Go! magazine
One day in 1992, Chris Moeller called me out of the blue. At the
time, Chris was really sitting on top of the world - S&M was taking
off, and he had been granted a lot of control over "GO!" magazine,
which was a short-lived combination of "BMX Action" and "Freestylin".
Anyway, Chris called me. "Is this Jack Baruth?"
"Yeah. Who's this?"
"Chris Moeller."
"No, really, who is this?"
He invited me to write a monthly column for GO!, along the lines
of his popular column "Dogbites". This was to have been the first one...
but GO! folded about thirty-five days after I faxed the story to Chris.
Did Chris know the mag was going under? Was he just pulling my leg?
Only he knows. It's funny that there was a happy ending to this story-
after ten years, I'm finally racing Graphite Tuffs!
This is a story about a boy and his mags, or, rather, a boy without mags. Back in '85, when my little brother Mark and I had fresh-out-o'-the-box econoqual racers and were entering this grand and glorious sport, quite a few people used plastic wheels. Yet an aura of shame was already beginning to cling to those pinwheeling Zytel pups; real racers, it was thought, rode alloy wheels and learned the artful opposite twists of the spoke wrench. Four months of Beginner racing and endless nights of trueing my little brother's wheels later, I overcame my plastic predjudices and proposed the idea of "street wheels" for Mark to a skeptical Dad.
"You see, Dad, when you're, like, riding on the street, it helps to have tougher wheels, and plus he won't have to change brake pads even, and also when you're riding with mags and then change to alloys it makes you, you know, ride faster." It was that easy to nab a set of black Z-Mags for Mark, leaving me with only my own tweakage to straighten every night.The more my brother and I tooled around the neighborhood, though, the more I wanted a pair of mags for myself. They looked cool when you were jumping and provided a sort of muscular appearance.
I spent most of my study hall in school every day reading mail order ads, trying to find a set of Tuffs, Masters, or Z-Mags that three weeks or so of paychecks from the pizza place where I washed dishes would cover, without success. I simply couldn't afford them. It was time to be creative.
"Yo Mark, man."
"What."
"Those mags you got."
"Yeah."
"They're broken."
"You're kidding. Where?"
"In the hub, man. Whaddya think? Let me use them
for a couple of days. I'll fix 'em."
"Well..."
"Fine. Ride your broken
mags. See if I care. When you bail and need help, don't come crying
to me. I'll be laughing because you ignored perfectly sound advice
from your brother."
"Okay, okay."
"Stay right there-I'll get the wrench."
It was just like that. I declared that the problem resided in the front hub, and rode the rear mag around, with my regular alloy in front. It was wonderful. It transformed me from a helplessly endoing squid to a relentlessly Hannah-style squirrel overnight. I stalled Mark as long as I could, claiming that his hub problem was slowly yet surely being solved. After a month or so, Mom forced me to return the Z-Mags to their rightful owner, and I was back to falling forward over my bike and watching successively worse dings manifest themselves in the unsteady spin of my rear wheel.
Years passed, and with them went the stomach-churning anticipation that I would get looking at Tuff Wheels in a bike shop, replaced with a sensible affection for expensive sealed hubs and chromed rims. True weapons of an 18 & Over Expert, I suppose. I owned a couple of freestyle bikes with 48-spokers and found them to be a nearly ideal compromise between the demands of strength and lightness. My road bike has 32-spoke wheels with 19mm rims, and I'd been considering 1.5" rims for my race ride lately with an eye towards saving a crucial amount of rotating weight. Gone forever was my desire for any wheel that weighed more than two and a half pounds. Or so I thought.
Two weeks ago, at a local race, I saw an old set of Graphite Tuffs on sale for $35. A crescendo wave of repressed mag lust sent shivers through my body. I ran to the car, dug out my checkbook, made quick calculations regarding the actual necessity of paying my phone bill, and went to buy the pups. They'd been sold five minutes before, while I'd been out in my car. My initial disappointment quickly yielded to a kind of piercing resolve, a pearl formed around the irritating grain of mag obsession.
Since that day, I've found unquestionable peace and solace in perusing mail order ads in GO!, comparing shipping and handling costs, and dreaming of the day when, utility payments deferred and a little bit of extra food in the fridge, I can indulge myself in a matte-black pair of slick plasticized pinwheels. Yeah, they'll laugh at me down at the track. But I've learned a secret. You see, when you're riding the street, it helps to have tougher wheels, and it can even make you faster... I dream of it still.
On the cover page, I wrote the following - Chris had asked for a bio
to print along with the column.
Chris - This ended up at 766 words, as I seem to have trouble when
brevity is required. Although I'd like to name the column "Dogbites,"
I understand that's been taken. Very well. My address is: Jack
Baruth, 616 S. College, Apt. #96, Oxford OH 45056-2274. As far as bio
information, I was born in Brooklyn, NY, am 20 years old, am a junior
at Miami (of Ohio) majoring in Brit Lit, own a Badd&Co XXL, a Haro
Sport, a Cyclecraft cruiser, a Cannondale SR500, a 1990 VW Fox, and
assorted chattel, and listen to the Pat Metheny Group, Wynton
Marsalis, and the Geto Boys. I was rudely bumped by you during the
Christmas Nationals when you were late for your moto and had to go
through my lane, but I bear you no grudge. If this column sucks, call
me today and I will rewrite and refax - Jack