reohn2 wrote: this comment from The Utility Cycist:-
Too many look down with distain because they don't like change, simply don't understand or simply hate the fact other people want/need or enjoy something they don't have and that it doesn't fit in with their viewpoint
But equally this inverse is true as well, too many people look down with distain on tried and tested technology, and simply dismiss equipment because it fails to feature in bright colourful adverts, or featured in the latest reviews.
As a result technology which could provide a useful number of gears, with a wide range and still have a strong wheel, (and would be the touring triple, with a half step chain ring and a six or seven speed cluster. It worked well enough for Tony Oliver) is simply ignored as writers for magazines (who I would suggest generate income from selling advertising space rather than readership sales) continue to praise whatever bicycle 'thneed' is currently fashionable.
I myself have a simple bike with a single chainring & a 5 speed freewheel, so I appreciate the operational simplicity of a 11 speed bicycle.. However I fail to see how running a chain at more extreme angles than my own chain, will improve its life, nor do I fully understand the life changing difference which is alluded in the adverts between riding a bicycle with 11 gears verses riding a bicycle with 8 gears.
At the end of the day, the bicycle still gets dirty, you have the same weather, the same cake stops and you ride on the same roads, tracks and byways.
I rather think we are on beyond claiming that new technology attracts new cyclists, it is not statically accurate.
