I've been trying to explain where the bicycle world (mainly the bicycle industry) has seriously gone wrong. I keep coming back to the same realization... 'Died in the wool' cyclists are cyclically victims of a "motor mentality"...specifically, direct attacks from the motorcycle "schwabs" who are continually trying to make our sport and livelihood, theirs.
This began a half century after cyclists had been earning their way on the cobbles and dirt paths around America and Europe. The internal combustion engine was introduced to (and fornicated with) the convenient triangle at the heart of the bicycle frame. Indian, Harley (originally bicycle manufacturers) and others locked us in a fume-filled room, tied us up and extracted some of the valuable secrets concerning two wheel travel that we held close to our souls.
It took seventy years for the self-propelled cycle-lovers to get our mojo back...thanks to pods of Hippies and College professors on both coasts of North America a new bicycle energy was born in the mid-seventies. We had a new secret code...we were lifting our steads over fences and boulders, we were traversing washouts and exploring the small paths where motorbikers were not capable or welcomed. Their bikes were too heavy and too loud and they were dependent upon petrol...we had none of these limitations.
During the last couple of decades, however, the motorcycle (and technology) "schwabs" are making inroads again into the simple and sacred world of the bicycle. Battery power, fluid charged brakes, electronic shifting and analytics have attached to the perfect machine like Louisiana leeches on a swamp dog. The bicycles are heavier and complicated with gadgets that are seriously superfluous and limit our ability to enjoy economically the freedom that comes with pedaling the damn bicycle down a country lane.
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