Here in New York City, advocates have been critical of the NYPD for engaging in motor vehicle pursuits of suspects. It’s a tricky argument. On one hand, chasing down a criminal only to endanger innocent bystanders makes no sense:
On the other hand, letting criminals simply get away with stuff also makes no sense:
So what are we to do?
Well, look no further than Lone Tree, CO, where one officer recently split the difference by using a child’s bicycle instead:
Of course by the time he got there the suspect had already been apprehended by another officer in a car:
Nevertheless, he clearly has a bright future ahead of him in the burgeoning sport of urban cyclocross:
And I look forward to the new line of police bikes from Woom:
[Color works, it just needs a siren.]
Meanwhile, apparently Campagnolo is coming back to the pro peloton:
I was unable to read the article in its entirety due to my lack of a Bicycling subscription. (Is it lame that I don’t subscribe to publications to which I occasionally contribute?) Nevertheless, I’m confident that I can answer the question posed in the headline:
It Doesn’t Mean Shit
I don’t mean it’s bad, I just mean what implications could it possibly have? All professional road racing bicycles have electronic push-button transmissions now. Who cares which ones they’re using? Does anyone really think Cofidis will ride any better or worse with Campagnolo than they would with Shimano or SRAM? And I’m not disparaging electronic drivetrains, either–I mean I personally don’t care for them, but I’m also not an elite athlete competing at the highest levels of the sport. I’m not even worried about the hacking:
[Nope, can’t read this one, either. But don’t let that stop you!]
Yes, pro cycling is prepared for this, since nobody cares enough about the sport to put that much effort into disrupting it. I guess you could use hacking to fix race outcomes, but cycling barely even figures into the world’s sports gambling market, and is presumably buried somewhere deep in the “others” category along with dog racing and caber toss:
The only people who care enough about cycling to mess with it are the eco-terrorists, and it’s doubtful their race disruption tactics will ever advance any farther than lying down in front of it:
By the way, it’s been about 520 days since that particular protest, meaning we only have 469 days left. So you’ll want to take care of all those bucket list items before March 18th, 2026. And don’t worry about maxing out those credit cards, because if there’s one thing we’ve all learned over the years it’s that highly specific predictions concerning the end of civilization and humanity always turn out to be correct.
So yes, I think it’s safe to say Campagnolo’s return to the peloton means nothing to cycling, unless of course they commit to also offering a silver mechanical rim brake drivetrain on an indefinite basis to satisfy its core market of aging riders who are growing exponentially slower by the day yet still want to ride road bikes. But judging from their website that’s not going to happen:
It would be good to know you always had an aesthetically correct option for that cherished fin de siècle road bike without having to turn to the used marketplace, but then again I suppose the absence of one will hasten the inevitable conclusion that you should Just Buy A Rivendell Already. In fact the CPSC should mandate every adjustable stem sold have a warning on it saying exactly that:
It would certainly be more useful than the torque specs–though I suppose like the torque specs everyone would just ignore that too.