livedarklions

The little ball in the water bottle spout is going to bounce around a lot.

johnnyace 

Yup, just like today's cars! And their effective lifespan will be about 1/4 as long, also like today's cars.

Flatforkcrown

I’ve had a Ford car, no way I’d buy a Ford bike.

BobbyG

I'm sure he meant Rube Goldberg...which would be a compliment of sorts.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/histo...ons-180968928/

shelbyfv

When I began buying cars over 50 years ago, you might hope to have a reliable vehicle for 50,000 miles. During that time you probably would replace a starter, clutch, brakes, muffler, generator or alternator, do several plug and point changes, antifreeze and buy a couple of sets of tires. And you had something that drove like a POS compared to the most modest of today's cars. I do enjoy an old car show or museum, though.

Road Fan

Worried about exploding ankles?

Bald Paul

Worse than that.

skidder

FWIW: Why not just use a solenoid to move the FD cage between the rings if an electric shifter is desired?

downtube42

I recall one day my Nissan took maybe 900 msec to start instead of the usual 500ms, and I shouted out loud "FINALLY, SOMETHING INTERESTING". Eventually I gave it to my brother because I was just damn sick and tired of the soulless thing and it clearly was never ever going to die.

Contrast to my '65 Mustang, which was an adventure to drive every single day. Fouled points and blown condenser and leaky carburetor float and exhaust leaks and on and on.

jon c. 

Slowing down at higher speeds was a bit of an adventure as well. Brakes have improved quite a bit over the years.

Litespud

I agree. I semi-daily an old (‘72 of indeterminate mileage) Triumph, which has proven to be pretty reliable - only stranded me a couple of times in 10 years - but requires a high degree of routine maintenance. The big lesson to me was how comparatively bulletproof modern cars - of any make - are. Change the fluids and filters on schedule, pay attention to wear items, and most of them will run for >200k with almost no other intervention. They really are amazingly reliable, considering they comprise a collection of wildly spinning and reciprocating metal chunks driven by a blitz of contained explosions. They’re easy to take for granted until you experience what cars used to be like (still like the old jalops, though &#128077.

RH Clark

I would still rather have a vehicle that I could fix nearly any issue for under $500,than a new vehicle that doesn't need any maintenance under 100K, but costs as much as my house.

cyccommute 

It’s really a shame too. SRAM makes (or made) really good front derailers. Shimano’s have always been hit or miss. If you go with the expensive ones, it’s almost always “miss”. My two favorite bad Shimano front derailers are the XT and XTR with independently moving plates and the XTR FD-M952 e-type with the carbon fiber plate. The carbon fiber plate isn’t stiff enough to hold the derailer in gear. It bends and overshifts then bends back and undershifts. Can’t keep it in gear.

pdlamb

Is that frame aluminum or carbon?

tomato coupe

Your house only costs $40k?

RH Clark

More like 80K for mine but in this area I can buy a fairly nice brick house for 60K and there are many starter homes or investment rental types for well under 40K. Also 40K is getting to be a medium priced new car. Just price some new trucks. They are in the 80K range, and yes,I know people who own one with a house worth half as much. I live in rural Alabama, where nearly anything is possible.

mstateglfr 

Interesting take, given the well known stereotype.

indyfabz

I must have missed that and thus never got it. I had a bike built with SRAM Force, which was second in line below Red at the time. That was in the mid-2000s. The FD worked great.

70sSanO

There have been all sorts of designs over the years, but as long as a chain has to mechanically move from one chainring to another, there is nothing revolutionary.

John

Jan Feetz

How much does it weigh?

njkayaker

If you have something that can be patented, you (especially, a large corporation) patent it. "Shoot patent first; ask questions later."

J.Higgins 

Same here. Sadly, I think that our beloved bicycles will be over-engineered and tons of tacked-on, value-added crap will be part of the bundle. Like a new car for instance. You cant seem to buy just a simple car these days. They all come with so much crap added to them, and you wind up paying way more than you ever would want to. Same thing is happening to bikes. At the risk of sounding like Bonnie Prince Charles, I say mark me! *grin*

Troul 

the once opted options with cars are now moving over to thee ole subscription based method... thanks to those there EV tech.

J.Higgins 

The immediate future is looking pretty grim.

Its interesting to imagine what it will be like 100 years from now. Taking a look at 100 past, nothing that we have now was even a consideration then. Our world now would have been absurd science fiction to people in the 1920's. My wife and I are bingeing Boardwalk Empire right now, and looking at how they lived back then and any available technology was common with the rich, but no chance of poor people using it. In perspective, think of a homeless person with a burner cellphone. That little p-o-s cell phone has more computing power in it than a 1920's auditorium filled with mathematicians.

unterhausen

Companies were selling "muscle metal" to hobbyists 30 years ago. Ford discovered it last year. That seems about right.