tomato coupe

Yes, they're both in the "D" volume of Encyclopedia Britannica, along with dinosaurs.

tomato coupe

I hate to break it to you, but well built houses use 2x6s these days.

70sSanO

Advertising has done none of this.

What advertising has done is convince people that disposable products are an acceptable trade-off for a better and more advanced product. And not limited to bicycles.

Years ago companies realized that it was not a good thing for them to manufacture a product that would last too long.

Even repairing has become parts replacement and not rebuilding. A friend of mine used to say that auto mechanics no longer exist, they are just parts replacers. They will replace parts until they find the one causing the problem. Replacement parts are so much cheaper than rebuilding, so why not?

I can understand rydabent's point, but not on frames, speeds, where it's made, or even if they were better. I see his point on how often cassettes need to be replaced, cables and housings need to be replaced, etc. If someone looks back on the old thick heavy freewheels that you could take apart, soak, lube and run for thousands more miles, it is funny to see in the mechanics sub-forum threads that include, "Did you replace...?".

John

rydabent

Not at all. I still have my granny for steep hills, and the big ring for down hill or with the wind. As the Boy Scouts say-------------be prepared.

rydabent

I can agree with a lot of what you say. Yes we have become a society of throw away cheap goods. I can remember when if your gas pump quit on your car, you pulled it off and put in a kit that had a new diaphragm and the little one way valves. I was Navy trained in electronics. We diagnosed the problems to the component level such as resistors and capacitors. Now days on those two things you throw away the whole pump and put on a new one. In electronics you throw away a whole board and put in a new one. Rather wasteful in both cases, and to my mind it means a lessor tech can "fix" things.

rydabent

But there again that black and white TV could be cheaply fixed when it went wrong. When you new flat screen TV goes bad it goes to the land fill and you buy a new one.

tomato coupe

I was going to urge you to join the rest of us in the 21st century, but maybe you should take it slow and start with the 1980s.

Maelochs

Yes, sir .... and we can see through the ...stuff ... you say and see both your motivations and the logical flaws in your arguments.

Advertising Can work, but it has to be of a certain level of quality. there are also bad ads which don't work .... I use your original post as an example.

Darth Lefty 

It’s funny, I’m a capital B Boilermaker but not a small b boilermaker...

Mojo31

Howdy pards,

When one responds with "fixin to" is the speaker referring to y'all is fixing to or y'all are fixing to?

Don't get me started on "ya'll" either. That's just the sign of being a yank or uncouth heathen.

And, if a bike tumps over and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?

Time to lit out.

Mojo31

You mean 1.5 X 5.5s.

Mojo31

That's right. The old one goes on Craigslist so it can be someone else's problem.

shelbyfv

In the old days, it seems the elderly and/or off kilter had families who would step in and prevent them from embarrassing themselves in public. FWIW, I'll take my flat screen over a 12 inch B&W and 11 speed with brifters over 5 speed freewheel with downtube friction any day.

tomato coupe

No, I mean 2x6, because ... that's what they're called.

hubcyclist

I'm not naive enough to think all the newest stuff is so much better. I ride a recently made aluminum Allez, 8 speed, and it's great for what I do, but there are times when I'd love a tighter ratio on my road bike and have a smoother experience. I also have a 2x11 setup on my CX bike, I like having the gear range, but in a CX race I could honestly get why 1x is the trend, because dropping a chain with a 2x setup is a pain and I had some untimely drops last season while shifting because of a bent chainring. And I could totally get by with a 1x setup with a chainring in between my current 2x tooth count (46-36).

It's easy to sit back and critique things without knowing the reason behind certain developments. And with stuff like gravel, it's more that the market is responding and trying to develop stuff to where the trend is as opposed to trying to create the trend. Of course, OP likes to talk about his experience yet doesn't have the experience of different styles of riding to know why certain changes are occurring.

Maelochs

Actually almost all Taiwan-based businesses farm out their manufacturing to mainland Chinese companies. Factory space is ridiculously expensive in Taiwan. Most "Taiwanese" companies are selling parts made in China.

