It’s 2024, and we’ve now reached the purpose the place the biking media considers buying a highway bike with rim brakes so exceptional as to be newsworthy:
Wait a minute. Which tendencies is he scoffing at? Definitely not the built-in every little thing development, or the hidden cable development, or the plastic bike development:
I understand I’m outdated and out of it, however I’ve by no means felt fairly so outdated and out of it as I do at this second. Once I see a photograph like that I believe, “Wow, take a look at the futuristic crabon house bike!” In the meantime, the whole article is about how antiquated the bike is.
Additionally, on a semi-unrelated be aware, the biking world actually must get on the identical web page with regard to shifting terminology:
The thumb-actuated lever on a primitive Campagnolo rear mechanical shifting system strikes the chain onto a smaller cog, which is technically an upshift. Nonetheless, you’ve little question seen that when discussing biking folks use the phrases “upshift” and “downshift” interchangeably–which I personally discover irksome, however which is comprehensible when you think about {that a} cassette resembles a slope:
So while you downshift you’re shifting the chain up the slope, and while you upshift you’re shifting the chain down the slope, which I assume is why folks get confused. Moreover, except you’re utilizing a RapidRise derailleur (or I assume an digital one), the up/down sense is additional strengthened by the actual fact you’re bodily pulling the derailleur and hoisting the chain up to a bigger cog while you’re downshifting, and also you’re releasing it and letting it drop the chain “down” to a smaller cog when upshifting. So sure, every little thing in regards to the act of downshifting a bicycle form of screams “up,” and vice versa.
None of that is actually a difficulty in automobiles, the place the transmission is hidden from view, the gears are numbered, and those you employ while you’re going quick have an even bigger quantity than those you employ while you’re going gradual. It’s additionally not an issue with bikes, the place you truly carry the shifter up together with your foot to upshift, and down together with your foot to downshift. (Sure, you do push down together with your foot to go from impartial to first, however no matter.) So actually it’s solely with bicycles that folks appear to confuse the idea of upshifting with the idea of downshifting.
Given this, perhaps we have to change the terminology. As a curmudgeon, the thought of doing so bothers me, as I resent altering language simply to make issues simpler for individuals who refuse to grapple with uncomfortable truths. On the identical time, always seeing folks check with upshifts as downshifts and downshifts as upshifts makes me uncomfortable, and finally it’s my very own consolation that’s most essential. Moreover, laypeople have already solved this drawback, for you’ll little question have seen that common people merely name the decrease gears the “simpler” gears and the upper gears the “more durable” gears. So perhaps it’s so simple as that.
However that is bikes we’re speaking about, and issues aren’t allowed to be easy. You don’t simply have fats tires and thin tires; you have got highway tires, and all-road tires, and gravel tires, and cyclocross tires, and… Given this, it’s clear that when discussing shifting we have to transfer away from adverbs and prepositions and adjectives altogether and as an alternative describe a extremely particular set of makes use of and terrains to each conceivable gear ratio. That approach while you hit the thumb lever on a Campagnolo system you gained’t be “upshifting;” as an alternative, you’ll be “shifting the gear selector into descent mode.” This may also work nice for digital methods, which I think about will quickly be little dials with footage on them identical to fashionable automotive transmissions.
All of this shall be justified as one thing that can make biking extra “inclusive” and “beginner-friendly,” and folks will ultimately come to understand the necessity to banish phrases like “up” and “down” altogether as they’re clearly discriminatory and suggest one gear is in some way higher than the opposite.
And if you happen to suppose I’m overthinking all this, you’re proper, however we’re cyclists and it’s our job to overthink issues. Take into account this opinion piece about “ultra-distance” biking occasions instituting “no-fly insurance policies:”
That is savvy advertising on the organizers’ half, who clearly perceive that, just like the bar that payments itself as a “speakeasy,” the extra inaccessible and inconvenient one thing is the cooler it turns into:
Although after all the ostensible motive is that they’re involved about their “carbon footprint:”
That is an extremely harmful precedent, as a result of it’s solely a matter of time earlier than the Tour de France adopts this, and we’re at most 5 years away from a tie-dye jersey for the brand new Smuggest Rider competitors:
Extra competitions will inevitably comply with:
And earlier than it everybody’s a winner:
Moralizing over pointless feats of ultra-recreation is self-indulgent, sure:
However extra self-indulgent is seeing a superb life and the arduous work of your dad and mom as one thing that must be atoned for and “undone:”
Sins of the daddy??? He was an airline pilot! What was his crime? Flying Carlton Reid round?
By the best way, the excellent news for the writer is that God walked again that entire “sins of the daddy shall be visited upon the son” factor, so fly wherever you need:
That stated, anybody who nonetheless feels responsible ought to be at liberty to ship any unused frequent flier miles my approach.
