, on Flickr[/IMG]
Slide 4: The Giant Propel. The Kobe. Sometimes it can be a bit of a handful, but when it comes to sheer talent, scoring ability, and making the impossible seem easy, there's nothing like it.
REVISION: The Propel is Reggie Miller versus the Knicks on May 7, 1995: Puts up huge numbers impossibly fast, and feels like cheating.

[IMG]Untitled by Michael Lock, on Flickr[/IMG]

Slide 5: The Giant TCR. This one is MJ. The TCR is classic, man. It's got an indefinable quality to everything it does that is just perfect, and will probably endure as the most quintessential example of an all around apex carbon road bike. It is my benchmark to which every other road bike I ride is compared, and very few surpass it in any performative way. (The current Propel is faster, for sure, and I personally like current Propel better than about-to-be-uncurrent TCR, but the TCR is without a doubt the more balanced of the two.)

[IMG] by Michael Lock, on Flickr[/IMG]
Slide 6: The Enve Melee. Magic Johnson. Smooth, stylish, incredibly versatile, crazy handles, puts a smile on your face. It's not about the numbers, it's about the feels, and this bike feels like magic.

[IMG]Untitled by Michael Lock, on Flickr[/IMG]
Slide 7: The Purple Trek 2300 Composite. Mitch Richmond. Richmond played for the Kings and the Lakers, who both have prominently purple jerseys. Also like Richmond, this bike is never going to be the star of any successful team (of ball players or bikes), but it's extremely capable in a major supporting role, and when the big guns are out due to injury, it can step in and provide a win.

[IMG] by Michael Lock, on Flickr[/IMG]
Slide 8: The Schwinn Prelude. Dennis Rodman, obviously. It's got some crazy colors going on, it makes a statement just by showing up, and while it's not going to put up big numbers in the scoring department and you probably wouldn't want to spend more than an hour with it, that hour is always going to be different and quite entertaining in its own special way. Also, I have a hard time fitting on this bike the way Rodman had a hard time fitting on basketball teams.

[IMG] by Michael Lock, on Flickr[/IMG]
Slide 9: The Adriatica Retro Man. For this bike, I'm going to step outside the 90's and go forward in time to Russell Westbrook, or back in time to Wilt Chamberlain. Westbrook and Chamberlain, while both great players obviously, were also possibly the greatest stat-padding number collectors in NBA history. And this is the bike that I use when, like those two, I need to collect lots of stuff.

[IMG]Untitled by Michael Lock, on Flickr[/IMG]
Slide 10: The Giant Revolt. Charles Barkley. A bulldozer that will smash through everything, loves to party, puts a smile on your face, is a one-of-one with a very unusual geometry that somehow just works great, and despite having a beastly reputation in the paint/on the gravel, actually has some impressive perimeter/road range as well.

***

Hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Most of it evolved on this morning's long riverside dirt road ramble on the Scotty Pippen.

[XXtwindad]

That is just ****ing great! So clever!

So… a few thoughts from another Paceliner who took the no-cartilage-left-in -the-knees journey from the playground to the two wheeled life:

If the “Mog” is the Olajuwon of the bike world, it must be in a class of its own. If the Dream was playing today he’d be hitting threes and racking up assists like Jokic. All with world class “D.” Find someone who thinks their bike is like David Robinson, and have the Mog blow them away.

Does the purple steel all-road bike sometimes refuse to come out off the bench?

Can’t use the Ritchey Logic for practice rides. We’re talking about practice.

Did you just infer (or actually write) that Kobe was better offensively than MJ?

There are some holes in your quiver:

John Stockton bike: Shows up dressed inappropriately. Maybe wearing skinnier rubber to a gravel ride. Sneaky. Dirty. Always finishes and never flinches.

The Detlef Schrempf bike: Canyon with a mullet build. Obviously. Also versatile and overrated.

The Shaq bike: What’s the least aesthetically appealing and overrated bike in your quiver?

[PaMtbRider]

You need a Larry Bird in your collection.

[d_douglas]

Funny post! Nothing to add except that we have led parallel lives.

Basketball/punk rock/bicycles.

