PSA for gravel bike fans
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A flatbar gravel bike is what a 90s hardtail mountain bike should have been.
We could have gotten there by just putting flat bars on cyclocross bikes, but we ended up going to drop bar gravel bikes first.
Oftentimes I wish I had a nice low-travel suspension fork on my flatbar gravel bike - I wonder if we'll move into that direction. Really makes me want to pick up a Cannondale Slate and slapping on some flat bars.
Why not just get a modern front suspension hardtail, you might ask - I think the reach is too long and the stack is too high.
We could have gotten there by just putting flat bars on cyclocross bikes, but we ended up going to drop bar gravel bikes first.
Oftentimes I wish I had a nice low-travel suspension fork on my flatbar gravel bike - I wonder if we'll move into that direction. Really makes me want to pick up a Cannondale Slate and slapping on some flat bars.
Why not just get a modern front suspension hardtail, you might ask - I think the reach is too long and the stack is too high.
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The current low-trail suspension forks are sublime. If they can get the weight down it would be a no-brainer for a lot of builds. Consumer resistance and the current state of the bicycle economy will most likely preclude much more development, which is a shame.
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Both of those bikes have some uncommon features for the era they supposedly represent. Yes, they are from those eras, but not examples of typical setups.
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Dropper post and suspension fork.
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There's a great recent article on the MTB: https://www.theproscloset.com/blogs/...macs-yeti-c-26
It ended up as a wedding gift to the editor of MBA, with a sad conclusion to it's life before fully becoming a museum piece:
I get it, but wow I'd have been trying to rip it up like Tomac had I gotten the bike.
It ended up as a wedding gift to the editor of MBA, with a sad conclusion to it's life before fully becoming a museum piece:
I only rode the C-26 once
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There's a great recent article on the MTB: https://www.theproscloset.com/blogs/...macs-yeti-c-26
It ended up as a wedding gift to the editor of MBA, with a sad conclusion to it's life before fully becoming a museum piece:
I get it, but wow I'd have been trying to rip it up like Tomac had I gotten the bike.
It ended up as a wedding gift to the editor of MBA, with a sad conclusion to it's life before fully becoming a museum piece:
I get it, but wow I'd have been trying to rip it up like Tomac had I gotten the bike.
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I still don't get the joke. But design trends for mtb have been towards downhill and very rough terrain, so it makes sense that the industry would make a bike like older mountain bikes, which were generally made for terrain like a gravel road.
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I think Dave Mac's 1984 Team Stumpjumper is more C&V aesthetic and not quite so alien, but the Yeti is just from another world. Hardcore 1990s energy and signaled the end of the prior generation of rigid steel bikes and the future of MTBs that were completely divorced from road bikes and clunkers in form and function.
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Sort of, but not really. Dylan isn't racing this bike at the top level of MTB racing the way Tomac raced his Yeti. Dylan is an experimenter, playing with marginal gains. This is a bike intentionally built for a middle ground between where a rigid gravel bike is more efficient, and where a full-squish XC MTB is more efficient.
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Racing Leadville and Chequamegon on a drop-bar Factor MTB is a straight line connection what Tomac was doing in 1990 with the Yeti. A difference of degree, not of kind.
UCI banned drop bars for MTB so it's a moot point anyway. Nobody is going to be exactly like Tomac because now it's illegal.
UCI banned drop bars for MTB so it's a moot point anyway. Nobody is going to be exactly like Tomac because now it's illegal.
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Its a constant joke within a joke sort of commentary where you cant figure out if the person's comments are genuine, ironic, or post-ironic. Frankly, I think most of his commentary is post-irony since that allows the flexibility to always 'be right' and always criticize whatever subsegment of the overall cycling industry and consumerism that gets in his sights in the moment.
Posting constant post-ironic commentary gives cover and allows someone to create the joke, laugh at those who dont get the joke, and ultimately still earnestly believe the subject matter when it suits them...while then immediately being able to claim that is now the joke.
I saw this thread yesterday shortly after it was first posted, looked at the examples, and passed since it was a trap to laugh at those that dont get 'it', whatever 'it' may be in the moment.
Rant over, for now.
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Dont worry about not being in on the joke- Spoon is very meta in both his humor and his analysis of the bike industry, consumer use, and consumer preferences.
Its a constant joke within a joke sort of commentary where you cant figure out if the person's comments are genuine, ironic, or post-ironic. Frankly, I think most of his commentary is post-irony since that allows the flexibility to always 'be right' and always criticize whatever subsegment of the overall cycling industry and consumerism that gets in his sights in the moment.
Posting constant post-ironic commentary gives cover and allows someone to create the joke, laugh at those who dont get the joke, and ultimately still earnestly believe the subject matter when it suits them...while then immediately being able to claim that is now the joke.
I saw this thread yesterday shortly after it was first posted, looked at the examples, and passed since it was a trap to laugh at those that dont get 'it', whatever 'it' may be in the moment.
Rant over, for now.
Its a constant joke within a joke sort of commentary where you cant figure out if the person's comments are genuine, ironic, or post-ironic. Frankly, I think most of his commentary is post-irony since that allows the flexibility to always 'be right' and always criticize whatever subsegment of the overall cycling industry and consumerism that gets in his sights in the moment.
Posting constant post-ironic commentary gives cover and allows someone to create the joke, laugh at those who dont get the joke, and ultimately still earnestly believe the subject matter when it suits them...while then immediately being able to claim that is now the joke.
I saw this thread yesterday shortly after it was first posted, looked at the examples, and passed since it was a trap to laugh at those that dont get 'it', whatever 'it' may be in the moment.
Rant over, for now.
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Racing Leadville and Chequamegon on a drop-bar Factor MTB is a straight line connection what Tomac was doing in 1990 with the Yeti. A difference of degree, not of kind.
UCI banned drop bars for MTB so it's a moot point anyway. Nobody is going to be exactly like Tomac because now it's illegal.
UCI banned drop bars for MTB so it's a moot point anyway. Nobody is going to be exactly like Tomac because now it's illegal.
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Racing Leadville and Chequamegon on a drop-bar Factor MTB is a straight line connection what Tomac was doing in 1990 with the Yeti. A difference of degree, not of kind.
UCI banned drop bars for MTB so it's a moot point anyway. Nobody is going to be exactly like Tomac because now it's illegal.
UCI banned drop bars for MTB so it's a moot point anyway. Nobody is going to be exactly like Tomac because now it's illegal.
Drop bars work on this:
They aren't going to work very well on stuff like this:
Or this:
or this:
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I had thought more people had seen the commentary that "gravel bikes are just 1990s mountain bikes" but I suppose not. Figured a comparison would be funny since they're so different but I guess it fell flat.
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Well yeah I see that dumb claim all the time across the forums of this site, so I bet many here see it a lot. I didnt connect that. I just went back to your first pic and see that the modern bike pic changed. I didnt get it when you had a flat bar model. Now that its a drop bar, it makes more sense. I figured you were commenting on bikes both back then and now and were showing slightly how they are actually similar too, due to the flat bars.
^ me for sure.