Spring finally showed up at the end of last week:Only for summer to immediately elbow it out of the way, inspiring me to head over to the other side of the river on Saturday for a good old-fashioned road ride:I chose the right day, too, because had I waited until Sunday I would have run right into the GFNY, which as always I completely forgot about:Wait, does this mean River Road is open again?Either way, this is already one of the Fredliest cycling corridors in North America if not the world, and on the day before a Gran Fondo the Fred Factor was frothy to say the least, with teams forming pacelines and the air resonant with the raspy sound of overly loud cheap freehubs laced into $3,000+ wheelsets. (The current business model for wheels seems to be a cheap hub, a plastic rim, and a four-digit price tag because ceramic bearings, which in practice are pretty much the same skateboard wheel bearings as every other wheel, only they can charge you a lot more money for them. I really dont know how people can stand the horrible sound of todays freehubs, though I guess it drowns out the ticking sound of their press-fit bottom brackets.)As always on this corridor there were also plenty of triathletes, armed to the teeth (or technically the perineum) with their trademark butt rockets:It may look like simple hydration, but quick tap of the electronic blip on the handlebar releases the CO2, which in turn launches the incendiary water bottle projectile. The tip-off that this is a high-tech weapons delivery system and not simply a hydration-and-flat-fix solution is that there is no such thing as a triathlete who can repair a flat. Fortunately, its extremely unusual to see one of these actually go off, since 99% of the time the triathlete will crash while attempting to press the launch button.As for me, I was the hairy-legged guy on the old road bike with a triple and mountain bike pedals that everyone else was passing:The bike is now running beautifully, all thanks to Bens Cycle, who had exactly the spare part I needed to rehabilitate the wheels:As a middle-aged guy with all the bikes I could possibly dream of and more youd think it would take more to excite me than a fix for my cheap Craigslist bike, but youd be absolutely wrong, and the utter joy I felt when I threaded them on and confirmed they fit was all out of proportion to their diminutive size and cost. Of course, in purchasing these I did violate my oath to not spend any money on this bike; however, when you consider the alternativethat being wasting an otherwise perfectly good set of wheelsI maintain doing so was ethically sound.What amazes me even more than how easily pleased I am is how utterly stupid I was to be riding around on the wheels in the first place. Not only were both original plastic preload adjuster thingies cracked, but when I went to grease the front hub the front one fell apart immediately:Keep in mind the axle of this hub basically works like a headset, and without the preload thingy the effect is the same as removing a threadless stem. So if this had come apart while I was riding the wheel would have easily shifted far enough over to lock it up, throwing me over the bars and to my fate.Wasnt it only January when I was analyzing a similar crash and taking inventory of all the things I could have done to avoid it? Some people never learn.

We each have our own idea of what dystopia looks like, and for some its a surveillance state where you cant even park in a bike lane without getting a ticket:Heres what happened:Bret BaiersFox News crew was slapped with a ticket after cameras in Beijing caught them parked illegally while filming a segment aboutChinas mass surveillancein the middle of a busy bike lane.During the segment, theFox News anchornoted there are cameras literally everywhere in Beijing, before admitting his crew had briefly parked illegally and was immediately issued a ticket.Some people will look at this story and say that a world in which there are facial recognition cameras everywhere and your freedom of movement is subject to your social credit score is terrifying. Others will look at it and say, Uh, you were filming a news segment in the middle of traffic, what did you expect? But both sides are missing the point here, which is this:Take a look at this so-called bike lane:Wheres are the bikes?I dont see any bikes.Now thats scary. And its happening here, too. A bike lane hasnt been a bike lane since at least the start of this decade. Yet the Smuggies told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears and keep calling them bike lanes, anyway.It was their final, most essential command.Yes, be afraid. Be very afraid. Or at least worried:This is an interesting story, and like the bike lane thing there are two ways to feel about it. One is that we should embrace a future in which marketing and storytelling are obsolete and companies focus entirely on price, and the other is that we should fear a future in which marketing and storytelling is obsolete and companies focus entirely on price:Telling a compelling story is the difference between a mass-market success and a niche product. If you hated the idea that undercutting price devalues a brand name, you are likely going to hate this concept even more. Regardless of how you feel, its true.Chinese bike brands do not understand how to tell a story, nor do those brands seem to grasp how much that story matters for sales. Walk up to a booth at China Cycle and ask about a product, and youll never hear that its the fastest wheel you can buy. You also wont hear how a frame is nearly the lightest on the market, but also soaks up bumps at a specific resonance frequency or whatever engineered buzzword a marketing department has cooked up this year to help you ride faster for longer.Will we be better off when everyone is forced to ditch the bullshit, or will selling bikes simply become a race to the bottom in which companies like ASSISTING FORCE keep selling cheaper and cheaper plastic bikes and theres no room left for anyone else to make a living in the bike industry? Sure, 90% of this tedious blog is me making fun of bike marketing, but in a cycling world devoid of storytelling theres also no room for the wistful lugged steel bicycles I cherish, now is there? (To say nothing of cycling blogs, though those have gone the way of the rim brake, anyway.)But maybe theres no reason to fear for the western companies, and maybe there will always be people ready to spend thousands and thousands of dollars for the fastest gravel wheels ever built:Can you sue ENVE, the most obnoxiously-named company in cycling (Id almost rather ride a bike called ASSISTING FORCE than a bike called ENVE), when you spend $3,100 for the fastest gravel wheels ever built and you still suck?Also, does it even have Vibracore vibration-damping wheel tech?These are even more expensive:Strade GT wheels will cost 2,499 / US$3,299 / 3,199 for the steel bearing-equipped option and rise to 2,719 / US$3,589 / 3,489 if you want ceramic bearings.Though they do reduce vibration at a structural level:The recycled material is integrated into the spoke bed of the rims, which the brand claims helps reduce vibration at a structural level. This material helps deaden road vibration at the rim, creating a smoother ride and reducing what we tend to think of as road buzz, which should ultimately help keep us feeling fresher and less fatigued.You know whats a much less expensive way to replicate the effects of a 10-15 PSI drop in air pressure?A 10-15 PSI drop in air pressure.Finally, speaking of dropping, some questions just answer themselves:This is like asking why lesbians dont use condoms.

