Change come hard in the cycling community

[Dogtrousers]

It is quite hard to find lights using replaceable AA or AAA batteries now.

You can still get Cateye Omni rear lights which run on AAAs, but aside from that you're right.

 

[lazybloke]

I'm not sure that is physically possible! (How do you get ten times better than 'very good to excellent'?)

If I hadn't just bought a non-ultrasonic type then maybe I would have bought one and found out for myself.

I upgraded from the old leccy toothbrush to a sonicare when I needed a scale & polish. Just one use of the sonicare made a massive difference.

 

[ColinJ]

I upgraded from the old leccy toothbrush to a sonicare when I needed a scale & polish. Just one use of the sonicare made a massive difference.

Sounds good.

If I outlive my new toothbrush (and still have teeth by then! ) I will buy one of those next time to see if I notice the difference too.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Quick releases. What a load of utter flimflam.

I rode pretty much half of my life with plain wheel nuts and solid axles. Never did me any harm. I just carried a spanner for the rare occasions when I needed to remove a wheel.

Then along came the marketing men, filling the empty heads of the gormless masses with dreams of riding the Tour de France, where quick wheel changes are important. Soon enough the good old honest wheel nut was supplanted by the effete quick release and its decadent companion the hollow axle.

If William Hogarth had included bicycle wheels in his engravings, you can bet that Gin Lane would have featured debauched continental quick releases while the wheels in Beer Street would have been held on with trusty British wheel nuts.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

The discussion seems to be rather polarised: You're either a luddite or a mindless trend follower.

Personally, and I suspect like the large mass of us on here, I am a highly discerning and rational adopter of technology, able to judge what is marketing flim flam and what is a real benefit ;-)

My expert judgement through the years has been as follows:

Brilliant, adopt:
LEDs and lithium batteries for lights
STIs
Front suspension for MTBs
Digital cyclecomputers
Strava for logging rides
GPS for navigation
Carbon fibre frames
QRs

Tried but not worth it (unless comes anyway with a new bike for instance)
Discs for road bikes

Not tried but looks maybe worth adopting
Belt drive for commuting
Wide range hub gears (Rohlhoff)
Modern hub dynamos

Not tried, no intention to, would avoid if possible.
Di2
Tubeless
1x gearing

Good but not for my style of riding
Full sus MTB
Helmets (some of the time)


My dislike of current road bike trends is that it adds very large cost and maintainability penalties (hydraulics, electronic shifting, internal cabling, integrated "cockpits") for essentially zero benefit. And because these trends are near ubiquitous at the nice end of bikes it means you can't buy a nice bike without them, and also limits things like posh wheels, for instance. This, of course, makes me a luddite :-)

 

[Dogtrousers]

1x gearing

Being a cutting-edge trend-setting hipster I was an early adopter of 1x

Except we called it "5 speed" in the 70s.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

Being a cutting-edge trend-setting hipster I was an early adopter of 1x

Except we called it "5 speed" in the 70s.

Yes - regressing to it now is a Bad Thing and Luddite

 

[matticus]

The discussion seems to be rather polarised: You're either a luddite or a mindless trend follower.

Exactly. I'd call the people doing the polarising mindless! But forums have ever been thus - many folks can't see shades between black and white, or how some things have both Pros AND Cons ...

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Is selective Ludditism okay?

Or, do you have to be 'all in' across the board?

 

[matticus]

Is selective Ludditism okay?

Or, do you have to be 'all in' across the board?

do you mean smashing up the Di2 'sets, but leaving LED lights in peace??

 

[Dogtrousers]

The discussion seems to be rather polarised: You're either a luddite or a mindless trend follower.

Personally, and I suspect like the large mass of us on here, I am a highly discerning and rational adopter of technology, able to judge what is marketing flim flam and what is a real benefit ;-)

My expert judgement through the years has been as follows:

The great thing about the variety of stuff on offer is we can pick and choose our own feast. I end up with a rather weird ideal of a steel frame adorned with lots of electronic wizardry. I don't expect others to agree.

