Bartape & Baguettes
By Mike Bienkowski 
Most of my days start with me leaving home on a faded-grey Trek 520 named Frau. Frau is covered in faded and peeling stickers from various spots in the U.S. and beyond, and for the last couple years, has been distinctly lacking in handlebar tape. Some passers-by are quick to point out to me that handlebar tape costs a mere $25 and is easy to replace–wouldn’t that be nicer than having my hands rest on cold steel all the time?
All well-intentioned and logical, but the truth is that I still rock the bare bars because handlebar tape is not in my budget. Now before you throw up your arms and point out my damning coffee habits, let me please explain…
Before Frau was my commuter (and even before she carried me through SW Colorado en route to California from coastal New Hampshire), she was a work investment. She supported my seasonal gig as a trip leader for a youth outdoor travel outfit and in the summer of 2012, this happened to look like a self-supported tour from Amsterdam to Barcelona with 12 teenagers, crossing a landscape filled with some of the richest cycling culture in the world.
Cycling across a continent with teenagers burns a lot of calories. Fortunately, France is one of the best places on Earth to find that one perfect, calorific, glutinous biker fuel: bread. Every day, we would giddily anticipate the first town on our ride–the narrowing cobbled streets, quaint buildings, and inevitable promise of a boulangerie. The boulangerie offered a daily opportunity to practice our Francais.
“Bonjour! Douze baguettes si vous plait” was mastered quickly, with variations involving pain-au-chocolat and brioches and stinky fromage du jour following suit.
We ate it up, literally and figuratively. Yes the bread was delicious, but more so the daily routine: the amazing smells, the ridiculousness of bungee-strapping 12 baguettes on a bike rack, and above all, the interaction with new people in a new place; engaging in that exchange of small money for something made with skill and care, with gratitude flowing both ways.
Cycling across France sold me to the Euro lifestyle. I first noticed it when I visited my home town after that trip. The boring suburban environs of my youth took on new life when I traveled by bicycle. I felt tapped-in to a pulse and rhythm of a place I had long assumed was dead, stoic, and closed off. I have since come to hold the ability to ride a bicycle to fulfill all my basic daily needs as a core value around which I wanted to build my life.
And that is one of the things that continues to hook me about Durango so much that I just don’t want to leave. The sights and cold bite of the air on my morning commute. The ability to stop by the river and lay in the grass for a few minutes or a few hours on the way home. The flexibility to notice live music or a festival in the park and just stop in spontaneously. The inevitable running into a friend and pulling over for a friendly chat… it all makes me feel rooted and connected in ways that nourish some of my core needs.
So what does any of this have to do with bar tape? My Euro/bike commuting lifestyle also means that I’m a daily shopper who values being out and about. When you shop every day, it’s kinda hard to budget by week or month. So instead, I budget by day. My life is ruled by three levels of daily expenditure ceilings–a “do not exceed if you want to save” value, a “do not exceed if you want to break even” value and a, “you %#&@ed up and better reign it in tomorrow” threshold.
The $25 investment in new bar tape, under this paradigm, carries the weight of bumping me into the second or third tier of daily expenditure. Sure, it would be a one-time investment that would pay off for many days and months to come. Sure, my reasoning is flawed and doesn’t hold up to any logical examination. Truth is, unless it’s a total necessity, I’d rather spend the $25 on a couple of locally-roasted coffees, a live music show by a local band, or some veggies from my friend’s garden.
Someday I’ll probably see some hot pink bar tape at the bike shop, swoon immediately, drop the $25 and spend the next two years turning heads while zipping down the river path on Frau. While I’m at it, maybe I’ll start bulk-shopping at Costco and Walmart, quit buying coffee every day, and finally be able to afford a house in Durango (OK not funny on that one). But in the meantime, look for me riding home with bare bars and a fresh baguette sticking out of my pannier. We can pull over and catch up while we’re at it.