I hadnt been on the Roadini in a little, but I corrected that yesterday:When putting this bike together, the idea was to take everything I love about my other road bikes and combine them into one lugged steel superbike, and I have to say I really nailed it:Though I guess Rivendell deserve a little bit of credit for, you know, actually creating the bike.Even so, Im disappointednot in the bike, but in myself. See, I figured once I had my superbike Id be totally satisfied and could move on to other things, like parenting and home improvement and finally working on that wine blog Ive been meaning to start.Maybe Id even get rid of some bikes and create some additional room for my expanding wine collection.But no. Here I am a year and a half later, and instead of paring down Im buying aluminum bikes with skinny tires on Craigslist, and instead of moving on to other things Im spending all my spare time scouring the globe for tiny parts for them:I suppose I need to accept it, and to tell myself its okay. Yes, I wish I could be like Jobst Brandt, who only owned one bike, which left him with plenty of time to insult people onlineand sure, Ive been insulting people online for nineteen years now, but if only Id had Jobst Brandts capacity for austerity I could have insulted so many more:But thats not who I am. Im not an ascetic like Jobst Brandt, and I cannot transcend my fascination with the physical object. But it could be worse. At least Im fixated on bikes and not something truly self-destructive, like drugs or gambling or analog audio equipment.[This makes all those super-expensive plastic gravel bikes seems reasonable.]Speaking of toys for adults, on my ride I found myself behind this vehicle:Please note Ive obscured the license plate out of consideration for the driver, though in post-congestion pricing New York it would not be at all surprising to see one fully whited-out like that.Anyway, while waiting for the light I happened to notice the license plate frame:Oh, interesting, I thought. I guess BMW still makes cars with stick shifts. But when I got a little closer I saw the car wasnt a stick shift at all. Now, it doesnt matter to me what kind of transmission people order with their sports cars, and what a man wants to do with his right hand while hes driving is his business. (At least as long as hes not within 100 yards of a school.) But I admit I did feel a little cheated by the license plate frameunless Im misinterpreting it and its a boast about having an automatic transmission, which I guess makes sense, since you dont shift it yourself; rather, the shift just happens.Moving back to bikes, the bike industry keeps creating new categories, and Allied recently introduced a new bike specifically for roads that kinda disintegrate into dirt. I dont know about any of that, but it did occur to me that the test of a good all-around road bike is that you can happily ride it entirely on the road without so much as thinking about the dirt (or gravel as it were), and yet youre just as happy to take an off-road detour on it when one presents itself. Thats not the case for, say, the now-departed PRJCT GRVL bike, which wasfine on the road, but a whole ride without any dirt on it felt like a day at the beach without going in the ocean:Conversely you have bikes like this one, where if you ride past a trailhead you just look away and keep on going, like its a bakery during Pesach:But the Roadini meets that all-around road bike critereon, which is to say I did cut through the woods Just Because. And Im glad I did, because I got to enjoy a pecker sighting:Unfortunately by the time I extricated my phone it was too far away and I only managed that fuzzy pinch-zoom shot, but if my research is correct thats a pileated woodpecker:[Photo: Joshlyamon via a popular user-edited Internet encyclopedia]Then later I was riding along the mighty Saw Mill River when in my finely-honed peripheral vision I noticed something lurking beneath the surface:This photos even worse than the pecker shot, but its a very large turtle:Heres another on the other side of the river:Im reasonably sure those are snapping turtles, which have been known to tear a Ren Herse tire completely off the rim:[Also from a popular user-edited you know the rest]Thats why the snapping turtle is widely known as Natures Tire Lever.Finally, I guess theres a new handlebar mirror from Spurcycle, and so far Ive come across not oneNot twoBut three stories about how theyve made handlebar mirrors cool now:To wit:Installation is tool-free, and swapping between bikes is incredibly easy. It fits 1420mm drop bars, and each one is backed by a lifetime warranty. Spur has really thought of everything with this, and for just $69 USD (nice), safety just got a significant dose of cool.To be clear, I like Spurcycle. Theyre the Chris King of bells. I have several of them in fact, both the original and the less expensive compactwhich I actually like a little better, since while the original is both nicer and louder its a little bit too loud in quiet settings. Like, its hard to give a gentle little ping when youre on a trail like the one where I spotted that pecker. But obviously if you need lots of tintinnabulation its the way to go.Furthermore, while I dont use a bar-end mirror, I have nothing against them, and certainly dont think theyre uncool. Certainly I could see a near-future in which I do use onethough not on the Roadini, since thats where the shifters go. But if the Spurcycle mirror is as good as their bells then its sure to be a fine product.Nevertheless, having checked out the other mirror offerings, Im simply mystified why this mirror is somehow cool whereas the others are not. Like, why is it cooler than this one?Or this one?Or even this one?I guess they all just must have read the same press release.

