Revenge of the Nerds Part VII: The Evolution of Perfection

The mailman comes through the double doors of Sunshine Cycles every day. (S)he generally delivers bills, junk mailers for stupid new products, promo stuff from parts distributors, and free copies of magazines like "Florida Sportsman", "Bowhunter", and Rifle Shooter". We used to get stuff that was only sometimes less horrifying but always more fun like "Maxim", "Stuff" and other dude-centric titles that we took cutouts from to line the inside of the shop cabinets. We told Obrimace (the shop manager) that it was important to protect the finish of the cabinets from the harmful solvents, degreasers and brake fluids that are stored there, but he wasn't having it and cancelled our free subscriptions. So these days, picking up the mail from the front counter isn't as much fun as it used to be. Until one day...

We recieved a small, sqaure, white envelope printed on high-quality paper with a watermark reminiscent of the pinstriping on a fine eye-talian gentleman's shirt, sealed with a shining silver sticker that I can only assume was cold-forged from the highest quality duraluminum alloy and double-anodized with meticulous attention to detail. "The Evolution of Perfection," read the front of the envelope. Dura-Ace was coming to town. Inside the envelope was an invitation and four tickets to the Dura-Ace dealer tour, which would be held on January 8th at 6:30 pm in the Centennial Room at the Duluth Marriot Hotel. As near-legendary wheelbuilders and cyclocross racers, it was only natural that the fine men of Loose Nuts would be invited to such a prestigious event, and since the invitation offered "food, drink and good company in abundance," the opportunity to check out the newly evolved Dura-Ace group, as well as some of the other fresh new goodies Shimano has Japanimated for the new year of 2009, we had no choice but to attend.

So, after months of waiting and anticipation, the morning of January 8th dawned crisp and cool, but with a ferocious headwind on my ride to work. Obrimace had agreed to let Chris and I leave work early to get down to Duluth and witness firsthand the paradigm shift that Shimano had engineered with their new Di2 electronic shifting Dura-Ace groupset. In fact, as we agreed on the ride down Hwy 316, if the words "paradigm shift" were uttered by any Shimano representative at any time, Chris would be buying a bottle of Sailor Jerry's delicious navy rum on the way home. The size of the bottle was never specified, but I would be sure that it was a big one. I wasn't letting him get out of this one so easy.  

After about an hour of stop-and-go traffic that re-cemented my powerful hatred for commuting by car, we arrived. I expected to be greeted with pomp and circumstance, with lights and banners and smiling Japanese people beckoning me to be one of the first to experience "The Evolution of Perfection." Instead, after a few moments of confusion, I resorted to asking the guy behind the hotel desk for directions, which I immediately misinterpreted. Chris managed to point us in the right direction through clever attention to the signs with arrows pointing toward the Centennial room, and we found ourselves confronted with a card table manned by nice young men in clean blue shirts asking four our tickets. This is what their legs looked like:

 

We presented our ticket, were given a bunch our "trade sales and support manuals" and two tear-off carnival tickets for some kind of raffle at the end of the presentation in which we stood a pretty reasonable chance of winning a new Dura-Ace group. "Ok, fine," we said, "but where's the food?" We found our way past the nice young men in the clean blue shirts to a second room filled with wonder. A curvy buffet table snaked its way across the center, while tables lined with all kinds of Japanese-made fancy bits lined the periphery. Of course, we made for the plates and piled them high with the delectable finger-foods that were provided for our enjoyment. I wish I had photos of the spread, because it was a beautiful sight to be seen. There were chainring platters of the finest Japanese cheeses, carbon-soled shoes filled with fresh salsa, honeycomb bashguards dripping with honey, hollow crank arms cradling fried chicken nibbles, two-piston disk brake calipers topped with black olives, straight-pull spoke kabobs, and the always delicious dual-control mushroom/sausage combos. After we had sated our hunger with the first plate, we were both left wondering "ok, fine, but where's the beer?" We had smelled and seen folks traipsing around with pints of delicious-looking beverages, but hadn't seen any available. By this time though, we were being called in for the presentation which was about to begin. "Ok, fine," we told ourselves, "but we're going to find this beer." Little did we know, that we had been baited and now were about to be switched in classic style. 