New stuff tied and adopted with enthusiasm

• GPS tech of various flavours, mapping, radar, live tracking and all that
• Modern LED lighting
• Power meters
• Turbo training
• Chemical hand and foot warmers
• Goretex
• Tubeless - still a bit ambivalent, it's good but I could live without
• SPDs (not exactly cutting edge, but ...)

Never tried but would consider

• Electronic gears
• Disc brakes
• Triple chainsets (Not that they are exactly new but I've never owned one)

Gone along with but not entirely enthusiastically

• Brifters - too fragile a solution, there must be a better way. Maybe revert to friction or go electronic in future.
• Threadless headsets. Not keen but it seems to be the thing. Seem to work OK but I don't understand them.
• Quick releases. Over-complicated solution. Oh well, they don't do much harm and I must grudgingly admit that they are are actually a bit useful.

Tried but didn't persevere

• Modern Dynamo hub. Just couldn't get along with it.

Nothing against them but unlikely to try

• Rohloff, belt drive
• Titanium frames
• Recumbent bike

Never going to try

• Carbon frames.
• Two-speed hub gears (as modelled by Filippo Ganna recently) - look if you really want a double chainset then use one.
• Integrated seatposts, cockpits, internal cabling, carbon wheels, low spoke count wheels aero water bottles and other racing stuff.
• Ginormous jockey wheels. Wouldn't it be fun to be able to say "Look at my enormous jockeys!" No? OK, maybe not.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

The great thing about the variety of stuff on offer is we can pick and choose our own feast.

My contention is the opposite: That you can't do this in reality: off the shelf bikes come with current trends and that adds large price and maintainability costs. Non "trend" items become niche, very rapidly in some cases.

 

[Dogtrousers]

My contention is the opposite: That you can't do this in reality: off the shelf bikes come with current trends and that adds large price and maintainability costs. Non "trend" items become niche, very rapidly in some cases.

Completely disagree.

Go to Decathlon or somewhere, pick a bike. It'll have the commonest (cheapest) commodity parts - depending on your price bracket - say 105 mechanical or Tiagra. I don't see off the shelf bikes adding "large price and maintainability costs". Here's a random off the shelf bike from Decathlon. https://www.decathlon.co.uk/p/road-bike-ncr-cf-tiagra-blue/_/R-p-332106 Very maintainable and I'd say reasonably affordable.

If you happen to have a bee in your bonnet about tubeless then good news is that typically off the shelf bikes sold "tubeless ready" with tubes, so if you want to cover yourself from head to toe in sealant while setting it up that's your choice, but you don't have to.

If you have a bee in your bonnet about wanting rim brakes and a steel frame then your choice will be a bit more limited these days but a quick google will give you something like https://winstanleysbikes.co.uk/genesis-equilibrium-2023-bike Slightly less "trend" as it has rim brakes and a steel frame. Similar price bracket. Just as maintainable.

If you've decided that 1x is the thing for you, or super fat gravel tyres, or electronic gears or a Titanium frame or whatever then it's off to google to find something to suit. There's an enormously wide range of choice.

Now you have bought your off-the-shelf bike you are set for a good many years riding without needing another new bike. And if you want to customise it a bit weirdly to your own taste then you are free so to do - within reason. (eg if the bee in your bonnet is anti-threadless-headsets you may struggle)

 

[matticus]

My contention is the opposite: That you can't do this in reality: off the shelf bikes come with current trends and that adds large price and maintainability costs.

I think it would be very easy to think that tubeless, disc brakes, concealed cables etc are becoming almost mandatory. Barely a week goes by without someone predicting "No bikes will be made with rim brakes by end of 2025!".

I'd like to think this isn't the case, but if you just read the cycling press, well ...

 

[presta]

The great thing about the variety of stuff on offer is we can pick and choose our own feast.

All too often what passes for choice is 100 different brands of the same product: hundreds of mountain bikes in the shops, but just try finding a touring bike on the High Street, or a tandem.

Then there's choice itself, have a read of this if you're interested in the perverse effects of too much choice, and the harm it does to mental health.