Its Bike To Work season once again, and while the idea of riding a bicycle is confusing and frightening to most people, fortunately theres local news to ease them into the concept:Its a good thing they explained that riding a bike to work is more than just cycling around town, because too many potential bicycle commuters just get on a bike, cycle around town, and then give up because they never randomly wound up at work. Hopefully this year more people will get on bikes and make the mental leap that they actually need to ride them towards their workplaces. I look forward to their next helpful article, Why Making A Tuna Sandwich is More Than Just Staring at a Can and Some Bread.Meanwhile, when you last heard from me, Id opened up my new-to-me wheel like a can of tuna in the office kitchen, much to the chagrin of your coworkers:Which I had been hesitant to do lest I completely destroy the cracked-and-now-scarce preload adjustment thingy:Well, the preload adjuster thingy did survive. However, in Greek myth theres the story of Icarus, who flew too close to the sun. The moral of this tale is that, uh, you should never fly too close to the sun, or something. And sadly I flew too close to the sun when I then moved on to the front wheel and the cracked preload adjuster thingy crumbled like any number of obvious similes, including but not limited to:A cookieA yellowed piece of paper with your great-grandmothers cookie recipe written on itThe now-unrealized hopes and dreams of my youthThough in retrospect its a good thing this happened, because it made me realize how stupid Id been to be riding around on a pair of wheels with cracked preload adjuster thingies. I mean they were barely holding on, and I now realize that if one or both had fallen apart while I was riding the result could have been very unpleasant indeed. (Without the bearing preloaders the wheel can definitely shift enough on the axle for things to get ugly.) Speaking of which, Id like to compliment Campagnolo on the shrewd decision to make an important piece of hub hardware like this out of plastic, because Im sure it saved them a few Euro-cents per wheel that was better spent on stupid decals that say PROTON on them.In any case, Campagnolo used this part across many hubs and wheels in the past, including on the Record and Chorus hubs, where it is made from metal:[Im 73% sure this is interchangeable with the broken ones on my wheels.]Alas, these are now very difficult to find by themselves, though it seemed a shame to retire a pair of otherwise perfectly good wheels (their paucity of spokes notwithstanding) for want of such a simple part. Until now my efforts to source replacements had been unsuccessful (Id been looking ever since I first got the bike), so I was very close to buying a pair of used pair of hubs just for parts when it hit me:Of course! How could I not think of Bens Cycle? Theres a banner right here on this blog for chrissakes!So I emailed Drew at Bens, who graciously took the time out of his busy day to locate a small part so a desperate bike dork could keep a pair of 20 year-old wheels rolling (assuming they fit, which again, Im 73% sure that they will):[Photo: Drew from Bens]As for the EAI motherlode, a lot of it is listed on eBay, and its quite astonishing:But you wont find highly specific stuff like what I was looking for that way, and if youre looking for stuff like that too you should reach out to them directly. Anyway, I really hope these new metal preload adjuster thingies do fit, because if they dont Im going to have to build a bike around them, and thats going to be expensive.So yes, keeping an older bike running can sometimes require you to be resourcefulas does keeping your toilet clear:A reader by the name of Ben (whats with so many Bens coming to my rescue these days?) shared this video with me, and I now have a favorite YouTuber. I also have a great product idea for Silca, and its a plunger that mounts like a frame pump:This just goes to show that AI will never truly take over, because The Algorithm just serves me crap like this:Whereas it took an actual human being who reads my blog to alert me to content I find genuinely compelling:By the way, if you think riding around with plumbing supplies strapped to your bike looks funny, this guy says, Hold my plunger!Remember how BikeRadar said if you buy a gravel bike that doesnt have clearance for at least 50mm tires youre an idiot? Well it turns out you dont need 50mm tires after all:The Festka Spectre Gravel shows a fast gravel bikedoesntneed 50mm+ tyres.Amazinglylow weight and finessed handling make this Czech superbike frighteningly quick everywhere.Provided of course the bike costs over Eighteen Thousand American Fun Tickets:I haventexperienced many race-ready lightweightgravel bikesthat are this versatile and this much fun to ride. However, it comes at a price very few will be able to afford.This fully custom bike would cost13,900 / $18,553 / 16,900, including the preliminary consultation and full bike-fitting service.I wonder if that preliminary consultation involves helping you pick out a clown shirt:So yes, in case you havent been keeping track:Buying a gravel bike with less than 50mm of clearance: dumbBuying a gravel bike for $18,553 and using 40mm tires on it: geniusAnd Im not even going to address the boutique Aerospokes, because Id prefer to believe they dont exist.

