I’m old enough to remember when mountain bikes made sense. Well, okay, not all of them…
…but mostly they were just like regular bikes, only with narrow tires and flat bars. You got on them and scampered around on a trail. Maybe you hopped over a log or something. It was fun!
Now I don’t know what the hell they are, and I don’t understand any of the crap people are putting on them. For example, can someone explain this to me?
Yes, I read the article, but I’m still confused:
I’m sorry, what?
Okay, wait. I think I get it.
No I don’t.
Oh wait, now I do. You need to spend $375 to make your suspension bike more tolerable:
I thought the whole thing with clutches and single-ring drivetrains was that they were simpler and we could finally do away with the triple. But instead you need a chainring that does this?
I guess it’s about time we had a chainring with service intervals:
We've made every effort to design this product to last and be low maintenance. However, all high-performance parts need some kind of preventative maintenance to perform optimally. We recommend cleaning and regreasing the damper as soon as any noise or negative feeling occurs in the device. We also offer service kits and replacement chain rings that can be replaced by following this guide.Should a squeak appear in the actuation, a small drip of chain lube around the seals of the damper should fix this.
Can we finally admit that mountain “bikes” aren’t bikes anymore and that “mountain biking” is no longer cycling? Everything about it–from the driving to the trails to the equipment designed to isolate you from the terrain to the obsession with getting air and not letting your tires touch the ground–seems to be motivated by a profound desire to avoid anything that feels like actually riding a bike. The article about the Rimjob thing even says that the “holy grail” is to make it feel like your bike has no chain:
That’s like saying the holy grail of fucking is to make it feel like you have no dick.
These people are missing the entire point:
They approach cycling like Ty Webb approaches tequila shots:
I’ll bet you anything that in 20 years when you go mountain biking you’ll just be sitting on a $30,000 “bike” that just floats over the surface of the trail like a landspeeder from “”Star Wars:
And yes, I know it’s wrong to criticize how other people choose to enjoy riding bikes, but that doesn’t apply to mountain bikers, and I think we need to expel them already once and for all. At this point they’re even worse than triathletes–and a triathlon isn’t even a bike race, it’s just someone using a bicycle to get from a swimming race to a running race as quickly as possible.
Speaking of old stuff versus new stuff, recently I found myself in one of those parts of Brooklyn that are simultaneously derelict and expensive:
There were lots of old vehicles rusting away behind chain link fences:
Today a truck like this seems positively ancient:
And an old longtail cargo bike without a motor isn’t far behind:
Can you even buy a non-electric cargo bike anymore? Last I head the Surly Big Dummy was being discontinued…though it is still up on their website, so I have no idea if it’s true:
Hopefully bikes without batteries and bouncy bits don’t get relegated to the wrong side of the chain link fence of history forever.