Zero Jewels

LOOKING CLOSELY AT THE CASEBACK, THIS JAPANESE MIYOTA STATES, "NO JEWELS"

This Watch has, (as the picture states)... "NO JEWELS" whatsoever. It's battery electrifies a quartz rock (a crystal silicon dioxide oscillator) which bends naturally when voltage is applied, creating a very precise resonance which pings at precisely 32 768hz.  As quartz oscillation can be used to sync perfect time, It's amazing natural simplicity enjoys universal renowned in time-keeping. Similarly, quartz as a stylus on your Turntable can generate delicate voltage as the needle bounces through a gravelly groove to produce Music.  The Quartz watch, out-performs a mechanical movement, but it'll never be as cool as an Omega Sea Master, or a Colnago Steelnovo.  If you are a loser like me you own neither.
​Nobody who owns a mechanical chronograph uses it to time an event such as a bike race, or a Nascar lap. Nobody watches their chrono second-hand sweep by at 120 hertz to time anything, except in movies where smart scientists, such as Oppenheimer calculate megatonnage.
Watch owners likely press that chronograph button but a few times when the watch arrives new, and soon jam-up the escapement. After getting it fixed (again), they leave it alone forever.  A 21 jewel mechanical watch is a lovely and revered piece of hand craft, which like a bicycle enjoys veneration as an elegant, if "Way-Cool" analog gizmo. But for most, analog has been eclipsed by more efficient motorized/digital technologies.  I have one. (...A mechanical watch that is) -- But I have many more bicycles, and I love them all more or less equally. Within the gestalt of a beautiful thing, does the aesthetic matter much to it's long term appeal?, or does veneration bond at birth?

Cycling, In spite of Netflix's docuseries-veneration, remains an unpopular sport in the U.S..  Bicycling is perhaps never going to edge out golf nor nascar on your watch-list.  Although in fairness, the famed Madison Square Garden was purpose built as a Bicycle race track, and for The Bicycle Circus -- true story.
Americans are more likely to watch soccer (eew!), than they are to binge-watch the Tour de France.  There are literally tens of thousands of bike races which will never be seen, filmed, nor televised.  The "Grand Tours" get marginalized air play on "The Ocho", Or some other obscure "Outside Channel", if at all. (And in fairness, this is not because they are boring events, nor because they lack the je ne sais quoi of nascar).  Cyclists can turn right and turn left too... in the same race! -- And cyclists..., (they) shift their gears all by themselves, even today. They ride margins of centimeters, not feet or yards.  Their slip-stream is way cool to witness, actually, terrifying!


A J. Laverack's Aston Martin Bike is just as frightening, because it is elitist, gorgeous, and a poser icon, like a functional Guido-chain.. Something to be seen with, and not ridden.
Bicycles are now basically Collector's Items, with insane prices, and complications which defy logic.  The fact that they commemorate anything but a birthday, is every bit as bizarre as what brands align with them for street cred..
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BUT, as far as momentum in sports-washing goes -- The Arabs are doing a bang-up job of authenticating themselves using cyclists, and cycling brands, in addition to stupid expensive wristwatches.  As disinterested fossil predation desecrates the graves of cycling legend, deep pockets exhume cycling's hard fought and sweaty authenticity to fill garage museums.

Flipping through Esquire's Thirty-some pages of mechanical watch ads this weekend -- A habit best beset upon a toilet -- Many Haut Horologers stroke ancient bejeweled  movements, deployment clasps, and beguiling skeletal case-backs over 18 pages of iconic watch ad's. Today's wealthy near-thirty-somethings try to crack their cliche-waspy exclusivity by dumping 20-30k on a tiny mechanical heartbeat for their wrist.  This bejeweled VIP wrist-band is proudly flaunted during the work week, and happy-hour -- A counterpoint to the rolled up sleeve flashing "full-sleeve" at Sunday Brunch.  Along the work-a-week's velvet ropes, roll a few stainless Submariners, e.g. The preferred wristband for club entry.
In Esquire, and often Vanity Fair,  (If you can still find a human written article wedged in the margins; Beside Tacky Cologne, Sleep Gadgets, Ab-flexors & $1200. Jeans), you may yet find the advice to become a man -- Provided you can follow instructions.  Readers will occasionally discover The tangential applique of iconic objets d' arte, in Horology to ignite nostalgic credibility.
In our fakest of  worlds, notable analog junk shapes our fleeting self-worth. Just as borrowing a brand's cult appeal makes blasé' homogeneity appear interesting, (if authentic) -- Wearing a tacky chronograph has become authenticity de rigeur.  Pretty periodicals promise droves of $Pateks.,  $Brietlings., occasional $Deus'., even a $VintageScout., to qualify in societal-man-scape. It is always lovely to possess a touch of cool-ass shit. Every fare of cool analog'ish stuff, could perhaps help one grope the braille of our fake world.  You can be sure an authentic Rolex will ink the litmus for Wasp-i-ness.  This began eons ago, and will continue ashes to ashes.
As it turns out, authenticity is fewer and farther between, than expected; And many will in fact need to pay for theirs. 
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So it's no surprise, that You can now acquire an Aston Martin, Ferrari, Lamborghini or Porsche branded Bicycle, far cheaper than the Automobile.  This is nothing new.  [ I'll wait for the estate sale. By that time the value, and the cost will have tumbled.] ...So it is curious though, that within the same quarter, competing periodicals would witness a fervent up-tick in bicycle sports-washing.  Presently the J. Laverack Aston Martin Bicycle, leads the cost race,  followed by the Colnago Anniversary bike... But their new ad copy,  didn't directly try to sell me anything; just a logo, and a man posing with his bike.  This got me thinking about the 42 watch ads in one magazine, and what was wrong with me for not owning any of them. Like Bubble-gum flavored Juul vape pens... any iconic brand needs to work a touch harder, and earlier, tossing candy at "the cool kids". Any trust-funder who didn't dilate an ivy-league cervix, can leverage a bike or a wristwatch to get their name on the board.  The same kids will need to pony big-time dinero to purchase a Colnago Steelnovo Ltd. at roughly $22,000.  Considering the Ninety Year Old Iconoclast (Ernesto) built bikes for 70 plus years, and alas sold his company in 2020, without selling his soul -- Nearly anything he has touched, or bearing his name is now Gold.