Okay, thats it, I quit bikes:So its like a gravel bike, but its a road bike? Yet its designed for all-day rides on any surface, so exactly a gravel bike?Actually, thats not entirely true. Its for roads that kinda disintegrate into dirt:Its about time someone made a dedicated Roads That Kinda Disintegrate Into Dirt bike. Also, further to yesterdays post, whats with bikes starting at over $6,000 now?And how come when I clicked on the Rival bike the price went up by $600?And thats before I even added the optional $750 white finish!Jeez, for that kind of money they could at least throw in another chainring:Echo really is the perfect name for a bike though, because its just the same thing over and over and over and over again:See, this is exactly what gravel riding was until a few months ago:The frame weighs 790g (size 56) and clears tires up to 700x45mm, allowing you to maintain speedandcomfort on everything fromon smooth pavement to champagne gravel to properly loose and washboardy detours. The geometry still has a fast, road-first feel, just subtly rebalanced for 32-45mm tires and long-distance comfort on a variety of surfaces.But now its road riding:Road riding has changed, and ECHO reflects that,said Sam Pickman, Director of Product and Engineering at Allied Cycle Works. We kept performance at the center and expanded what the bike can handle. This is still a fast, precise road machine it just goes further, across more surfaces, with more confidence.So first they took the idea of riding a bike with drop bars on a variety of surfaces and called it gravel. Then they made the bikes more and more extreme until they were mountain bikes, and so what used to be called mountain biking became gravel. But now gravel is road riding again, road riding is gravel, up is down, black and white, and yet somehow nothing has changed at all except the bikes cost over $6,000, need batteries to shift, and have proprietary everything.As for road cycling, thats now called pumping black:I wonder which company will supply the bikes:Pumping Black follows cyclist Taylor Mace, who at 35-years-old is finding himself aging out of the sport. He is taken under the wing of Andrea Lathe, a doctor driven by her own thirst for victory and power. As the race to the Tour de France progresses, Taylor must take increasingly dark measures to protect his secret. According to the description, its an adrenaline fuelled, dangerous thriller likened to both Whiplash and Black Swan.On one hand you dont want your bikes associated with doping, but on the other this could be the start of an incredibly popular franchise, and Im already looking forward to Pumping Black II: The Graveling.Id also love to see the feature film version of this thrilling Benedict Cumberbatch road rage incident:According to reports, the altercation continued for several hours, during which time they locked their bikes, booked a table at a nearby restaurant, and ate a four-course meal before agreeing to disagree and finally continuing on their respective ways.And finally, speaking of road bikes, a few weeks ago I got this, and for the price of that entry-level Allied I could have bought 30 of them and still had plenty of change left over for a lavish restaurant meal with an irate Benedict Cumberbatch:Not only that, but so far Ive adhered to my two-pronged resolution to: 1) spend no additional monies on it whatsoever; and 2) refrain from excessive tinkering and futz with it only on an as needed basis.Having overhauled the drivetrain there wasnt much more it needed, either, though the rear wheel was running a bit rough and since acquiring the bike Id been itching to get in there. Unfortunately, the little preload adjustment collar thingies on both hubs are cracked, and Ive been afraid to disturb them lest they disintegrate completely. As any Campyphile will tell you over and over again until you punch them in the face, the best thing about Campagnolo is that everythings rebuildable, but spare part availability for this stuff in 2026 is not what it once was. For example, so far Ive found this, which Im pretty sure will work, but with the shipping a pair of them would cost over $120, which is considerably more than my budget of $0:Nevertheless, with the bike running so smoothly otherwise the rumbly hub was preying on my mind, and so I decided to say Fuck it and fill it with Dumondespecifically grease for the bearings:Erl for the freehub:And liquid grease, which basically works on everything:Its the Cholula of bicycle lubricants.The idea here wasnt to completely overhaul a 20-something year-old wheel, and I wasnt concerned with the condition of the races or the ball bearings or anything like that; this was just about opening everything up, taking a look to make sure everything looked OK, wiping away any obvious crud, and then lubing the crap out of everything. Fortunately, pulling this style of Campagnolo hub apart is extremely easy, even for someone like me whos too much of a woosie to open up a mountain bike shock:And I was in there quicker than an unneutered cat:Oh, heres one of the cracked preload thingies:It held together and its still doing what its supposed to do, though looking more closely at the photois that another crack?Who knew being cheap could be so much work?

