Honestly, Jan is the king of april fools day. Every year he makes me chuckle.
That being said - i do think that racing has hit a precipice in which I think it is largely irrelevant in technology development in a bike I wish to use on a daily basis. I don't need newer or lighter materials (steel is great). I don't need more gears (7-9 speed with a compact double does me fine). I don't need proprietary components or electrical anything. I want full serviceability, rebuildable components, and un-obsolete-able bikes that will last a lifetime. Not many companies are doing research or pushing industry to adopt quality long term and sustainable solutions. Rivendell does this fine. I guess the problem is I don't need to replace my Rivendell with another newer and better Rivendell even though they're fun to ogle. And all my parts are old and working great. Now with tariffs I will order from Rivendell or any USA side companies even less as the CBSA has been relentless. I will still try to make purchases from them when possible. But not sure when I'll need to make any necessary purchases from them in the near or moderately distant future. On Tuesday, April 1, 2025 at 8:55:33 AM UTC-7 Doug Williams wrote: > > This is why bicycle racing is completely irrelevant to people who actually > use their bike for transportation. For a long time, I have been saying that > race bicycle design is so divorced from real world useful bicycling as to > be completely irrelevant. Why on earth would anyone buy a race bike and use > it for their commute or for..well, anything except a professional race > while being followed by a motorized maintenance crew carrying several > backup race bikes? A carbon fiber race bike is fragile, dangerous, and > completely unsuitable for any real world purpose. For quite some time, the > scientific consensus has been that wider tires are safer, more reliable, > and more comfortable. Now that science is equally clear that wide tires are > FASTER on real world roads, the reaction has been to...ban tires wider than > 31mm? > > https://www.renehersecycles.com/uci-limits-road-bike-tires-to-31-mm/ > > Seriously, the bicycling community needs to wake up and stop idolizing > racers, race bikes, and the companies that promote them. These people are > working to promote bikes that are terrible for any useful transportation > purpose. > > Doug > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/1aee33e3-c4c2-4494-b46a-dad137c9aba2n%40googlegroups.com.
