By: Cameron MacKenzie
As a divorced man of a certain age, I have gotten seriously into bikes. It's a little embarrassing. As a younger man I laughed at the movie This is 40, when all the dads walked into a coffeeshop wearing their bib shorts and clip-in shoes. But here I am, a grown adult, fawning over two-wheeled contraptions that cost more than my first car. Much more.
I bought a gravel bike a few years ago. If you don't know, a gravel bike is built specifically to ride on trails, gravel and dirt. There's a lot of bang for your buck here, and they look pretty badass, like one of those Ford F-150 super-packages with all the wingdings and doo-dads. A few months ago I decided I needed a new gravel bike, so I went shopping.
There are a ton of options out there, and the more research I started to do, the more obsessed I became. I learned about 'geometry,' carbon-frames, and hover handlebars. I found myself in serious discussions about SRAM hydraulic brakes, and if Instagram – which had caught on to my current infatuation – tried to show me a bike that didn't have a Shimano groupset, I immediately swiped left with arrogant disdain.
But at some point I stumbled on a reputable company that didn't sell a gravel bike. They sold road bikes and mountain bikes, but no gravel bikes. I was confused. I looked at their road bikes, which were cheaper than gravel bikes, and I was surprised when the write-up told me I could just change out the tires and viola, I could have an 'all-terrain' bike. This couldn't be the case. Surely I needed a very special, very expensive bike to ride on gravel roads. But the more I looked into it, the sillier I felt. Of course you could swap out the tires of a road bike and ride on gravel. Why the hell not? And why hadn't anyone seen fit to mention this to me before?
Because I am a divorced man of a certain age, with a decent amount of disposable time and income, and I am a stupid fat whale for Big Bike. It's true. And I was ready to gobble up the gravel bike bait – hook, line and sinker.
There are other ways an economy could function, but increasingly the American economy has been driven by the unflagging power of the consumer. It's what's kept us out of a painful recession, and consumer strength has been running so hot for so long that it's nearly taken for granted. If you look at a chart of the PCE, Personal Consumption Expenditures, it's a steady upward trend from about 1965 to the present day. You can see a dip in '08, and a quick trough in 2020, but otherwise it's a steady march of increasingly frightening progress.
We are not only spending more and more every year, but the market – heck, every self-respecting company – wants us to spend more this quarter than the quarter before. How can this continue to happen? I don't know. I don't think anyone knows. We'll probably innovate our way out of it. But a 'gravel bike' is a good example of how this plays out on the ground, or the trail, or the gravel road.
I'm worried that this is unsustainable. I'm worried consumer spending could level off and the economy will tank. And I'm worried about my kids turning into relentless consumers. I'm worried about the trash we're accumulating and I'm worried about the cash we're wasting. But more than all of that, I'm worried that after spending $5k on a bike, I'm going to buy the wrong clip-in shoes. You see there's a two bolt system and a three bolt system, but I think I've found the perfect pair. They're on a very special sale for the next 48 hours so I'm afraid I've got to go, but if you see me on the street, or the trail or the gravel road, rest assured that I am absolutely getting the biggest bang for my buck.
Opinions expressed here are those of the author and not necessarily those of Osaic Wealth, Inc.