As you may recall, I was having some issues with the frontal shiftitude of my new testcycle:My initial diagnosis was insufficient cable housing length. However, it turns out this is merely a secondary issue, and further testing has revealed the primary culprit to be the rear shock, which is leaking air:While I generally repair my own testcycles whenever possible, I draw the line at suspension service, and so I have now removed the unit and returned it to mission control for service:In the meantime, I have installed this custom-fabricated ultralight hardtail conversion kit:And sought refuge in the simplicity of the singlespeed:Though already my commitment to a single gear ratio is beginning to waver, because the Roaduno is designed to accept an optional front derailleur and a chain tensioner, and I now find myself tempted to re-install the climbing gear I already installed and subsequently removed:That way Id be able to ride everything I normally do, whereas now I do have to walk the odd section of trail, such as this one:Though one could argue that you should be forced to dismount your bike once in awhile, because it forces you to take notice of the world around you. For example, shortly after taking the above photo, a canine figure trotted across the trail. I lost sight of it when it entered the woods, but it soon reappeared, striking a noble pose atop a rock:Had I simply scampered up the trail as I usually do I might not have been treated to this wildlife sightingthough I suppose having more gears would give me greater chance of escape in case that thing turned out to be rabid.Sure, Id miss the purity of the singlespeed, but even with a derailleur and a chain tensioner Id have a ways to go before I reached the sheer grotesquery of the Argon 18 Anti Matter:Heres how much work it takes to design a bike this ugly:Argon 18 tells us thegravel race bikewas refined over more than 800 hours of CFD (computational fluid dynamics) simulation and 45 hours of wind-tunnel testing.It claims the result is a 14.5W advantage over the Dark Matter (+/ 15 yaw, wind-averaged drag at 45 km/h).I wonder if, in between the 800 hours of sitting in front of a computer and the 35 hours of blowing air at the bike, anybody found the time to actually ride it.Probably not.Of course, in order to realize all those theoretical performance gains, youll need to use the proprietary integrated luggage set:Yes, welcome to the age of the $6,499 entry-level bike:Hey, its a bargain compared to the high-end model!And if youre lucky you may even get a whole season out of it before BikeRadar declares it obsolete and says only a moron would buy a gravel bike without 32-inch wheels.A wise investment indeed.

Generally speaking, I dont go in for the whole The world is falling apart and humanity is doomed thing. Life is an ugly business, its human nature to be afraid, and the sense that weve somehow fallen from grace and are being cosmically punished from our misdeeds is so deeply ingrained in us that its the basis for the worlds most popular religions. Sure, theres scary stuff in the news, but if you really do think were somehow worse off than ever I bet youd feel differently if someone offered you a one-way ticket in a time machine.Still, even I cant ignore the sense of impending doom thats in the air right now. In fact, its feeling downright apocalyptic out there. For example, half the peloton has been smitten? smited? smote? by a manure-borne illness:If you thought conditions aboard the MV Hondius were unsanitary, just try a race in the Ardennes:Lotto said the riders may have been contaminated by cow manure on the Ardennes course, with wet roads causing excrement to be splashed on to riders.Although the exact cause has not yet been confirmed, campylobacter a type of bacteria responsible for gastrointestinal infections is suspected to be the source.If any of you have ever raced bicycles in New York City this will immediately sound familiar to you, as each lap of Central Park takes you through a stretch colloquially called Horseshit Alley, so-called because of the leavings of all the carriage horses, which you breathe deep into your lungs as you attempt to make your way to the front for the inevitable bunch sprint at the top of Cats Paw.I dont know if carriage horse manure also contains campylobacter, though that would be a great name for a new Campagnolo gravel group below Ekar, which also sounds like a bacteria:By the way, I told the AI to generate An advertisement for the new Campagnolo Lobacter electronic gravel bike drivetrain, and instead of giving me a messed-up image with dyslexic syntax as usual, it gave me the image above and asked me for more notes, so I told it to add that text. Horrifyingly, it pretty much nailed the Gravelista, right down to the dainty tattoos. Now Im truly frightened. I liked AI a lot more when I could laugh at it.Anyway, if that wasnt apocalyptic enough, the same article mentions that an Eddy Merckx monument has been vandalized:Not just vandalized but [intern, find me a dripping-blood font]decapitated:The Brussels municipality was alerted on Wednesday morning by local residents that the head of the sculpture, created by Stefaan De Croock, had been torn off.This is clearly a sign of the End of Days, though in the unlikely event that this is non-Biblical in nature I wonder if the police have spoken to Roger De Vlaeminck.Frightened yet? Well, earlier this week we met shroom-addled e-bike enthusiast Paul Stamets, the one-man Ben & Jerrys of Fungus, who was recently featured in a promotional video for Specializeds line of electrificated Levo line of bicycles:The idea may have been to open the doors of perception, but instead they seem to have unlatched a trap door causing the bottom to fall out, and now Specialized is slashing prices like Crazy Eddie*:*[Youll get the Crazy Eddie reference if you know what Horseshit Alley is.]Yes, prices across the entire industry are falling, falling, fallingto [Intern, find me a flaming letter font] HELL:Please note Im not telling you to buy a Lynskey or not to buy a Lynskey. Comments on this blog range from Greatest bike I ever owned to They break if you fart near them. All Im saying is theyre practically half-off:I mean there are closeouts on brand new bikes everywhere you look:Its spring and demand for bikes should be at its highest, yet it seems like you cant find a bike thats not discounted by at least a One Thousand American Fun Tickets:Are things really that bad for the bike industry? Is it possible for it to survive when theyre taking a grand off the price of a bike like its the reflectors? Theres even desperation in the used market, where sellers on Craigslist seem to be resorting to propaganda in order to convince you to buy a bike:I assume that was posted by whoever is selling this:Maybe the Apocalypse has already happened. Its the only reasonable explanation for that bike.

