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Do you ever find yourself wondering whether you should buy a gravel bike or a road bike?
If so, this is because the bicycle industry and media have perpetuated the idea that “road” and “gravel” are somehow two different things that warrant two completely different bicycles, sort of like how Subway® figured out they could just put the contents of a sandwich in a bowl and sell it as a totally different menu item.
See, these days there’s a major backlash against bread, just like there’s a backlash against bikes with minimal tire clearance, so if you think about it the protein bowl is basically the gravel bike of prepared lunches:
[I asked the AI to generate an image based on the phrase “Keto Is The New Gravel” and this is what I got. Delicious!]
And let’s not forget that this current fixation with bowls comes after everyone had long been offering wraps, the original alt lunch:
This is like in the days before gravel when all the bike companies started making a big deal about offering road bikes with slightly taller headtubes:
So in this sense the wrap was the endurance road bike of sandwiches.
Fortunately if you’re looking for a “do-it-all” bike in the archetypal road bike silhouette that’s quite sporting and yet also imbued with all the comfort and versatility the spoiled modern bike consumer demands, you don’t need to go to a chain restaurant and order by number, you can just get one of these:
Which I mention because I happened to notice the following in the latest Rivendell newsletter:
As always, I will stress that Rivendell did not ask me to share this information. In fact, they never ask me to share anything, with the exception of my recent story about the new derailleur, which they did offer me the opportunity to cover, and which I proceeded to botch. No, I mention it only because I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS BICYCLE so I wanted to let you know that if you’re interested in owning one too now’s your chance. You will not regret it, unless you do.
Speaking of drop bars and the social construct that is bikes fitting neatly into highly specific categories, apparently people were upset about riders using mountain bikes with drop bars at Leadville or something:
Is this true, were people really offended by this? If so, we can safely assume that they were mountain bikers, who we’ve firmly established are the absolute worst. The worst, Jerry:
As for Leadville, I guess it’s now just another product of Life Time Group Holdings, Inc. [LTH -1895%], but I’ll always think of it as that race Fat Cyclist was obsessed with:
And that Lance Armstrong decided to win in 2009 because he was disappointed with his Tour de France result:
As for whether The Life Time Grand Prix℠ is the Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. [CMG +29998%] of bike race series, I can’t say for sure, but I certainly wouldn’t rule it out.
