gregf83 

Suit yourself but recognize that some people enjoy setting goals and working to achieve them.

jefnvk

Some people get joy out of doing what they can with as little as possible, too. It is how I keep myself from buying nice new toys.

Then again, I suppose I can make it my goal to beat the guy with the $5k bike and a power meter on my 25 year old $75 C&V racing bike with a two function wired computer.

cyccommute 

No, that bike does not have a 15 lb CrMo frame. That's too heavy by at least 10 lbs. Frame and fork is likely in the 7 to 8 lb range. The Schwinn Crisscross is a heavy bike to be sure but not that heavy.

On the other end of the scale, you shouldn't be put off by the "real cyclist" who thinks you only need to ride a $10 bike that is bought at a garage sale and should only wear overalls when you ride. "Purity" on either end of the spectrum isn't healthy. Where do you think those $10 bikes are going to come from in the future if no one buys the fancy bikes.

There is nothing wrong with riding a bike like your Crisscross but there is also nothing wrong with riding more expensive bikes. Whatever floats your boat. But realize that people buying new bikes (and other items) is what drives industry. If everyone just used the same bike for 40 years, no one will make new bikes or parts for old bikes and the whole industry will die. It's currently on the ropes anyway.

Ask yourself, would you use a camera from 1984? Would you use a computer from 1995? Could you carry around a cell phone from 1973? Could you stream videos on a cell phone from 2005? That's the equivalent of riding 40 year old bikes. There's nothing wrong with wanting, or using, new equipment. You can go over the top but someone has to buy the garage sale bikes of 2057.

I-Like-To-Bike

No doubt true for some people. Witness the numerous posts on BF from posters so concerned about dropping or being dropped by total strangers whenever and wherever they are cycling. And Strava adds a whole new dimension to setting "goals" for the "achievement" attainment OCD crowd.

Maelochs

There are lots of goals one can set. Pushing one's limits, punishing oneself, keeping up with the faster group, ... or riding a little more often, or riding a little farther, or having more fun riding ... or saving up for more expensive gear, or getting more out of less gear.

Demeaning others' goals for being different is kind of silly. Ride 'til you drop, or ride slower than walking speed ... who cars? And whose business is ti. Does anyone Really think there is only one "proper" way to use a bicycle?

So far as feeling any obligation to keep the industry going ... garbage. I have a pair of 35-year-old bikes. I have a 2017 bike. if I never buy another new bike for the next 35 years (should I improbably live so long) then no one else will be able to buy a bike, ever?

Trash. If over the next ten years no one wanted bicycles and over the next fifteen the industry dried up to barley supplying bikes for racers ... in the U.S. .... do you really think the Rest of the World ( I know, for Americans the rest of the world is an island the size of Delaware where people don't know how to use fire or speak language, but ... ) is going to stop buying and riding bikes?

Do you think everyone with a torch will forget how to weld? As for carbon fiber .... people have been building carbon-fiber model airplanes for years ... I guess people can figure out how to make bikes if they want.

After all .... in 1969 there was no mountain-bike industry ... but people looked at motorcycles and at Schwinn cruisers and did some sketching ....

And in any case, there are enough bikes in the world now so that everyone who wants can ride for the next fifty years if production stopped in ten. People wouldn't be able to get the latest newest each season ... but no one really needs that anyway.

Remember back in the day when a person ... Bought a Bike?

Not one a year, not one a season, not seven in ten years ... people bought bikes ... and were done buying bikes. Then they ..... rode bikes ... Amazing.

jefnvk

I know a few photo geeks who have and still regularly use vintage cameras. Like vinyl, film is making a bit of a renaissance, especially in an era of every one who buys a $500 starter DSLR thinking they are a professional photographer.

The rest I would argue isn't really an analogous argument. A computer from 1995 won't even open modern web pages, although I have worked in test labs where computers much older than that are still going strong for a specific purpose. A cell phone from 2005 may not even work on the networks anymore, but a modern Nokia 3310 candybar phone with the same stripped down feature set as the original is coming back. There is a fundamental difference between technology that doesn't work on modern infrastructure, you can still get on the pedals of a 40 year old bike and make it go, and make it go nearly as well as a modern bike.

But yeah, someone keep buying the latest and greatest, so I can buy it at a steep discount in a few years!

Jon T

I ride an '84 Peugeot PH10. A couple of weeks ago I had no problem staying up with a bunch of guys on plastic bikes. It's not the machine as much as it is the motor that powers it.
Jon

Bandera

The "hardware" that LA was referring to was a Syringe not a bicycle.

