Originally Posted by
radroad
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
snip
Seriously? You're suggesting that someone you don't know was drunk because they wrote a blog post you disagree with?
If you have an actual disagreement with something from the blog post, why don't you just make your point, rather than attack someone's character?
You're 3d point, for example, inaccurately depicts what GP wrote about the big 3 and them not attending inter-bike.
Let me quote what GP wrote about the big 3 not attending inter-bike:
"The big bike industry trade show is called Interbike. It ended Friday, and this year it was about 25 percent as big as it has been in any of the past 35 years. Specialized, Giant, and Trek have their own shows, with captive audiences, and they save money by not renting space at Interbike, and they can give their dealers a more royal treatment. It makes sense."