Also ... a lot of really good stuff is made in China. The computers we are all using right now, would be examples. The phones most of us use, would be other examples. Ninety-five percent of all computers and phones, TVs, pretty much all consumer electronics, are made in China, and if the whole appliance isn't built there, the electronics are.

I have two Made in America Cannondales .... and a Fuji, a Dawes, and two Workswells which were made in China. (I am not sure where my old Raleigh was built.)

Most of my bikes have Shimano shifters ... made in China or possibly Malaysia .... most of the tires and tubes come from China .... most of All those bikes were made in China.

Guess what? They all work Really well.

This is where you do show a touch of xenophobia. Trust me, I dislike communist China a Lot more than you do. I have spent the past 20 years devoting some of my time to lobbying and activism against the regime, a regime which arrests, tortures, and kills its own citizens for any reason at all, and also uses political prisoners as living organ banks, killing them to order to supply the state-supported organ transplant industry. ( https://dafoh.org/forced-organ-harvesting/ https://www.foxnews.com/world/organ-...vivors-victims https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/c...ludes-n1018646 https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoff.../#4b75db212ec7 https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/medi...ing%202007.pdf)

Yeah ... I am not fan of communist China.

However ... I am a cycling fan, and I can see when something is made well or not.

Your assertion that everything was better back in the day is simply ludicrous.

A well-made frame is always a well-made frame. There are a variety off techniques for making bike frames, involving aluminum, steel, carbon fiber, and even bamboo and other woods. A good frame can be made out of a variety of materials using a variety of methods.

A the same time, a crappy frame can be made in a variety of ways and out of a variety of materials.

Your ridiculous fundamental assertions, that people only like what they like because of advertising, and that people cannot see that lugged frames are better because of advertising, are both wholly unsupported by fact.

Cyclists in particular, because they are a limited subset of consumers which tend to make a lot of demands on their products, tend to spend more time investigating those products. Also, because bicycles are generally discretionary spending done for the purpose of pleasure and entertainment, people tend to be more careful about what they buy.

Event eh huge volume of people buying truly horrendous box-store bikes though ... they are not replacing those bikes because of frame failure.

Technology is so advanced now compared to fifty years ago, that any manufacturer can sell robot-welded frames as strong as any hand-built lugged and brazed frame. Maybe not as light, but certainly as strong. Those bikes fail because of crappy components, not because the welds break.

Your whole assertion that lugged, brazed frames are somehow Better is wholly false. And in fact, it is not difficult to build large numbers aluminum frames that are not lugged, which are stronger and lighter than lugged steel frames. Aluminum can be formed more easily than steel, and into much more radical shapes, which allows it to deliver strength and compliance where needed, and the component shapes can be robot-welded with sufficient quality so as to make frames which out-perform steel frames for the weight.

Only when we get into limited-production, hand-built, high-dollar frames do we see lightweight, high-performance steel frames---and many of these aren't lugged and brazed, but are fillet-welded or brazed.

For most bike manufacturers and most riders, aluminum frames, mass-produced and machine-welded, offer the same performance at a lower price. And That is why people buy them.

You are confusing your own prejudices for facts, and your won artistic preferences for science.

Yes, some people like classic lugged-steel frames. Some people find straight tubes and sculpted lugs to be particularly beautiful. That is fine. But to pretend that because of your artistic preferences, that both physics, and economics are suddenly non-existent ... you are shouting at clouds and the clouds are winning the debate.

rydabent

Well my trike has disc brakes, and we have flat screen TVs. Our big flat screen went haywire and is in the city dump. We bought a new one. Our smart phone works fine, as does my wireless home network and the blue tooth in my car. As a 47 year service tech for IBM, I am fairly well up to date.

BTW we do have running water and one of those fancy commodes. Tore down the outhouse several years ago.

rydabent

You might like to review my post #121 .

tomato coupe

Maybe the mods could just delete every post except for this one (Maelochs') and the OP, and then lock the thread?