-Bandera

I-Like-To-Bike

Let me know when Kodachrome becomes available as well as anyone who can process it; or maybe even when Kodak returns. All color pictures of my kids were shot on Kodachrome as well as 10 years of travel in Europe. Those pictures as well all the B&W pictures of my kids shot on 35mm and 120 are just so much better than the pictures of my grandchildren taken with Smartphones by their parents. It seems to me a single crated picture is worth a hundred or even a thousand snapped away machine gun style on free electrons for viewing on the Internet or on a smartphone screen.

Jon T

This^^^^^EXACTLY!!!And if you really want the minute details, b&w will give better details than color any day of the week.
Jon

Phil_gretz

So, I really appreciated this post. When I mention "goal setting", I'm thinking in the broadest sense. Each person can (and most do) set individual goals that are sensible and achievable, and that provide some benefit once achieved.


If your goal is to walk a 5K, then you get the benefit of having walked enough to be prepared for that event. It's a win. If the goal is to complete a bicycle century, then you'll likely have ridden a thousand plus miles in preparation. Hopefully, those were rewarding miles. And the satisfaction of having completed your first century...


Not every goal has to be related to competition, but many rewarding goals are competitive. Those are okay, too. Some goals are lifestyle related: to go on a date night with one's teenage daughter once per month, or to read the Bible through in a year, or to re-finish the back porch into a sun room before winter, or whatever.


We don't move forward without goals, do we?

jefnvk

I think there is a lot of truth there.

I have thousands of vacation photos from a decade of traveling the world, online and on my computer. Know how many I look at? Whichever ones are sitting in the folder that my computer background scrolls through. I've been thinking of having a coffee table book made up of the best ones, with little blurbs about the picture, just so they get looked at once in a while.

As far as film, the last time I used a regular SLR was when I went to Iceland in 2007, those pictures just have a special something about them, even if my P&S or DSLR takes much better images. Dang near took it with me when I went back this summer, just didn't have the luggage space for anything but the P&S.

Kapusta

Nothing wrong with getting new toys IF they are actually bringing more joy to your experience, and you genuinely appreciate them. If you are getting stuff just because you feel like you NEED to because it is what you see everyone else running or because you can't bear to not have the latest, then that kind of takes the joy out of it, IMO.

I am good at not chasing the latest and greatest when it comes to road bikes. My current bike is probably worth around $1,500, and it is pretty much my dream bike in all the aspects I care about. Sure, it is 22 lbs, but while a lighter bike might be neat, it really has zero impact on how much I enjoy riding. I just don't get too exited about road bike equipment (except for tires), and never get the upgrade bug. I appreciate the recent trend towards more do-it-all road bikes, but the actual technology advancements over the past 25 years are for the most part unexciting to me.

MTB is a whole different story, because the equipment has changed drastically over the past 25 years. Heck, every 5 years sees real change, especially from around 1995 to 2010. During that time you could buy a new bike every 5 years and have a vastly superior ride. So it can be hard sometimes to just be like "yeah, there is stuff out there WAY better than what I am riding, but this is fine". You just need to remind yourself that this was fun BEFORE the new stuff came out and it still is.

Between 1998 and 2013 I have bought many, many MTB frames and forks, and too many tires to count (all of these things have advanced tremendously), and I got a lot of pleasure out of it, too. When you are pushing the limits on the trail, the differences really show up.

Barabaika

Get this old gear. It was good 50 years ago, it'll be valuable in 50 years too.


Use squats and other exercises every other day, and your thighs will pump serious power in 2-5 years.

But, I'm sure, you just want to get everything at once by buying expensive gear.

big chainring 

Never had a problem with "never enough". Though I did think there had to be something magical about Exxon Graftek bikes.

Sangetsu

I had a Nikon FE with a 43-86 Nikkor lens, and now have a Leica MP with a 35mm Summicron. For digital I stated with a D70, and now have a D3x with the appropriate lenses.

But I also like guitars. I started with a Yamaha L5, and now have a Martin D-28, but as the D28 doesn't seem to be enough, I am shopping for a D45. I kind of liked my Epiphone ES 335 copy, but moved up to a Gibson ES-175. But even that is not enough, and I am looking for an L4CES (I want an ebony fretboard). Strats are sweet, and I liked my MIJ '84 in Fiesta red. I recently took delivery of a new Strat made for me by Todd Krause, anyone who knows Fender guitars knows who he is. My '89 Les Paul was nice, but when I came across a decent '59 which was priced in the low 6 figures, it was too good a deal to pass up. On the good side, it is worth much more than the considerable amount I paid for it. I have a guitar room in my house now, and there is space for a few more.

Luckily I am not into cars.

