Editor's Note:  Brian Gravestock, owner of the former Brian's Bicycle Repair shop in Colorado Springs, is a friend of mine and a treasure trove of wisdom.  This interview, done by the publisher of Newspeak!, a Colorado Springs monthly, has a lot of content that applies to our mission here at Wheels Of Change.  In the interest of coherence, we've published the interview in its entirety; however, we've emphasized the more philosophical sections with a boldface font.  Much of the following interview is technical in nature and, while interesting, is not particularly fun for people who aren't cyclists.  Enjoy!

Brian Gravestock is as much medicine man as he is mechanic. A bicycle to him is a magical instrument capable of compressing and expanding time— work of art and political tool as much as it is a means of transportation.

A native of Cripple Creek, he started riding seriously at 13-years old when a VISTA volunteer invited him along on a 50-mile ride in Pueblo. He rode his Schwinn Stingray and made it. "It was difficult, but it was exhilarating."

He was hooked and the bicycle became both a means to and a way of life. Though he dabbled in professional cycling, he became a mechanic and he's been at it for over 30 years.

If you've ever been to his shop underneath the Colorado Avenue bridge in the old grain elevator with the bike on top and the wood-burning stove inside, then you've certainly encountered his cantankerous wisdom (peppered with plenty of "henceforths"!) whether you wanted to or not. There are no "cheap bikes" in Brian's world, and you have to be willing to listen—even if you just want a tube changed.

I spoke to Brian at length about what matters—magically, politically and technically—about bicycles.

Newspeak: So you got really into bikes at age 13. What was it that grabbed you?

Brian Gravestock: I had already become sensitized to environmental issues at that time in my life [during the Vietnam war]. Paul Ehrlich had just written The Population Bomb and I realized there were issues related to population growth we were all going to have to deal with. Cycling seemed to be the answer to all the questioning I was doing at that time because it's relatively clean, it doesn't have negative political connections that cars have, and it liberated me from having to be so economically successful. I didn't want to prioritize my economic status at that time in my life. I was more interested in having more experiences. And cycling allowed me to have my mobility without having to pay the price of being steadily employed to be able to afford cars and insurance. I enjoyed the health benefits, and I found that it gave me ample time for thought and consideration. Cycling is just a win-win situation. I think there are many things we can be involved in our lives that cause us to have to quiet our conscience. And certainly by driving at all you're saying, "I'm willing to accept a certain amount of impact." Cars are noisy and they're probably the most dangerous things that are in our everyday world. Even inadvertently you can endanger pedestrians, other drivers and cyclists. You're definitely polluting when you drive a car—it's definitely putting out poisonous gas every inch of the way. And also, our very need for gas causes us to support regimes that are unsavory and possibly damaging to the long-term health of our democracy. So I equate the use of cars with the acceptance of war, acceptance of oppressive regimes that operate in these countries, acceptance of a repressive regime that operates in our country, and it's all fueled by cars. People tell you to vote, but I would say that the most important vote you can make is with your feet. If you can stop driving and start riding a bike, that action will speak louder to the powers that be than any other thing that you could do or say (certainly more than anything you could do in the voting booth). I'm not saying you shouldn't go to the voting booth and do you job there, but probably the more important job is where you spend your money. And if you spend it on bicycles … there's an old Indian proverb: If there are two dogs in a fight, one symbolizing good and one symbolizing evil and someone asks which one will win, and the elder says, "The dog that you feed." So you want to be careful which dog you feed. Riding bicycles enables you to channel your dollars in a better direction.

NS: Tell me more about your bicycling youth?

BG: As I got interested in bikes, I started discovering this magic—that a bicycle could suspend time and distance; it's an absolutely magical machine. And all of a sudden I realized I could ride 50 miles or a hundred miles and that I could explore and that I didn't need any money. This was tremendously liberating, and it was magical to me. So, after having experienced our school system, which in my mind is kind of related to prison. It's definitely conditioning for corporate America; you have to respond to bells and your willingness to do compulsory tasks is probably what makes you the most successful there. To me, those things seemed more of an advantage to people who want to employ you later than it is to yourself. I was just really fed up, and the bicycle was a wonderful counterpoint to that where I could go out and experience freedom. So as I started doing that, I realized I was better at it than just about anyone that I knew. So that kind of led me to racing and I raced for a long time, and not particularly successfully. But I enjoyed the experience. Keep in mind that this was all road racing because it was in the 1970s and there were no mountain bikes available until 1982, which is when they started becoming commercially available. But the racing kind of led me into being a mechanic because I started working on my own bike both because I could and because it was a lot less expensive and I had an aptitude for it.

NS: I've often heard you say the phrase, "The bicycle has a great past ahead of it." What do you mean by that?

