Canuk wrote:I think it's fair comment to say that the majority of posters (especially in this section Bikes & bits) are a pretty rarified bunch, vis a vis people who ride touring bikes. This is after all just the alter ego of the CTC. The clue is in the title! So, if you use numbers as a guide probably represent a fairly small percentage of the bike buying (and regular bike riding) public.
If any proof of this were needed take a walk round your local bike shop, or Evans/Halfords or trawl a site like Wiggle and you'll be lucky to find a single touring specific bike on offer. 99% of the bikes will be multi geared, thin tyres, carbon framed and priced £600 and above.
This is false. I went to Evans yesterday. I am not sure what your point is about 'multi gears' but most bikes certainly did not have carbon frames.
You can argue on the head of a pin (and many do) about the usefulness of such developments, but you can't easily dismiss the effectiveness to the general cycling population and increase in 'bums on saddles' in recent years, which I say would not be possible if the bicycle had not evolved.
So, new forum member or indeed new cyclist don't be scared or cowed in this section by the constant decrying of new tech and carbon frames and wheels and everything (r)evolutionary. Bikes and cycling is a glorious melange of users, technology and applications. This forum should be viewed down the lens as an outpouring of a very specific, albeit minority view of cycling, from its fair to say the 1%.
And its worth reminding the 1% that you don't increase your membership and /or the popularity of cycling by shouting at the 99% your antiquated or fixed 'preferences' for one particular niche of the sport.
You can shoot the messenger all you want, but this a shot across the bows: its not in the spirit of the cycling I grew up with to be so critical of anything new or indeed useful to a new cycling generation bamboozled by choice. Choice is everywhere, it simply didn't exist in the 70's of you wanted a good frame it was 531, good kit you bought Campagnolo. It was simple.
Effective for what? Carbon frames & wheels are useless rubbish unless you are an expert cyclist wanting to shave seconds off your times. For normal 'general population' they are terrible, garbage. I was out of the country for a year when I came back I noticed my car had not been washed for the whole year by my wife, and neither had her bike - clearly carbon that will snap if you overtighten a bolt is useless to such people. Carbon cannot cope with careless handling, it is garbage unsuitable for anyone other than cycling nerds.
I went out on my 23mm racing bike yesterday, very carefully but a few hundred metres from home missed a small pothole & blew out the front tyre. Not to mention the lack of mudguards meaning it needs an immediate wash despite not to my mind going through any mud. It is extremely poorly suited to the generalised task of cycling. I can do the same roads on my cargo bike and get no punctures, cover the same roads, perhaps stop in a shop and pick up some Christmas presents or whatever, not get muddy, etc.
The fact that people are told to buy racing bikes when they are completely useless for most people's purposes, encouraged to buy slightly lighter components despite being 10kg overweight themselves, etc. shows you how poorly the cycle industry and its plethora of shiny baubles actually functions for normal people.