I-Like-To-Bike

The best 35mm pictures/slides B& W and color that I ever made of my children were taken with a Nikon FE and Nikkor 105mm lens; the the best pictures printed from 6x6 mm negatives were taken with a Rolliflex TLR with a f3.5/75 lens and later with a Mamaya C330 TLR with a 180mm lens set.
Digital is convenient and cheap but just doesn't provide the psychic thrill of seeing a great 8 x 10" picture coming out of the developing tray or first viewing slides of the kids or travel photos when the box of slides arrived back from the Kodachrome processor.

Symtex

Nostalgia is a power aphrodisiac. I do remember loving doing B&W when I was in high school The smell of the acid and the red light. All good times. As much as I love those day, I am not trading my Canon 5DS R for a film camera. no way.

I-Like-To-Bike

Agreed. I don't have the patience anymore to wait for a good shot of a moving subject, namely my grandchildren now, as I was when I was younger when wasting exposures cost serious money. Nor do I have the stamina to print all night long anymore; my home darkroom was never that light tight so I could only print after dark and it wasn't worth setting up the chemicals for printing unless I printed all night long.

But it sure was soul stirring to print and view great photographs of great subjects. Looking through those albums now never fails to provide satisfaction, even 35 years after the pictures were taken I can remember almost everything about the how/where/why the shot was made.

theHomelessJedi

I agree completely. I used to work at a Photography Retail store for about 3 years. I learned a ton in that time. I got to where I could produce close to Pro Quality images with just about any DSLR in the store. While I will say that there is a significant difference between bottom line lenses, and Pro Lenses... it's very negligible if you don't have the skill set to make use of the equipment that you have. I also had the pleasure of watching many of my repeat customers progress in their skills and 'eventually' upgrade to better gear, but I always placed an emphasis on the person's ability to produce an image, rather than the camera's capability to do so.

I have started learning this with cycling as well. While I did start out on a fairly nice road bike, I quickly realized that my fitness was not where I thought it was. Riding more, and learning about my bike, getting it to fit properly and building the fitness necessary has helped me immensely.

theHomelessJedi

That's actually the same acronym that Photographers use as well, haha. I've heard it many times.

Maelochs

That's the deal with film .... it was so expensive to shoot and develop, people hardly took any pictures so each one stood out.

Looking back ... "What's that blur?"
"My grandson's first steps ... or maybe my granddaughter's first haircut ... both photos are just blurs. They wouldn't stop wiggling."

Digital ... "Yeah, if you hold down the "next" button, you can watch the whole thing like a movie."

Lately my memory is pretty weak anyway ,... I'll opt for more pics just because more of them are keepers.

But ... unless you plan to make posters, and iPhone 6 or 7 or a $200 P&S can take pictures as sharp, clear, and colorful as any of the old film stuff .... at 3 FPS or something.

In 20 years we will all be wearing Google-glass cameras which autofocus depending on where our eyeballs are focusing and responding to voice command. The idea of carrying camera gear ("What's with all the lenses? Can't the software compensate?") will be as obsolete as the idea of buying film.

theHomelessJedi

Also something to note is that not all new tech stands the test of time. Specifically speaking of camera equipment, There are companies out there (looking at you Sony) who completely change up their lens mount every 5 years or so because they've found something "better." Sony bought out Minolta a number of years ago and started using the Minolta lens mount on the Alpha series Translucent Mirror DSLR bodies. Made an entire range of consumer and Pro lenses over the next decade, this also allow folks with older Konica-Minolta lenses to still use them on a new Sony DSLR body.

Fast forward a number of years, Sony develops a mirrorless camera body system, which is pretty awesome in it's own right (I own an A6000, love it!). About 5 years after that, rumors start to circulate that Sony will be dropping the Translucent body production and focusing on mirrorless. They haven't completely dropped the Translucent mirror DSLR line, but they've all but cut the "crop sensor development on the old Konica-Minolta mount. It's something that has had Sony fans reeling for a while.

So pretty much folks bought into this new technology, thinking that it might be the best new thing, now a lot of their gear is becoming outdated, with no foreseeable upgrades coming down the line. Several people I knew, lost a good deal of cash switching from either Canon or Nikon over to Sony, and then switching back once they realized what was happening.

theHomelessJedi

Eh, depends on why he is riding. If he aspires to race or get in better shape, then the 'Pain Is Gain' saying is true in some form. Your body adapts and grows stronger when you introduce difficulty, it atrophies when you are comfortable and complacent.

Or he could just be a nerd like me and enjoy looking at all the pretty numbers and graphs after a ride.

theHomelessJedi

Comparing Electronics and something Mechanical in nature is like comparing Apples and Oranges too though. All the workings inside a modern camera, like that of computers, are pretty much designed with a 5-10 year life span, and that may be pushing it for some companies...