Gravel gravel gravel.
I’m sick of gravel. Sick of the sight of it, sick of the ‘roided out road bikes that ride on it, and sick of the endless fussing over it. But most of all I’m just sick of THAT GODDAMN WORD, which makes me want to throw the nearest object directly at the nearest wall every time I read it.
Nevertheless, it’s simply impossible to discuss cycling today without addressing it. So in a desperate attempt to salvage what remains of my sanity and short-circuit this costly Pavlovian response (I’m running out of stuff to throw against the wall) I will no longer use the dreaded “G-word.” Instead, I will substitute it with a different noun, which I will choose using the first thing that comes up on a Random Object Generator.
Ready? Here goes:
OK, broccoli it is!
Now, everybody knows that the latest trend in broccoli bikes is to use mountain bike tires:
But did you know that the latest trend in mountain bikes is to use broccoli tires?
Don’t bother watching, it’s boring even for a bike video. The point is mountain bike racers are now using broccoli tires, or something, while broccoli riders are using mountain bike tires, or something:
So to sum up the last couple of years:
- Broccoli bikes have become mountain bikes
- Mountain bikes have become broccoli bikes
- Up is down
- Down is up
- Oceania is at war with Eurasia
- Oceania is at war with East Asia
- Okay the broccoli thing isn’t working I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT ALL
Now you see why I couldn’t hack it in cycling media.
Thankfully, while I may technically live in the city, I have easy access to wooded areas into which I regularly retreat for cathartic broccoli-induced crying jags:
In this particular instance I rode there on the Homer, which Rivendell calls a “country” bike, a rhetorical ploy not dissimilar to my own broccoli gambit:
As you recall, I recently curated a mind-bendingly disorienting Biopace/Cycloid/Round drivetrain for this bicycle:
Well, I’m sorry to report that my broccoli-addled brain couldn’t take it any longer, and so I’ve reverted to round chainrings. However, if you lament the disappearance of a weird and ill-advised crankular configuration, do not despair! Because I am profoundly lazy, instead of removing and replacing the wonky rings I simply removed the crank altogether and stuck another one on there. And since I’d recently borrowed the middle ring from that crank for something else (possibly to throw against the wall upon hearing the “G-word”) I wound up with a wide-range double:
And when I say “wide range” I mean it–that’s a 42-20, which is downright ridiculous:
As always, I will once again point out that YES, I KNOW THE FRONT DERAILLEUR IS “TOO HIGH.” However, that’s as low as this one will go without hitting the chainstay, and I wasn’t about to break a chain without a quick link just to change it for another derailleur. Also, as I understand it, the reason you want your front derailleur as low as possible is two-fold:
- It shifts better
- It keeps the chain from falling off
But not only is it shifting perfectly, but the chain seems to be staying on just fine, and in fact I don’t really see why a few millimeters up or down would even matter for chain retention since it seems the lateral position of the derailleur is what keeps the chain on there. The point is it works, though next time I replace the chain I reserve the right to put on a new derailleur for purely aesthetic purposes, since this one looks almost exactly like a Swingline stapler:
Also, I don’t know how long I’ll leave the weird ultra-wide double on there, but so far it seems to work well and I even kind of like it. Basically, it’s like a single-ring drivetrain, only with a limp mode for when you encounter an extremely steep hill. Anyway, it’s fun to play around. Plus, its haggard appearance complements my moth-eaten wardrobe:
See?
And finally, broccoli isn’t the only thing ruining cycling. Don’t forget about e-bikes! Once upon a time, urban fixed-gear riders could at least pretend they were the biggest daredevils on the road. Now they can’t even ply their trade without someone on an e-bike revealing how unimpressive it all is:
There he is, spinning and skidding away, while some guy on an e-bike simply rides next to him without pedaling:
It’s all relative.