Even when I disagree with Grant Petersen (and I tend to agree with him more often than not), his opinions are typically interesting, well thought through, and often amusing. His opinions are often well-informed also, which is why
his recent anti e-bike rant is so disappointing and confusing. He clearly has not ridden an e-bike and seems bent on never doing so. Moreover, he's clearly strongly inclined to discourage others from riding e-bikes, or at least on changing existing legislation so that e-bikes would be re-classified as mopeds or motorcycles.
The blog piece is littered with endless contradictions, half truths, obscurantism and uninformed opinion passed off as fact.
Be forewarned; this is Grant Petersen at near rock bottom. I'm going to give him a pass on this one. I tend to believe he was drunk or otherwise compromised when he wrote this piece. Sad that he didn't actually edit, re-write or simply delete this awful piece once he came to:
https://www.rivbike.com/blogs/peekin...-knothole/reno
TL, DR:
1. GP says he attended Interbike in order to open new accounts, but money isn't really important to him.
2. The declining popularity of Interbike means the industry is in peril ("oh no, support your local ripoff I mean bike shop!")
3. The Big Three (T, S, G) are baddies for not attending Interbike, but no big deal, Interbike was awesome anyway, except when it wasn't
4. helmets are cool (if you like them) but they suck otherwise
5. no one pedals an e-bike, the motors automatically "take over" kinda like sky net
6. bikes won't displace cars (DUH!)
7. Japanese components are awesome
8. Interbike is so small now he mentions and photographs two people at random for no reason whatsoever.
9. Cycling gear is dorky. A hard seam up your wazoo is a MUST!
10. Racing and competition are stupid. Buy a Rivendell and you'll go slower. A lot slower.
11. Anagrams are cool because, LSD