BG: Well, a lot of people get caught up in needing the newest and latest and most current technology. And, really, most of the great advances in bicycles were made back in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Actually, very little of the technology that's around today has much of an impact on the performance of the bicycle. And much of it adds extra mechanical complexity and that equals extra maintenance, less reliability and, to some degree, a planned obsolescence. In other words, you'll be replacing expensive components on a bicycle sooner if it's more complex. Also, the lighter a bicycle becomes, the shorter an interval of time it will last. So there are a lot of value decisions you can put into buying a bicycle, or not. Many people shop for a bicycle using only their ego to make their decisions. They're interested not only in what is good, but what is perceived as prestigious and perceived as high-performance by their peers. And what influences our generation the most? Marketing. Even if we have some suspicion about it, we tend to fall prey to it anyway. Consequently, many of the young people I know who've bought a bicycle in the past few years have opted, for instance, for suspension and disc brakes despite being warned about extra maintenance and extra expenses in ownership and a limited life expectancy of the bike altogether. So it's interesting why we can't make a decision to buy something more basic that's designed to have an unlimited lifespan, lower maintenance and user cost and no planned obsolescence. I think it's marketing that's doing that. I'll be curious to see if that trend can be reversed in the face global warming and the sketchy connection between human rights violations and abuse of the environment with products made overseas. Consider the idea that if you buy something that's made by people who are essentially slaves overseas, are you becoming a slave owner? I think that you definitely are. Now with the growing ecological implications of the status quo—which is that we work ourselves to death and, in the process, kill the environment—is it really wise to buy something that doesn't stand the test of time? It may be trendy and high performance, but you'll have to replace it in 10 years if you're lucky. Or would it make more sense to support a craftsman in your community and build a relationship and enjoy all the benefits of that along with the absolute unlimited lifespan of the bike given proper choices? It just makes more sense.

NS: So what were the innovations of bicycle manufacturing when it did reach its peak? And what are those proper choices for a good bike?

BG: The bike hasn't been improved much since the 1920s. They're not much lighter. They definitely don't last any longer. Generally speaking, you can't go much faster on them. Certainly you can point out the extremes. Someone who's only concerned with going downhill on a bicycle is going to go a little bit faster on a suspension bike. So if you want a bike that you have to be petrochemically addicted to using—in other words it has to be hauled uphill in a car or truck or chairlift and then you just ride it downhill only—then you're not going to accept what I have to say anyway because you've already accepted the petrochemical addiction part of the sport. But if we're talking about cycling where you ride up the hills, clearly you don't get as much advantage out of suspension as you would think: extra weight and extra mechanical complexity doesn't really buy you much performance on the uphill. In fact, in my experience, the people riding the simplest bikes will actually climb at a faster rate than people riding the more complex bikes. So riders on a full-suspension bike might wait 60 seconds at the bottom of a descent for someone on a simple bike while riders on a one-speed will wait for 5 and 10 minutes for riders on a full-suspension bike at the top on an ascent. Everyone has his or her choices to make. I'd like to make a couple connections if can.

NS: Sure.

BG: The first thing is reparability. If you buy an aluminum frame, it won't take as many stress cycles and if it cracks and has to be repaired then it has to be heat treated to regain its strength. So, generally speaking, we don't consider an aluminum bike to be one that will stand the test of time. A steel bike frame can take an unlimited number of stress cycles and can last a very long time. A lifetime guarantee used to be a normal thing. But that's largely been phased out. So steel bike can be repaired with relatively primitive technology. Even a forge could be used to repair a steel bike. Braising, welding—all of it can be used on steel … patch mending. So it can be repaired indefinitely.

NS: What are the qualities of steel that make it such a good material for bikes?

BG: Well if you look at all the springs you've ever seen in your life, they're all made out of steel. The reason why that's true is because steel is springy. You'll never see springs made from aluminum. And it's the springy quality of steel that makes a steel bike fun to ride. And if you ride down the road on a springy bike it'll be a nice ride. A bike frame needs to have adequate stiffness to transmit your pedaling energy into forward motion, but if it flexes in the process that's not necessarily considered a loss of energy unless it doesn't return to its normal position. In other words, if it's acting like a spring that's returning energy to you, it can actually be quite efficient. On the other hand, if you're riding on a bike that's very rigid you'll actually tire more easily because you'll fatigue more easily. So, to make a long story short: too rigid of a bike will wear you out, too soft a bike will waste your energy. But steel tends to have the best overall qualities of providing a high performance pleasant ride that's efficient, being repairable with primitive enough technology that allows you to support a craftsman instead of a factory, and also not terribly hard on the environment to manufacture. The smelting of steel all the way to manufacturing a bicycle frame isn't as toxic and doesn't require as much energy as aluminum or titanium, both of which use quite a large amount of electricity to manufacture.

NS: What about carbon fiber?