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As it turns out, authenticity is fewer and farther between, than expected. And many will in fact need to buy theirs.  3D Printed Stainless steel lugs smoothly seamed with custom drawn Columbus Stainless tubes can only come in a limited batch of 70, to celebrate the retirement of the Italian Master's Bicycle Co.  With an Arab's injection of frivolous cash, Colnago can now, (perhaps) outspend capitalist American's, and expand innovative reach.  Reborn, (as it would appear), upon the fossil'd backs of fuel sales -- An Iconic bicycle is born to celebrate the elegant clean burning human endeavor of mastering the Two-Wheeler. ​

Ernesto Colnago, a man so authentic that he opted NOT to follow his family into farming, but to wrench bikes on 15 Paris to Roubaix races. He'd built hundreds of wheels for the pros, and eventually built an empire of beautiful bicycles. To chase a dream well into ones nineties, without a fancy watch, is the stuff of legend. Sweater-clad Ernesto has no jewels per se', no tacky status timepiece, and no gaudy gold chain. Ernesto Colnago made an occasional gem, and even a few bikes of gold, but most importantly, he made whatever he'd dreamt of.

Colnago bikes would effect a revolution in European Bike making, pushing ever deeper into unique methods, wacky paint-jobs, and elaborate pantographs. Ernesto pioneered Carbon frame-building, disc-brakes. And many more examples came to life as exotic chrome lugged elaborations, with silly decals, and hand painted pin-striping. The Italian Masters (largely driven by Colnago) would force American bicycle makers in the 70's to match their innovation, or to push back with affordable, quiet "Ford-Like" ordinariness.

​As such, Trek Bicycle was born in a barn to deliver essentially the new lightweight, yet boring Schwinn. The counterpoint to flamboyant Italians, but a notch above Schwinn's sputtering out, against Murray, AMF, and Huffy (AKA, Cheap-Shit), Trek peddled plain colored, simple, and somewhat lightweight ten-speeds. And forty years hence, perhaps jumped the shark.

More often tacky Italian steel bicycles became synonymous with Colnago.  But  for his entire adult life, Ernesto brought Milan runway models down the paths, and cols of Europe and America.  Interestingly Colnago never stopped making bikes exactly the same way -- With passion.  By adhering tubes into cast lugs, Ernesto, a craftsman, and a huge proponent of cycling equity, won the Tour De France yet again, under the ridership of Tadej Pogacar.  Arguably the finest modern cyclist, Tadej handed Ernesto more than one major race before Ernesto chose to sell his namesake to Chimera Investments, from the UAE.  As the sun sets over the rolling hills of Cambiago, near Milan, Ernesto Colnago becomes a contented 90+ retiree, and also perhaps the most authentic and impassioned practitioner of modern bicycle craft ever.  Within Colnago's original factory beats the heart of perhaps the most renowned and dedicated advocate for Cycling.    So it is not surprising that when an Fossil meets a fossil-fuel Driven Arab firm, they are buying into brilliant moxie. Chimera had to act fast, and raise the ante, to beat out French fashion Agglomerate LVMH [Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy SA] from pocketing another exceptional brand. What will remain to be discovered is IF the Arab firms choose to keep up the good work, or rather Trek-ify a "Rolex" brand built upon dreams, integrity, and grit -- to spin it off as vanilla Ford-ish quartz-driven throttle-bikes.

ERNESTO'S 87TH BIRTHDAY BICYCLE!

Before he sold his company mid-pandemic, Ernesto shared colorful comments about the big three 'Poser' Bicycle brands, noting their lack of substance, and (of course) "earnestness". "That California Brand", he'd accuse of chasing dollars, betraying buyers with misleading marketing, and cheap Asian products which fail.  He'd admired authenticity more than any character trait. Ernesto admired Tough and honest riders like Sagan. Sentimentally, and perhaps because Ernesto Colnago could smell bullshit clear across the ocean, He maintained as much control over his brand until, as patriarch, he alas let his baby go. The same year of the sale, Ernesto  watched Tadej Pogacar win the Tour De France aboard a Colnago. He repeated that this year. Today, (as in right now) a consumer can still buy Colnago's most venerated and perhaps iconic bicycle exactly as it has existed since the early 80's.  It is the Colnago Master, it is authentic, it is brand-spanking-new, It is retro, it is made of Italian steel.
If ridden properly, the Colnago Master says more about a man than any Rolex ever will...
​But then again... a Rolex Submariner is still rather cool,  (except perhaps not at brunch).

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