Re: Extensive article on Rivendell and Grant Petersen

On 9/23/2024 11:18 AM, Roger Merriman wrote:

Frank Krygowski <frkrygow@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

On 9/22/2024 4:20 PM, Mark J cleary wrote:
>
I'm not a Rivendell rider, and probably never will be. But I have great
respect for many of Grant's ideas.
>
Ideas like: Bicycling should be about much more than always trying to
either go faster or "train" (for what?). Like him, I value technological
simplicity and versatility. I believe that most of the annual
"improvements" that manufacturers dream up and _Buycycling_ magazine
promotes are of no significant benefit to the customer/rider but instead
help the industry push more stuff out the door. And I like being
involved with the bike, and knowing how every bit of it works. That's as
opposed to, say, pushing an electrical button and having some
incomprehensible system shift my gears for me.
>
YMMV of course.
>

What one retro grouch likes another! Gosh! ;)

It's natural for people who share preferences to approve of each other. I'm sure it happens among people who would never dare ride any bike that's not up to the latest trendy fashion craze!

I say that for a time ie road bikes where fairly narrow use, mainly down to
the naff all tire clearances my new commute road bike with rim brakes and
budgets kit, managed absolutely fine down some of the gravel roads down to
the Cheese Market. Somewhat pinged about, as 32mm even if a good wide road
tire is somewhat narrow for such surfaces ie old track down hill, plus the
occasional cobblestone thrown in!

IOW, your somewhat less trendy bike did fine for you.

 Basically more modern bikes are more adaptable with wider tires and gear
ranges, and disk brakes which certainly cope wet, and more steep stuff
better.
 And certainly 1by setups are more simple ie just one shifter and so on,
though road bikes in general tend to towards doubles than 1by.

Those two paragraphs are echoing the latest advertising themes.
It's good that the pendulum has finally swung back to reasonable tire clearance. But billions of cyclists are still stopping plenty well enough with rim brakes, even when they're wet.
And millions of "sport" cyclists are still unconfused by (gosh!) two front chainrings instead of one. (Some of us even have three!) As a bonus, most with >1 chainring get more gear range than they'd otherwise have, and without resorting to unusual or proprietary equipment.
--
- Frank Krygowski