It rained all weekend, and in fact it’s still raining, but fortunately I was prepared:
I’m still enjoying the new clicky shifters very much, though for the first time since installing them I did need to stop and make an adjustment, which is perfectly normal after everything settles. So I stopped at the side of the road in order to do so, twiddling away as a light and gentle rain fell. As I did this, a driver slowed, rolled down his window, and asked, “Do you need anything, a bottle of water, maybe?”
It certainly was very kind of him to offer, and I really don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but at the same time it was a little perplexing. If I appeared to be stranded with a broken bicycle I could see someone offering a tool or the use of a phone or even a ride if they were especially magnanimous (or a serial killer), and if it had been a scorching hot day and I’d been sitting on the curb with my head in my hands I could also see the offer of a beverage to slake my thirst. But a bottle of water in the rain on a cool day was clearly of no use to me, and therefore struck me as sort of a weird thing to offer in the first place.
Then again, when stopping to render aid it’s probably best to just offer something that you know the person will decline, or else is really easy to provide in the event that they do accept. Not too long ago I asked a couple of stopped riders if they needed anything and naturally would up repairing a flat for one of them, which to be honest was a real pain in the ass. Had I simply slowed and asked if they needed any water they would have declined and “Said no, but…” and I’d have been well on my way before I even heard the end of the sentence–or, had they said yes, I could have thrown my water bottle at them and then kept going.
In short: when offering help to stranded cyclists, avoid open-ended questions. Don’t ask, “Do you need anything?” Instead ask, “Do you need a calculator?,” or “Can I offer you a can opener?” This will save you a considerable amount of time whilst keeping your karma intact.
Unless they’re struggling to open a can of fruit cocktail.
But yes, the LoNo drivetrain is working wonderfully:
Speaking of which, over a week or so now a reader left the following comment:
This elicited a reply from Old Man Petersen himself…:
BUT!
I only just noticed today that the reply seemed to have wound up in the Disqus spam folder. Why? I have no idea. Perhaps the words “free,” “eBay,” “Etsy,” and “offer expires” triggered their algorithm or whatever. So I’ve un-spammed it, but now the offer has long since expired, and I don’t know if it still stands, or if the original poster even saw it. But this was technically my fault*, so to the original poster, if you’re reading this, feel free to drop me a line and I’ll see if there’s anything I can do.
As for the rest of you, don’t get any ideas, and just because this guy may have won the kvetching lottery that doesn’t mean you’re also going to critique your way into free stuff.
*[Related: every so often I get an email from someone wondering what happened to their comment. Please note that Disqus has a mind of its own. I do my best to regularly check the various folders where these things wind up and approve them as necessary, but sometimes I miss something. So please forgive me, and also please keep in mind that, while I deeply value your commentary, I also didn’t start a bike blog in order to do work.]
Meanwhile, last week I addressed “alt-cycling.” In so doing, I also pondered for like two seconds whether I belonged to any particular category of cyclist. Of course I really don’t care about any of that, but apparently there are people who do care so much that they write entire articles about it:
I’m not sure he answers the question posed in the headline, but he does successfully prove that introspection and self-awareness are not the same thing:
There’s a lot of talk these days about lowering the barriers to entry in cycling, and while we may not all agree on just how low they should go, I think most of us will concede you shouldn’t need to read a book called “Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior” to fully understand your relationship with your GRVL bike:
Anthropologically speaking, community is, and has been, everything. Through virtually any lens, you’ll see it at the center of our well-being, decision-making, religion, and our species’ evolution. What started as a survival requirement has evolved into groups of people who share common interests and values. Sharing interests makes us relatable, and experts say that sense of belonging is crucial to our well-being. Psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, in their book Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior, talk about three basic human needs that must be met for sustained motivation: autonomy, competence, and relatedness.
Wait, I’m sorry, am I reading a bike website or a Sarah Lawrence College undergraduate course catalog?
Either way, this is a person who really seems to care what other people think:
When my ego starts to creep in, I think back to a mountain bike clinic led by a local rider, Lindsey Gosnell. One of her first pieces of advice when considering tackling a new feature was to take a moment to ask yourself whether you’re doing it because you want to or because of peer pressure or another outside influence. For me, it’s often the latter.
And it’s strange how sometimes the people who try hardest not to be judgmental wind up being the most judgmental:
These days, the self-titled “alt cyclists” should be the ones fighting against these expectations, but they’re failing. Being anti-mountain bike or anti-gravel bike is cliquey in its own way, and it paints an unrealistic picture of what it means to be alternative. I prefer our agnostic approach to running this website, which leaves us curious about everything, rather than bashing certain styles of riding, dressing, packing, or being. You don’t need to run a front basket and wear no helmet to convey your disdain for larger cycling cliques. Just do what feels right. But, for what it’s worth, I don’t believe not wearing a helmet makes you “alt.” Rather, it simply puts you at a higher risk for brain injuries.
Setting aside the helmet debate, alt cyclists are at extremely low risk for brain injuries since they rarely exceed speeds of 8mph, and they spend 75% of the “ride” off the bike and engaged in either the preparation of coffee or the consumption of cannabis.
As for labels, in the real world nobody cares about this stuff 95% of the time, though 5% of the time they do come in handy when you want to break someone’s balls.
I mean does anyone actually take any of this seriously? For example, when I say mountain bikers are the worst, I don’t mean all of them, I just mean almost all of them. And most cyclists have a sense of humor, that’s why parody sites like these are so popular:
Ostensibly I’m writing a humorous blog here, and maybe you’ll even find a laugh or two here in all the drivel, but I’m in awe of how each of the above sites can be so consistently hilarious on a daily basis:
I recently finished testing the brilliant new Canyon Grail CF SLX, which in its Shimano GRX Di2 guise retails for a very impressive £3,899 / $4,999 / €3,999.
That got me thinking, has Canyon just returned to its roots as an impressively priced online bike retailer, or is it shifting to be more competitive against the rise of Chinese brands?
The latest Winspace aero gravel bike, the G5 Gravel Plus, costs £4,240 with mechanical GRX. The Di2 version is available in the UK for £4,520. That makes Canyon’s wonderfully capable new gravel racer a better value proposition than Winspace’s ‘market-disrupting’ offering.
What is impressive exactly about a Canyon that costs Five Thousand American Fun Tickets™? Also, what is a “value proposition,” and how is that different from a “value?” And before you answer, yes, I did look it up:
Value: Is experienced and perceived subjectively by the customer.
Value Proposition: Is crafted and declared proactively by the business.
Okay, so “value” is just…value, whereas “value proposition” is a line of complete bullshit.
So just say value.
Finally, speaking of years of blogging, here’s proof from 2008 that very large wheels are nothing new:
Remember: you saw it here first.