Purple chainring bolts, Part 1

A month or two ago I bought a packet of I.D.'s rather pretty anodized aluminium chainring bolts, in 90s purple. They've been languishing in a pile of stuff in the corner of my desk ever since. You know, that heap of shit we all have. Things that need dealing with, but not urgently. I've put it off for this long so it obviously wasn't that important - it can't hurt that much if I just put it off a little longer. Half of my life is now in this pile.

This afternoon, having cleaned my Cinelli, I decided it was time to fit them - they're a great match with the rest of my Yeti ARC inspired bike. That got me wondering... What is it about those designs from the late 80s and early 90s that is so appealing, that someone who wasn't even alive at the time still finds them so cool, despite their obsolescence?

*image credit Geoff Waugh

The bolts never actually made it onto the bike - I put one in to try it out and decided that shiny Stainless actually looked better, and inspired a lot more confidence (#steelisreal folks). There I am trusting my teeth to a CNC machined aluminium Thomson stem with a reputation for popping faceplates and developing mysterious cracks, yet I won't trust aluminium chainring bolts to handle my meagre power without shearing. But, the thoughts about 90s designs persisted. Why is it that some things look cool, and others just look old?

Why is it that the Jan Ullrich's 1997 Pinarello Paris still looks awesome, yet Wiggo's Iconic Dogma 65.1 just looks a bit dated and... well, a bit shit? The 65.1 is arguably the more iconic bike of the two - certainly among modern cyclists more people will remember the curves of the Dogma than the square section of the Columbus aluminium tubing and retro steel fork. Yet somehow the understated cool of the Paris shines out against the 65.1, which now seems rather fussy and odd compared with the clean, simple design of the newer Dogma bikes. The wavy Onda stays and forks, the goofy chin sticking out over the fork, the massive seat cluster... it all sits at odds with modern bike design where simplicity is key, yet the Paris, while completely outdated, seems a better stylistic fit with the modern world.

It is almost as though the Pinarello Dogma 65.1 Think 2 is trying a bit too hard. The clean lines and simple elegance of the Paris, paired with a polished aluminium Campagnolo Record groupset, polished finishing kit from 3T and a hopelessly outdated yet stunningly stylish pair of original Bora carbon wheels, make it somehow more effortless and beautiful than the Dogma. The Dogma is trying its best to be an iconic piece of Italian styling, yet somehow it falls flat. The Onda forks and stays look overly complicated. The Shimano C50 carbon wheels are technologically superior to the old Boras, yet just look a bit.. meh, and the Dura Ace 9000 Di2 groupset, while ground-breaking when it launched, just looks bulky and old now, finished off with Pro Vibe 7S bars and stem with big splash decals that used to look cool but now look a bit comic-book. The Dogma is an awesome bike that could still keep up with today's peloton without too much trouble, so why does it look so old?

It can't just be simplicity - a 1980s rectangular box Volvo still looks just as shit now as it did then. So, what is it? And what is it that draws a millennium baby to overlook the bikes of their childhood in favour of those of a decade before they were born? Surely the bikes from the front pages of Cycling Weekly and MBR in 2010 should speak to me the most, as the bikes I would've lusted over in my early days of riding, yet I'd rather get excited about bikes from ten years before. I'm far more excited about Armstrong's US Postal 5500 than Cav's HTC Venge.

Perhaps this happens to everything. Maybe things go through a phase of just being old, before coming back round to being retro and cool. Or maybe somethings just aren't as attractive as others, and we only like them at the time because they're exciting and new.

Tbc...