Cycling is not wanting for characters, and one of the more entertaining is John Burke, CEO of Trek, who is our dorky little worlds answer to the high-powered Walk with me, talk with me corporate archetype:Unfortunately, like much of the bike industry, Trek is having its share of financial trouble, but Burke wants you to understand thats not whats important:Making a profit is the lifeblood of a business, he told me in Las Vegas, backstage at the Great Place to Work For All Summit. But the success of the business is not just measured in how much money you make its in the impact that you make.Spoken like a guy whose company aint making any money!Burke said he couldnt speak for other companies, since hes been playing for the same team for 42 years, but when he looks out at corporate America, he said, theres been a decay in the purpose of companies over the last 25 years. And then he got historically minded. If you go back, an economist once said that making a profit is the only responsibility of a company and thats not Trek.As for Treks impact on the the world, if you want to know what that has been youll have to wait for the coffee table book:Its the kind of story Burke returns to when people ask what Treks 50th anniversary is really about. The company is marking the occasion with a coffee-table book cataloging 50 ways it has changed the world and a 43-minute documentary premiering June 18 at the Orpheum Theatre in Madison, Wisconsin, with author Jim Collins in attendance. What Im most proud of at Trek is how weve changed the world, not what the financial results have been. When Im gone, I dont think anyones gonna make note of that.I wonder if the book will celebrate the Y-Foil or pretend it never existed:Both scenarios seem equally likely.Same thing goes for that guy who won-but-didnt-win the Tour de France seven times.As for the thing in the headline about Burke hating smartphones, this was apparently born of one of those weird private meetings CEOs have where they summon some brain genius to lecture them about something, after which Burke concluded smartphones were responsible for all the ills of societywhich, to be fair, is almost certainly true:Now Im kind of slithering under the table as I blew this guy off, Burke told me in his typically blunt fashion. But he had a question for Davidson: he asked where mental health in America stood today, on a scale of 100, relative to 1984. Davidsons answer: 23, down from 100 in 1984. Its in the toilet. Unbelievable. The culprit, Davidson said, was the phone.Out of respect for Burke Im going to leave the line about him slithering under the table as he blew a guy off alone. I mean weve all been there, right? Still, I do find it odd that the CEO of a company that makes bicycles says something like thisConsider the Masters golf tournament, Burke said, one of the last major public events where phones are banned from the grounds. Whats everybody doing? They have a smile on their face. Nobodys trying to take a picture of somebody else. No selfies. Theyre talking to each other. He estimated the happiness level is three times what it is at a comparable phone-permitted event. Its the greatest experiment in the world.yet doesnt make the connection between smartphone overdependence and bikes like his own companys $14,999.99 Supercaliber:Which is equipped with all the latest electronic components from SRAM, including their Flight Attendant suspension system (which I tried back in 2021):Care to guess which now-ubiquitous happiness-eroding device youll need to tune all this stuff? Hint: it aint a multitool, and youre not allowed to use it at the Masters Tournament:Though in his defense, once it is tuned the algorithm will take it from there:All of this does lead me to wonder if perhaps Burke secretly understands that the reason people watching the Masters Tournament are so happy has less to do with the fact that they dont have access to their smartphones and more to do with the following two factors:They are recreatingThey are wealthyThe platitude about money not buying happiness notwithstanding, when youre engaged in recreation and youve got money in the bank youre generally in a pretty good mood. Next time youre out for a ride on a beautiful day take a life satisfaction poll of of people on bikes that cost $15,000 and above. Not only do I suspect the numbers will be better than average, but I bet more than a few of them were at the Masters.Plus, you might even make a new friend, and friends are important:On trade and geopolitics, Burke was equally unsparing. Trek manufactures globally and has navigated years of tariff disruptions, but it framed Americas current isolation as something deeper than a supply chain headache. To accomplish things in life, you need to have friends. To accomplish things as a country, you need to have friends. And weve pissed off just about everybody. He ticked through the list: Canada, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia. I cant tell you why were pissed off at Canada, he said. I genuinely cannot tell you.Wait.Seriously?You cant tell why were pissed off at Canada!?!Its called CLOYING SMUGNESS, Burke![Note to Canadians: You dont need to bother with the patch. If youve got a North American accent and you have time to travel across Europe everyone knows theres a 97% chance youre Canadian.]Jeez, read the room!Hey, I do my best not to assume everyone with a maple leaf patch on their backpack is cloyingly smug. After all, you cant judge a book by its cover. Instead you should judge it by the first few words of every paragraph:Burke said he reads 52 