BG: I'm not very knowledgeable about carbon fiber, but it can offer a ride that's comparable to steel at a lighter weight, but with reduced longevity. And it's the province of high-tech manufacturing. So, once again, you're probably not supporting a craftsman in your community; you're likely supporting a corporation.

NS: So what all were the technological innovations that were around in the 1920s when you feel the bike reached its peak?

BG: Certainly modern drive trains. Ten speed cassettes and wide-range gearing systems can be an advantage for a facet of the cycling market, but most people's use of a bicycle revolves around the experience they have while riding. And I meet many people who find the added complexity of a multi-geared drive train to be a detriment to their pleasure and experience of riding the bicycle. Henceforth, there's been a major movement back toward one-speed bicycles right now where people have begun to question all that and the necessity of it and whether it adds to the experience of getting from point A to point B.

NS: Like getting off your bicycle every once-in-a-while might not be the worst thing in the world?

BG: Right. Exactly. And when you do climb uphill on a one-speed, you do go a little bit quicker and you do have to put some extra effort into it, but usually it's for a shorter duration of time. So in terms of perceived energy expense, you'll perceive the energy to be higher on a geared bicycle. So this thing of perceived energy output is very important. If you do something you really enjoy doing, an hour could seem like nothing. But if you're doing something you don't enjoy, it could seem like an hour even if it was only a few minutes. So cycling can be one of those magical experiences that actually suspend time and distance. You could ride all the way to Pueblo and it might seem like you were hardly on the bike at all. Those magical things are precious in our lives, I think. So how can you mess it up? Putting a computer on your bike is the first way to mess it up because you've tried to replace your experience with hard, cold information. And hard, cold information often robs the magic from the experience and it's simply not necessary in most cases. There can be a case made for serious athletes wanting hard data about their performance on a day-to-day basis, but that's not the average person. I also think that if you say to yourself, "Well, Lance Armstrong rides this particular kind of bicycle, so that's what I want to ride because I want to give myself every advantage," well, Lance Armstrong has mechanics who take care of his bikes on a daily basis, he has an unlimited supply of components and frames available to him, he's absolutely not constrained by cost, reliability, maintenance or any other factor besides performance. And what I find is that many people who buy these machines end up being dismayed by the maintenance costs and by the frequency of replacement. So to me, once again, it's not really about the hard data; it's about your experience. And if your experience is enriched by having a relatively simple machine with low maintenance costs and a relationship with a craftsman then buying a custom-made frame locally has many advantages.

NS: Talk about wheels if you would. There's a lot of fuss about the size of wheels these days.

BG: The wheel issue was settled pretty early on in about the 1880s. Thousands of bicycle manufacturers around the world settled on the 700c wheel as being the optimal size. If you make a wheel bigger, it can be more flexible and supple, but it can also get heavier. So you want to watch out for "if a little bit is good, then a lot is better" because it's easy to say that if a 26" wheel is better than a 20" wheel, then maybe we'll make a 36" wheel. Well a 36" wheel gets too heavy, so there's kind of a balance point right around 700c. They actually called them 28" wheels back at the turn of the century. And that was settled on because there were no paved roads; most of the roads were either dirt or cobble and they were very rugged and there were a lot of ruts because of the horse and wagon, and the 28" wheel had the best characteristics for those kinds of conditions, much like what we need now for mountain bike riding. We have paved roads now so we can ride very efficient, skinny-tired wheels. But still, we tend to favor the 700c wheel even for that. And it turns out that a 700c wheel is also optimal for anyone over 5'8" on a mountain bike also. And the reason for that is that it's a softer riding wheel; it has more flexible and shock absorbent characteristics. And the larger the diameter of a wheel, the easier it will roll over a given obstacle. Like you can roll a small marble up to a ledge and it'll stop it, but roll a marble twice the size and it'll roll right over it. The larger the circumference of the wheel, the easier it'll roll over something like a curb. So a bigger wheel makes bumps feel smaller. And if you put a mountain bike tire on a 700c wheel, it becomes a 29-inch wheel, which is why mountain bikes with those wheels are often referred to as 29ers. So this brings us to a perceptual thing. On a 26" wheel, suspension is extremely desirable because they're pretty unyielding and pretty rigid and pretty strong. But a 29" wheel can be ridden without suspension and feel quite acceptable. So we're going to go back now to things like reliability. 26" wheels pinch flat very commonly on mountain bikes. 29" wheels very rarely get pinch flats and it's common for people to run extremely low pressure on them. I know many riders that ride as little as 20 lbs. of air in their 29" wheels and do so without pinch flatting.

NS: And that takes up a lot of the shock?

