Originally Posted by
livedarklions
I appreciate your sharing your experience. All the nonsense about who is or isn't qualified to post on a thread like this in GC misses the whole point of GC--getting the perspectives of people who do all kinds of bicycling. Your perspective is very interesting to me because you've done a lot of different kinds of riding.
The biggest problem I see with GC is people who insist on saying some version of "I do X, therefore anyone who does Y is a fake or a fool.". The second biggest problem is people who just assume saying " I do Y" is an attack on people who do X.
It'd be interesting to compare this thread to cadence threads of a few years ago. I've only been here since 2018, but my memory of those is there used to be a bunch of people who would post that everyone should maintain a cadence of100 rpm, all gearing choices should be made around preserving that cadence under all circumstances, and anyone who didn't ride that way was wrong. I like this compare our differences approach a whole lot more.
Just to be open about it, to the extent that I have an agenda, it's to remind people that the motor on our chosen vehicle is not standard issue, so general rules are really hard to come by. There's too many "experts" and precious little expertise. "This works for me" is great, "what you've doing is wrong" is usually stupid.
One thing I’ve learned from some folks of BF is that there are a multitude of ways that people use a bicycle, and each of them are valid in their own way. I’ve had some of my own preconceived ideas challenged, and I’ve adjusted my understanding because of it. As
One area that continues to be a frustration to me is those who insist that a desire for “better” equipment is only valid for people who race, and/or that every additional expense above “adequate” must be justified by a measurable and proportional increase in performance. For me, cycling is a passion. Not just the riding, but also the gear. I’m excited to ride a high-performance machine at the limits of my current abilities, even if I am slower than I used to be. Hell, I enjoy just looking at my bikes, much the same way people enjoy looking at sports cars. I’m also excited to take those same bikes out for an easy cruise, just to enjoy being on a bike on a nice day. The hollow hum of carbon wheels and slick tires rolling fast on pavement, with the distinctive sound of a clean and well-adjusted drivetrain delivering power from pedals to rear wheel, is a happy sound to me. So is the buzz of a high-quality freewheel. I can feel the difference in casing suppleness between a Conti GP5000 and a Pirelli P-Zero, and that matters to me. I enjoy the contrast of experiences between each of my bikes. The variety keeps cycling fresh and exciting for me.