Originally Posted by
Fredo76
What does it take to be considered a "serious" cyclist? 250 miles/week? A watt-meter?
In 1990, not only could you find parts for 40-year-old bicycles, you could buy brand new ones, that fit and worked because of standards. Probably still can, thanks to standards!
Honestly, using rail-gauges as an argument against standards is possibly the silliest thing I've read this July, so far.
Of course, bikes (and everything else) would still be stuck in the past if we stuck to standards forever. The new standards are (almost always) objectively better for everything except compatibility, but I don't feel the need for any of my 2020's bikes to have interchangeable parts with something 30+ years older. It's a pretty niche field.