books a year, almost exclusively nonfiction. His reading system, refined over the past four years, is rigorous. He reads the first sentence of every paragraph. If it grabs him, he reads the rest. If it doesnt, he moves on. Ive never read a bad sentence to start a paragraph which turns into a good paragraph, he said. Doesnt happen. (While this might imply that hes a skimmer or speed reader, this method suggests that he starts roughly 100 books a year, and only finished around 50.)What is wrong with me that Ive always been content with simply reading, and never felt the need to implement a rigorous system in order to do so, much less refine it over a period of years? Probably a lot, though it mostly sounds like a way to make both reading and riding equally un-fun:When he finishes a book, he goes back through his underlines and enters only the lessons he wants to carry for the rest of his life into a personal spreadsheet now more than 1,100 entries deep. The system was inspired by Jim Collins, who visited Trek in 2018 and suggested writing down one lesson per book. Burke took it further. The impetus was a bike ride with his wife, during which she asked him to summarize the lessons from one of his favorite books, Simon SineksThe Infinite Game. His answer, he recalled, was lame. Really bad retention. He went home, reread the book, underlined it, and built the spreadsheet.That sounds like the worst bookclub ever.

As is customary here on Tan Tenovos Internet Bicycle-Themed Complainatorium, when a new Rivendell presale is upon us, I let you know, even though Rivendell never ask me to let you know. So this is me letting you know about this one:Look, I dont care if you buy one or not. What you do in your private life is your own business. But Im making you aware because I happen to like this bicycle very, very much:You could put it together all upright with swept-back bars and stuff, you could go flat-pedal sporty like in Rivendells photo, or you could go race-adjacent as I have. Also, if youre an aging roadie, you could probably move over like 80% of the parts on that really nice road bike youve had since the 90s thats now a bit too limited in tire clearance and low in the cockerpit:The best time to move the parts from that Serotta onto a Roadini was ten centimeters of quill stem ago, but the second-best time is now.Or, if your old bike has a threadless steerer, a Roadini spares you the indignity of resorting to something like this:I mean hey, whatever works, but by now we should all be familiar with the dangers of Compulsive Cockpit Curation Syndrome:And I shouldnt even have to mention this one again, but I will anyway:Thats a rolling cautionary tale.None of this is to imply you have to be old to ride a Roadini. After all, new retrogrouches are born every day:Ah yes, it seems like gravel was invented only yesterday, but already were looking back and reflecting on what it used to mean and how it went astray: Gravel cycling didnt evolve from modern mountain biking. It was driven by US geography and a desperate need to escape traffic.Hmmm, I dunno, I would say its both. Certainly getting away from traffic is a major factor, and probably the primary one, but its also important to keep in mind that mountain bikingboth the act as well as the bikes themselveshas changed so much over the past 40 years that in retrospect it was inevitable people would find their way back to what it used to be and the industry would reinvent a way to sell people relatively simple bicycles for riding on trails and unpaved roads. Just imagine if ice hockey went from what it is now to flying in a helicopter onto a glacier and then chasing an electronic AI-driven puck around with a $19,000 telescoping stick made of crabon fiber while wearing a pair of rocket skates. Eventually someone would come up with the idea of simply skating around on a frozen pond with a stick of wood in your hand and knocking a dumb puck into a net, and soon all the sporting goods companies would sell you special equipment for this exciting new sport of pond ball.The other inevitability is that cycliststhe people who ride the bikes, the people who sell the bikes, and the people who write about the bikesare completely lacking in object permanence, and when a new thing comes along its as though everything before it never existed. For example, in a few short years, gravel went from wider tires are nice to if you buy a bike with anything less than 50mm of clearance youre a complete moronand yet tires can actually be too wide, who knew?The problem is that this race-day math ignores the vast majority of people who buy gravel bikes and the terrain they actually ride. Im not about to try and draw a line in the sand when it comes to tire width, but it definitely exists. The trend is to go wider, but we will reach a tipping point where we lose the lively feeling people are actually chasing on a gravel bike.And of course, a by-product of forgetting about everything that came before is that once you remember it again you wont be able to use it anymore because there will be a whole new set of standards:Moving to a 32-inch wheel isnt just a matter of swapping out rubber. If the industry successfully pushes this as the new standard, the cascade of changes will touch everything, and it inherently makes the bike worse for most of the riding we actually do.To be clear, the bike wont be worse, it will just be incompatible with all your old stuff because theyll have had to come up with a whole new way to make the giant-wheeled bike seem lively again.And hows this for cognitive dissonance?This isnt