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Do you ever fear for the future of cycling? I do. For example, I strongly suspect that by 2060 no child will learn how to ride a bike:
Isn’t it ironic that children these days are forced to wear helmets to ride pretty much anything, even rocking horses, but apparently it’s fine not to wear one if the toy they’re riding happens to be shaped like a car?
Another thing I fear is that bicycles will become indistinguishable hunks of plastic that will have to be charged before use, which is where I thought this guy was going, but it turns out I was wrong:
He starts out by mentioning the Colnago Steelnovo:
[It’s “Steelnovo,” not “Steelnova.” May your first Colnago be a masculine Colnago.]
I also mentioned this bike not too long ago. Colnago has always brought out expensive limited edition bikes, so I’m certainly not bothered by it. But “achingly beautiful,” really?
It doesn’t even have the famous Colnago paint job!
This is beyond subdued for an Italian bike company. If anything it just looks like a Specialized Aethos, the Coldplay of road bikes:
Nevertheless, it apparently sold out in a mere two hours:
I’d think if you were going to buy nostalgia you’d buy a Master, but what do I know?
Anyway, eventually it becomes clear is that he’s not afraid of bikes becoming ugly or overly techy or boring or anything like that. Instead, he’s afraid of…the “retrogrouch traditionalists!”
WHAT!?!
Okay, for one thing, while companies like Cannondale and Giant have certainly been around for awhile, to be a “heritage brand” in cycling I’d argue you’d have to have had bikes in both a Grand Tour and a Monument prior to the year 1970. But what really made me drag the needle off the record was his ludicrous premise that somehow it’s the retrogrouches who are the problem:
I was pretty sure he was talking about me until I remembered that nobody knows or cares about me anymore. Nevertheless, I would like to know where all the judgmental super-opinionated retrogrouch traditionalists in the mainstream cycling media are hiding, because all I see over there are people creaming their chamois over the latest S-Wanks or whatever. Did Rivendell win a Bicycling Editor’s Choice Award and I somehow missed it?
By the way, I asked the AI to create an image for “Rivendell Roaduno Bicycling Magazine Editor’s Choice Award For Best Geared Singlespeed” and this is what it came up with:
If it’s getting humid where you are that’s just the steam coming out of Grant Petersen’s ears.
The writer of the article then claims we’re still “debating the merits” of various retrogrouch pet peeves:
This could not be further from the truth. Sadly, nobody is debating any of these things anymore. Go ahead, ask around and you’ll quickly learn that the “science is settled,” whether you like it or not. In fact, you can hardly even find a new bike without disc brakes or tubeless-compatible rims anymore. It’s basically just me and like three other old cranks shouting into the void.
Now, I’m not trying to pick a fight with this guy or anything. In fact, we fundamentally agree–he thinks innovation in cycling is a good thing, and so do I. However, I must defend my own, and therefore I take issue with his gross mischaracterization of retrogrouches as in insidious force that is somehow stifling innovation in cycling, when in fact we’re nothing more than a handful of harmless old fusspots who nobody even listens to anymore except to laugh at them. (And that’s at, not with.) I mean “bigotry,” really?!?
I daresay I’ve never harrumphed so hard in all my life.
Come on, his beef is not with old guys who still insist on using rim brakes. His beef is with a certain governing body:
After all, it was the UCI and not the retrogrouch that killed the mighty Y-Foil:
If it wasn’t for them who knows what road bikes would look like today?
And even then, a lot of these people who insist bikes aren’t innovative enough or deride the retrogrouches aren’t willing to put their money where their mouths are. Trek was still more than willing to sell you a Y-Foil even after the UCI banned it (they tried for like two years), but the conformists didn’t want it and so it died. And that’s your fault, all you cowards demanding more “innovation!” See, you can have the absolute cutting-edge, or you can have mainstream acceptance, but you can’t have both–and so most of you opt for the latter. Is there a true Lone Wolf among you, tech apologists? I think not. Nobody has to listen to the UCI, or the cycling publications, or the “influencers,” or anybody else–and that includes the guy writing the article. If you too lament the supposed lack of innovation in cycling, and you blame the “traditionalists” for it, then I ask you: besides perhaps the UCI, who’s stopping you from riding the latest aero technology?
And where were you when the prone recumbent hit the scene?
Did you open yourself up to receive the innovation?
Or did you simply lower your head and pretend you never saw it?
In fact, for quite a bit less than that Colnago, you can even have the ultimate in innovative carbon fiber bicycle technology:
Cycling isn’t innovative enough, really? The truth is there’s no limit to its innovation. It’s just too dorky for you, that’s all.
Let he who is not a retrogrouch traditionalist cast the first bidon.