BG: Yeah, this helps absorb the shock and vibration and makes it possible to ride without suspension, which eliminates a lot of maintenance and expense from the bicycle. And again, a modern suspension fork has a life expectancy of maybe 10 years if it's cared for and maintained. But many of them don't last that long. So a rigid fork with a 29" wheel—you could ride it for the rest of your life and never have to replace the fork. That's an advantage from my perspective. And I'm trying to think about not creating waste in the world, not filling up the landfills with planned obsolescence, not buying products from countries that use slave labor and don't have environmental standards. You can eliminate some of that by having a simpler bike and sourcing it locally.

NS: Let's talk about fixed-gear bikes because they're really trendy right now. What's their history as street bikes? And … well, I know you have some strong opinions about them.

BG: Well, fixed gear bikes were the original high-performance bikes. They're defined as bikes on which you cannot coast. In other words, if the wheels are rolling, the pedals are moving—there's no coasting option. So it requires a greater degree of skill to manage a bike like that in city traffic where you have a lot of stop and go. And it is, theoretically, possible to resist the forward progress of the pedals with your legs and use your legs as a brake of the bike. However, that's a fairly unreliable way to stop in an emergency situation. Probably the most controversial thing about riding a fixed gear is the use of a brake, or not. In my view, just using your legs to stop is simply not adequate and I have a lot of experience riding fixed gear. And I would tell you it's absolutely essential to have a front brake to ride safely in the city because if somebody opens a car door or turns left on you or a cat runs out from under a car, you might not be able to stop even with two brakes, and certainly not very well with none.

NS: So why don't track bikes have brakes?

BG: Well, track bikes are ridden in a controlled environment on an oval bicycle tracks called velodromes with banked corners where it's simply not necessary to stop suddenly and no one else is allowed to ride a bike that has brakes on the velodrome. So no one can stop suddenly and it allows the bike to be even lighter. And it's possible to enjoy that because of the extreme smooth surface and the absolute freedom from the need for sudden stoppage. You still might wreck, but the incidence of that is reduced compared to riding on the street.

NS: So why do you think riding fixed-gear bikes on the streets evolved, particularly among bike messengers?

BG: Legitimately, and this goes back to riding one-speeds also, it's a technique-over-technology type of experience. It's much like a person who prefers fly fishing over bass fishing with sonar and scented baits and things like that; you're trying reduce the amount of technology and increase the amount of technique and pleasure, henceforth, from the experience. For instance, the experience of riding up a hill on a one-speed or a fixed-gear bike is much more satisfying than on a multi-geared bike where you gear down and just sit in the saddle and spin. You have a finer, more-satisfying experience stomping up the hill, and it's how you end up feeling that's the most important aspect of cycling to most people. For me, I had a lot of fear about that when I started riding single-speed bikes—that it was going to be too hard. And I'd go out and I would work hard and I'd struggle. But then if I went back and rode the same ride on my geared bike, I found that my experience was that I worked even harder. So I lost my fear of riding single-speeds and realized that no matter what bike you ride, you're going to struggle and suffer on hills. So you might as well do it in a way that makes you feel good.

NS: And what about why fixed-gears became street bikes?

BG: I think it's another case where people began reducing the technology and got seduced by it. And then maybe they wanted to have even more of a purist experience. That can be true, but it's easy to go too far with the "if a little is good, then a lot more will be better" thinking. By all means, if you're riding a fixed-gear bike with brakes, you can slow down and stop without using the brakes, and you have that option and you can have that experience. But if you do need to stop, then you have the option of actually stopping the bike. I don't see that there's any downside except a small amount of weight. It seems like a logical precaution.

NS: So how do you think we're going to solve our problems with the world looking so grim these days?

BG: I like to encourage self-reliance in young people I meet—to develop the skills and to become self-reliant. Self-reliance in our lives is going to be one of the big issues of our time. In other words, how much do you want to suck at the tit of the man?

NS: Self-reliance, or community reliance?

BG: Community reliance is, in a lot of ways, equivalent to self-reliance. For instance, you publish and newspaper and I want to be heard. You can do something for me and I can help you with a bike. This is what makes life wonderful. The American model that says that if I want to do woodworking then I have to own every woodworking tool, independently, myself—I have to reduplicate all those facilities in order to do anything. That's simply a dead-end. What we need to do is to rediscover community and community reliance like you're saying where we have relationships with people who build bicycle frames and relationships with farmers who supply us with food. We have things that we can give and that we can do and we exchange those for things that we need and that we want.

NS: Yeah, it's egotism to think that you can do it all. Total self-reliance is fascinating.

BG: Yeah, this independence that has been encouraged in us and has been promoted through a lot of manipulation over a long time is very real to us, but it's not a necessity. There are other ways; there are humbler ways. So I really think the bicycle can be this fine too to self-discovery. For instance, if it catches in your craw that you might have to go to work for corporate America or support things in this world that you know are unwise, cycling can offer you a way to not do it.