I am currently very deep in a highly pretentious and deeply hypocritical An old road bike is all you need phase:While I do maintain this is technically true, it is both highly pretentious and deeply hypocritical because the truth is when I no longer feel like riding the old road bike I have like eleventy million other bikes to choose from, and thats not even including the Classic Cycle archives, to which I have unfettered access.I am really enjoying the bike though.And sure, while my austerity is purely performative, I would argue that my commitment to the mechanical bicycle is beyond reproach, and as such I am not part of The Problem.And if youre wondering what the problem is, its this:This grotesquely proportioned freak bike confirms a suspicion Ive long held, which is that Unbound Gravel, formerly Dirty Kanza, is singlehandedly responsible for ruining bikes. Consider that the first Dirty Kanza took place way back in 2006, and the winning bicycle looked like this:See that? Now thats a bike! And sure, I know what youre thinking:The tires are too narrowThe gearing is too highThe geometry isnt slack enoughAnd so forth.WRONG.I mean yes, some of that stuff may make superficial sense, but in practice once you start allowing for all that stuff then then its all over.Dont believe me?Heres the proof:Hey, you asked for it. Battery powered everything and it looks like an intergalactic pennyfarthing, but, you know, It rolls over stuff better or something.(Though judging by the looksand hey, this is the Internet, judging stuff entirely by looks is how we do things herethe designers could have achieved the same effect with normal-sized wheels and a longer wheelbase.)So yes, I maintain that up until 2006 the cycling world still kind of made sense. However, post-Dirty Kanza it all started to go horribly wrong. Think about it: is it a coincidence I started my blog just one year later?Probablythough if the cycling world hadnt started to court perversity in this manner Id never have been inspired to start this blog in the first place. Of course back then it was fixie mania:But when you consider that all the fixie people eventually moved onto gravel bikes then it all starts to make sense.Speaking of the old days, Taylor Phinney and his moustache are back:This is the second-best description of garvel that Ive read:However, around doing more gravel racing the most serious unserious sport that exists over the next months, Phinney is set to go to the wind tunnel in June to refine his aerodynamic position, and there is a possibility that he could compete for Team USA at the 2026 Track Cycling Championships in China in October. Whether selected or not, he expects to prepare with the squad and go on an altitude camp.The first-best (or I guess just best) being an elite contest to be underwritten by the people who lose, from that story in The New Yorker:As much as I hate to give The New Yorker credit for anything, I allocate it when and where its due, and in this case its definitely due.Anyway, the Taylor Phinney story brought me back to those heady days when this blog was still relevant and I attended the event at the Clinton Global Initiative where Lance Armstrong announced his comeback alongside a young Taylor Phinney:In fact, not only was this blog still relevant, but names like Armstrong and Clinton still hadwell I dont know if credibility is the right word, but they could certainly command an audience. As for the press conference, in addition to being the source of this imageits also noteworthy because not only had Armstrong invited me there himself, but hed also told me personally that he was planning a return to the sport well before this. In retrospect, this was an act of hubris on his part that ultimately led to his downfall, and if only Id convinced him not to do it and continue to enjoy his retirement (he was flying around on a private jet, dating movie stars, and making fixe videos) perhaps hed still have is titles and endorsements and all the rest of it. The moral of the story is that you should always quit while youre ahead, and the fact that Im still here in 2026 is all the proof you need.