1) I still ride bikes as much as possible
2) I coach my son and daughters basketball teams and love scrimmaging when they’re a player short!
3) I still occasionally blast the Melvins on headphones when trying to run or walking the dog

[Spaghetti Legs]

I with ya XX n the raised eyebrow at the Kobe/MJ comparison.

If you’re going 80’s ya gotta have a Bernard King bike.

Any thoughts of a Bike Pyramid a la Bill Simmons?

I’m a b-ball junkie too. Last summer after pandemic hiatus of a couple years, I reupped at the Y and started playing again. I played a pretty hard game with some high school kids and really jacked up my back, thought I was gonna have to quit forever but thankfully I’m still able to get out there as long as I don’t try to be 25 again.

[XXtwindad]

Originally Posted by Spaghetti Legs

I with ya XX n the raised eyebrow at the Kobe/MJ comparison.

If you’re going 80’s ya gotta have a Bernard King bike.

Any thoughts of a Bike Pyramid a la Bill Simmons?

I’m a b-ball junkie too. Last summer after pandemic hiatus of a couple years, I reupped at the Y and started playing again. I played a pretty hard game with some high school kids and really jacked up my back, thought I was gonna have to quit forever but thankfully I’m still able to get out there as long as I don’t try to be 25 again.

One day, you wake up and find that you’re the middle-aged dude shooting rainbow threes you used to make fun of 25 years ago.

[ZaddyWatts]

Literally all of my bikes are Spud Webb and/or Mugsey Bogues. 5’5” and I always ride slightly undersized if possible.

[cmbicycles]

No bike for Bill Lambeer?

[XXtwindad]

Originally Posted by cmbicycles

No bike for Bill Lambeer?

Need a bike with a lot of wheel flop. Maybe a whiny disc brake bike.

[reuben]

I've never been a big basketball fan, but:

1) Our various formative years occurred in different eras, and comparisons are difficult at best

2) Any discussion about "the greatest" at anything can become a chain wax thread with heavy doses of rim brakes, rotational wheel mass, internally routed cables, aerodynamics sock chevrons, and humpback whale tubercles, etc.

...you need a Dr. J bike. I won't say that it has to be skinny steel with lugs, level top tube, and rim brakes (possibly center pull cantis), but it would probably be a sort of combination of "go fast" with huge style points.

I stumbled across this, and thought it was pretty cool. It's not about his NBA career.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK6OPqHpyWo

[LadyDog]

Well done.

[72gmc]

Originally Posted by PaMtbRider

You need a Larry Bird in your collection.

Yes. A bike that constantly talks to the other bikes, tells them exactly what it's going to do, and then does it while they go man I can't believe it just did that.

[TDot]

Awesome post.

Does your Allen Iverson ride ever declare that it’s so good it doesn’t need to practice/train?

[Bob Ross]

Originally Posted by XXtwindad

Find someone who thinks their bike is like David Robinson, and have the Mog blow them away.

Ouch!


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I guess my old CAADX gravel bike coulda been Charles Oakley..

[Baron Blubba]

People have glommed onto this thread in exactly the way I hoped they would --thank you! Hey, feel free to add your own bikes, I'd love that! James Dak can probably recreate the entire ABA with his collection! I still have a few more bikes at home, a few at work, and lots that I've let go but still have pictures and memories of, so this will continue for a while.

Okay, I'm going to revise the Propel/Kobe analogy. I'm much happier with this one, and now I don't have to lose friends by comparing Kobe to Jordan.
[IMG]2023 Propel Advanced SL 0 Size M $8800 by Michael Lock, on Flickr[/IMG]
Slide 4: The Giant Propel. The Kobe. Sometimes it can be a bit of a handful, but when it comes to sheer talent, scoring ability, and making the impossible seem easy, there's nothing like it.
REVISION: The Propel is Reggie Miller versus the Knicks on May 7, 1995: Puts up huge numbers impossibly fast, and feels like cheating.

And here's another one.
[IMG]Untitled by Michael Lock, on Flickr[/IMG]
The Wahoo Kickr Bike. For this one, I'm going to have to abandon the 90's again and mine the 2010 - present NBA landscape, because the Kickr Bike can only be Ben Simmons. It just stays home.