Jamis Renegade - Exile
My first Gravel Bike was this Jamis Renegade. I bought it in 2018 from Woody’s Cyclery in Middleton, MA.
Somewhere in the wild rolling hills of Nahant, MA
I got sober in 2007, and after getting my shit somewhat together, a few years later I bought the first bike I had bought in a long time. It was a Marin hybrid that turned out to be a little too small for me. I didn’t know that at that time and bought the exact same bike for my dad on his 75th birthday. He’d been riding a steel frame, oval ring crank bike that used to be mine for about 20 years.
My dad started a cycling group named the Fugawi Bike Club when he was probably in his 50s, made up of some friends of his from his days at M.I.T. and I’d ride with them every so often. These weren’t high speed, lycra wearing group rides. These were 30-40 mile rides in the countryside and along the ocean. Rides that stopped for lunch, for coffee, for photographs, or to take in the view. We stopped for anyone who was tired or wanted to rest. They were good rides. Fun rides. It was riding with my dad.
My dad died pretty suddenly in 2016, shortly after his 80th birthday. He and I got in what would be our last ride together a couple days after his birthday near his home in Maine. A hot, humid, hilly 35-mile ride. It was August in Maine. Just the two of us, like a couple of circus freaks on our ill-fitting bikes. We took our time, riding like we always did - like he always did - for fun and just to ride. He was in terrific shape. Not just for his age, but in good physical shape. About two weeks later, in Septemeber, he was diagnosed with cancer and a couple of weeks later, he died.
I don’t know if it was his death or just the way life went, but I didn’t ride for while after that. Two summers later, I pulled out one of the two Marins I now owned and a friend of mine told me that from the side, I looked like I was riding a kid’s bike. I had gained a bit of weight at that point and thankfully there are no pictures.
It was time for a new bike. I was struggling financially at the time and could barely afford my bills and mortgage payments, but I had to get back out on a bike. I loaded both Marins on the back of my car and stuffed what little cash I had scraped together into my pocket and went to Woody’s.
A few hours later, I came home a few hundred bucks poorer and two bikes lighter, with this bad ass Darth-Vader black, gravel rig. I rode this thing through all kinds of weather, on roads and trails, and through five different States. It’s lived in three different garages and it’s been through a variety of saddles, ripped through a number of chains, new bottom brackets, cables, brifters, and tires.
That was about three bikes ago - more on those another time - and the Jamis hung in my garage as a memento until I sold it the other day.
I was at the shop, eaves dropping on a couple of women and the owner of the shop. They were looking for a bike for a friend of theirs. She sounded about as broke and desperate as I had been and by some weird coincidence was the same height and inseam as me.
“I have one,” I blurted out.
To shorten this up a bit, last week I took down the Jamis, tuned it up, cleaned it off, walked it to the beach for a few pictures, and handed it off. I may have lit a candle too.
It was a surprisingly solemn and sad experience to part with this bike. Almost embarrassing.
We made the exchange at the shop, she rode away on the Renegade and about an hour later I got a text.
That may or may not have brought a tear to my eye, but I had a smile on my face for the rest of the day.
I work only part time at the shop and it’s not for the money. There’s a joy that comes with seeing someone light up with a new - or used - bike and I get to experience that every so often and it makes the rest of the bullshit in this world slightly more tolerable.
Thanks Christina.