the transition to disc brakes or electronic shifting. Those innovations brought tangible benefits even if what we had was already good. For most everyday riders, 32-inch wheels are actually worse.Ill leave the disc brake thing alone for now, but what were the tangible benefits of electronic shifting? We went from pushing a button to shift to having to charge a battery first in order to push a button to shift. A 32-inch wheel makes more sense than that.Meanwhile, not too long ago (though Im way too lazy to find the post, and my intern is busy shopping for a new helper monkey for me) I mentioned how surprisingly cheap Lynskeys were now, and I guess this is the reason:Heres whats happening:Lynskey, a Chattanooga-based titanium bike and component manufacturer, was established in 2005. The owners, the Lynskey family, have an extensive history in the cycling industry; David Lynskey, the company founder, was also the founder of Litespeed Cycles in 1984 and led that business to its sale in 1999. Both brands are Chattanooga-based and specialise in premium titanium bikes and componentry; of the two, Lynskey offers a lower-cost, direct-to-consumer alternative.Court filings indicate that Lynskey has liabilities between US$1 million and $10 million, and had approximately US$59,000 cash in hand as of April 30.If they do recover theyre going to have a hard time competing with the likes of ASSISTING FORCE:Ironically, this story is from the same publication and by the same writer as the 32-inch wheel story. In any case, forget Lynskey, these companies are even undercutting themselves:In an effort to bypass those costs directly, Quickpro is inventing a new brand and launching a new platform. The new brand name is Assisting Force, and the first release is actually two slightly different gravel bikes: the Assisting Force AF01 SSL and the standard AF01.Assisting Force indeed.

Further to yesterdays post, in which I mentioned Specialized, heres a recent promotional video for their Levo line of e-bikes:Mushroom mogul Paul Stamets is a famous mycologist, which is the technical term for what is more commonly called a fungus Fred. Hes self-taught and has a boundless enthusiasm for mushrooms, which he views as a panacea. He also rides a bicycle, because really hard exercise stimulates the brain and leads to existential bursts of creativity, and so the latest e-bikes from Specialized excite him nearly as much as fungi does:When Ive come to these hills in the past, on my other bikes, Id have to stop and walk them, he explains. Now, I can crest that hill. Im not defeated by the hill, I feel a sense of accomplishment. I push the envelope further than my own physical ability and I still have that sense of accomplishment.Wait.If really hard exercise stimulates the brain, wouldnt you want to ride a regular bike instead of an e-bike for maximum brain stimulation? Youd think so, but I guess the motor is a shortcut to the sense of accomplishment. Sort of like how taking psilocybin is easier than meditating and training the mind.As the video goes on, he and his friends ride deeper and deeper into the moist forest. The damp conditions as well as the riders proclivity for the organisms that thrive in them raises serious questions and concerns about what kind of chamois theyre using, if any. Alas, this is a subject the filmmakers do not address, but heres Stamets with a mushroom that will lower your blood pressure, resolve your childhood emotional trauma, cure you of alcoholism, and do your taxes:So is Paul Stamets truly onto something? Is he unlocking crucial wisdom and truth in the age of rapacious corporations and Big Pharma? Or is he just hawking supplements of debatable efficacy? Probably a little bit of both, though I know nothing of his work and am certainly not passing judgment either way. Im happy to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I admit I do check out when people with mustaches start soulfully playing wooden flutes in forests:Regardless, I suspect this video will resonate strongly with the potential Levo customer, who a leaked internal memo* describes thusly:55+Mid-to-high seven figure net worthLives in or close to natureWorks remotely or is semi-retiredHas lots of spare time to wander around and experiment with the possible physical and mental health benefits of mushrooms, despite already having a premium concierge health program, or possibly because having such a premium concierge health program insures they can get immediate treatment when they accidentally ingest a bad mushroom*[Disclaimer: the leaked internal memo is fiction. All of this is parody. You cant be too careful, that flautist could be Specializeds in-house counsel.]I wonder if Specialized will continue in this vein with an opening the SWAT door of perception campaign:Speaking of breaking on through to the other sideor at least stepping over into itsomeone mentioned fat-tired mixte bikes in the comments on this post the other day, and clearly crotchal clearance is in the zeitgeist because look at this:Wait a minutethese are the examples?Uh, HELLOHELLO, IS ANYBODY HOME???Talking about step-thru gravel bikes and not mentioning Rivendell is like talking about lions mane supplements and not mentioning Paul Stamets, or talking about litigious bike companies and not mentioning Specialized.Of course, Rivendell bikes are also made of steel, and heres an in-depth scientific analysis of the relative properties of steel, aluminum, and titanium when used to make bicycle frames:Heres a chart:And the conclusion:I dont know what any of this means butyay for steel, maybe?