Mojo31

I fall in the age bracket that should make me wish for the "good ole days." While I do with respect to a number of things that are more esoteric like the current state of social media (I could do without it), I really like the new stuff much more than the old. I really like my carbon bike, and don't miss the old steel ones one bit. I much prefer modern cars and their tech over old cars. I like new furniture rather than old. I really like my 77" Sony OLED a whole lot more than the 19" portable I had when in school over 35 years ago. Cameras, computers, gold clubs, fishing gear, televisions, audio gear, and much more is really a whole lot better than similar stuff that is 5, 10, 20, and 30 years older even though most of it is made in the far east.

The only thing "old" that I like better is vinyl records. I really like my music on vinyl pressings.

tomato coupe

One of the other things we do in the 21st century is recycle our electronics, because it really isn't a good idea to put them in the local landfill.

Maelochs

Yeah ... everything could be built to last forever. And yes, we are beset by disposable goods. However, the corollary that everything which is not overbuilt and eternal is therefore evil is unproven.

yes, we could all be riding bikes with steel drive trains---stainless, in fact. The cost would be greater and the weight would be enormous. In those areas manufacturers had to balance long life with low weight, and if you think people do not Want lighter bikes, you are again divorced from reality. And if you think people only want light bikes because of advertising ... well, maybe You cannot think critically, but don't judge everyone by your limitations.

I like lighter bikes because they are easier to ride ... I get more performance from less effort. My first derailleur bike was a Schwinn Suburban---46 pounds of indestructible. I have ridden everything from Walmart trash to decent CF and aluminum, with a few steel bikes thrown in. I know what I like ... and Some of my bikes are built to be light, because I LIke Lighter Bikes.

They are not intrinsically more fun to ride---my bikes range over a wide range of ready-for-the-road weights, and I like riding them all---but i prefer and ride most often (when riding purely for pleasure) on my lightest bikes. Nobody told me to do it. I figured it out for myself.

Yes, I know my alloy cassettes might only last 10,0000 miles (longer, because i wax) and i realize I will have to replace by chain rings every 30-40 K miles. it is an acceptable trade-off for me. I know my tires could be three times as tough and thick and heavy---but they would detract from ride quality. Shoot, my control cables--shift and brake---could be quarter-inch diameter stainless and last longer than i will live. I could use solid steel wheels and never break a spoke.

To me, bikes are not disposable ... and except for people buying children's bikes art Walmart, bikes pretty much aren't "disposable" to anyone. I have an '84 Raleigh and an '83 Cannondale---and guess what, I have had to do complete drivetrain replacements on both. Were they designed and built to be "disposable"? pretty obviously, no. but stuff wears out. I haven't bought a bike since 2015 and don't see a reason I would buy another (though if we had more readily available gravel roads, i would builda gravel bike---if had more time to ride.)

Look at the bikes posters here ride. A lot of new, high-tech CF and aluminum bikes with all the latest ... and a lot of custom or small-volume steel and titanium, a lot of older bikes ... bikes of every vintage and variety.

So ... this whole picture of stupid people driven by advertisers to buy cheap, disposable bikes ... doesn't hold up. People who buy mass-produced cheap bikes are getting bikes which suit their needs---they aren't risdinf 10K miles in a year, probably not in a lifetime, so they bikes they buy are just fine for their uses. people who ride more are also getting bikes which meet their needs and serve their purposes.

People fully understand that a bike with an alloy cassette and supple lightweight tires will need replacement parts. Those people also understand that we could be riding overbuilt dinosaur bikes which never wore out----shaft-driven single-speed, solid wheel and tire bikes weighing 50 pounds and lasting five hundred years. Almost nobody Wants those bikes. Most people, once they jump on a lightweight, nimble, responsive modern bike with excellent brakes and almost intuitive shifting, are sold---not by Advertising, but by Lived Experience.

Some of the stuff manufacturers make and advertisers advertise----is stuff we really do want.

Sorry.

dedhed

Mostly for additional insulation for energy purposes not to be better.

rydabent

I was going to. I looked up who recycled, and drove it there. They wanted $50. You can imagine what I told them. I brought it back home and tore it apart and threw it in the trash.

tomato coupe

Higher energy efficiency is generally considered "better."