We sat down in our normal-looking chairs in the normal-looking hotel ballroom with a fancy name and horrifying carpet, and waited patiently for the magic to happen. The projection screen in front of us showed what we assumed was a computerized rendering of the magical action inside of an internally-geared hub, with several plantary gears revolving around each other, while we waited for the presentation to begin. I was ready for fireworks, japanese girls in tight clothes, flashing lights and booming techno music that would make me want to stand on my chair and shake it like 1999, but that wasn't what I got. Instead, we got a powerpoint. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, a powerpoint that could have been put together by a 14 year old with a script and a spellchecker. Here is a rendering of the dismal scene:

Can't you just feel the electricity in the air? That set of brake levers you see in the far left side of the frame was about the only source of electricity in this presentation. This particular slide is showing the clever way that the engineers at Shimano managed to improve the shifting on the new Dura-Ace cassette all while reducing weight and increasing rigidity by 100%. Amazing. Our esteemed speaker went on to describe all the amazing changes made to the new Dura-Ace groups, which now use a new chain, new front derailleur, new brake cable pull ratio and new brake calipers which are not compatible with any other group. That is, if they use cables at all, which is not the case for the new Di2 electronic shifting Dura-Ace, which appeared to be the only reason that anybody showed up to this thing at all. People were crowded around the electronic shifting bike like male drone bees around the queen, just begging for a ride. Apparently, the brake lines on the new Di2 group, which are still run by archaic and outdated steel cables, are lubricated with Shimano's proprietary royal jelly, which contributes to the odd pull that Di2 equipped bikes have on the less intelligent.  

After the discussion of the updates to Shimano's road groups, the crowd rallied for a break. Chris and I were still anxious to find the beer in this damned place, and since it appeared that there wasn't any being given away, we resorted to plan B: the hotel bar. We quickly located The Button Room, named after Button Gwinnett, who was one of the original signatories to the Declaration of Independence. On a tangentially related note, an original Button Gwinnett autograph would be just behind that of Julius Caesar or William Shakespeare in a list of most valuable autographs. A free bottle of Sailor Jerry goes to the lucky reader who can tell me why. So, to the bar we go. Here's the view from the rail:

The surly and indignant bartender poured us two frothy pints of Guinness with what looked like an inch-and-a-half of whipped cream on top. But, no time to complain. We had to get back and learn about the new mountain bike groups that Shimano was offering. By this time, were were tiring of the constant parade of part numbers and gear ratios and compatibility charts flashing across the powerpoint screen and were ready for some action. Surely if there was going to be some excitement anywhere it would be in the ever-broadening downhill/northshore/freeride/slopestyle/extremecross-country/light-dutyallmountain/gravity/longtravel/bighit segment of the mountain bike market. The presentation began with what could have been an introduction from one of those new mountain bike video deals, but somehow without sound of any kind. Nothing is more exciting than watching someone do a half-topped tabletop off a log drop in slow motion in soft focus with no soundtrack. The rest of the mountain bike presentation was equally monotonous, and I should have just gone to get a refill of my painfully expensive beverage, but I couldn't help waiting for something exciting to happen. It never did. Not until the tense moments after the lights had come back on and we were all waiting to see who, by pure blind luck, would walk out with a full Dura-Ace group (no substitutions please) as compensation. Of course we were painfully close, but just 2 ticket numbers away from winning. If we had gotten stuck in just one more red light on the highway, we may have won, but we didn't. We were left with the consolation prizes of a technical DVD and a double-ended screwdrives that Shimano described as "a handy little tool" for adjusting all those flathead bolts holding their parts together.

For those of you still left wondering, we did ride the electronic Dura-Ace bike. Yes, it does shift smoothly. It feels very much like someone bolted a high-end mouse to the side of their STI lever, with one click to upshift and the other to downshift. In keeping with the mousey theme, the front derailleur makes a distinctly mouse-like squeak when it shifts or trims itself. Fantastic. Poor little Dura-Ace with plain old cables (which are not lined with royal jelly) just sat on the other side of the room like the redheaded stepchild that everybody tolerates but nobody really loves. I took pity on the poor outdated group and took it for a little spin on the trainer, but was equally underwhelmed. We messed around with the "adjustment mode" on the electronic group for long enough to get it a little out of whack, try to fix it, and then realize that the derailleur hanger on the demo bike was clearly bent, but nobody in this whole room full of tech geeks had the tools, knowledge or desire to fix it. Wonderful. We got the heck out of there, considered getting another overpriced beer in the Button Room, but decided instead to hightail it back to Athens where 12 packs of Guinness can be had for just slightly more than our bar tab. 

There was no talk of a "paradigm shift" and therefore no purchasing of delicious rum on the ride home. Chris however, seemed to be feeling the effects of having eaten one too many delicious spicy taquitos from the buffet line and had to ease the seat back and close his eyes in order to calm the stormy seas in his stomach. I coasted home on the darkened highway to a soundtrack of really weird music with my head still buzzing from the electronic interference generated by having a ceiling full of flourescent lights, a powerpoint projector, a whole bunch of nerds with heads full of part numbers, compatibility charts and gram counts, and two semi-functional electronic groupsets in one room. The revenge of the nerds was complete, and the Evolution of Perfection marches on.