Zas

Does anyone else think the marketing departments of bike brands and component makers are too much in control of what bikes we ride at any given time? Do you all think this is the way to go? They want to sell us new bikes that are more incompatible and more expensive every few years by any means necessary.

Right now my daily ride is an 80s steel touring bike. Straight 1" steerer, threaded headset. Threaded bb. Cantilever brakes. Shimano 600 indexed downtube shifting from the 90s, hyperglide cassette. Can fit fenders, racks and 37mm gravel or winter tires. I can get all spares for it cheap and they are actually being manufactured still, not everything can always be bought off the shelf from the LBS though. For example a fine quality 7s cassette costs a fraction compared to a modern 1x12 cassette. If I crash, I only trash a cheap brake lever, not a brifter that costs hundreds. Maintenance is easy because the technology has been there for 40 years, once you learn it you´re done. They are trying to force us to buy new stuff for no other reason than to get money from us. There´s been very little development in the modern quality bicycle in the past 40 years(with the exception of the mountain bike, which is arguably better today compared to the 90s). Honestly, we could have stopped most of the development in the 90s and be perfectly happy! For road, touring and commuting anyway.

The end result of all this in 2021: Keeping a good parts stock for the small LBS is next to impossible (let´s start with the hundreds of headset and bb standards, 7-13s cassettes, the list goes on). Learning the skills to service your new bike is a process (disc brake flushing, integrated cable routing, hub and bb service). Collecting all the different special tools for your new bike can be expensive. Spares for your modern bike are more and more expensive (cassette, derailleurs, chainrings) and sometimes hard to get (proprietary seatposts, stems, headsets, thru axles etc.). Sometimes you have a hard time even determining what parts you have on your bike next to you (headset: tapered? integrated? size?). All for some undetermined undefined quite marginal gain! Does anyone else think we´re being fooled a bit here?

Tell me I´m wrong. Rant over.