tomato coupe

Some questions should not be asked - the answer might not be what you’re hoping for.

Mojo31

Fortunately, I live in an area that does not have much in the way of traffic jams.

By the way, I drive a 4-door sedan and a Jeep. I don't care what people admire. I care if I enjoy driving it, just like I care if I enjoy riding my bike (I get no gawkers on the bike either).

livedarklions

Fish gotta swim,
Birds gotta fly,
I gotta sell a gullible cyclist
Stuff til I die

livedarklions

The safety bike was really worse than the horse.

genejockey 

But at least you didn't have to deal with its ****.

rydabent

I cannot agree more. The MFG keep trying to come out with something "new" to try to get cyclist to buy the "latest" thing. One example the for years there was the ever increasing number of gears. Now the MFG insist that 12, the 1x12 is the absolute greatest thing on two wheels. What will they come out with next, maybe rear wheel braking by back pedaling********************??

HarborBandS

Like two old socks finding each other again in the bottom of the drawer…

Bald Paul

Maelochs

Rydabent's clone surfaces and like an electric shock, a bond of atavistic ignorance crosses between them. "Facts be damned .... we have a hatred of all things younger than oursleves!" cry the dinosaur-riders.

Reflector Guy

"BIG BICYCLE IS WATCHING YOU"

-as seen in George Orwell's "1984"

indyfabz

Gumball Rally?

Paul Barnard

I am not buying another new bike until they deliver the CVT we have all been demanding.

PeteHski

Now here's a guy whose mind closed a long time ago and is clearly paranoid about "Big Bike"

tomato coupe

ftfy

livedarklions

They'll probably do something stupid like put the riders in a chair, add an extra wheel and make the contraption really low to the ground.

Mojo31

It's a grand conspiracy - businesses will do most anything to part you from your money, even come up with new product ideas. Bastids.

Then the old curmudgeons conspire to not buy any new products, but always live in the past.

genejockey 

Let us close our eyes
Outside their lives go on much faster
Oh, we won't give in
We'll keep living in the past

rydabent

Not so. I went along with more gears until they got to 24 or 27. That number was logical and could let a cyclist go most anywhere. After that the ever increasing number of gears were hype and over kill. Now they are back to 12 with a huge heavy cassette, that is not logical at all. Wasnt it in the late 70s when we got 12 speeds. Now the MFG would have us believe what was old is new all over again. What about all the the real cyclist that said every shift should only be a few gear inches to be efficient.

Us people that you call curmudgeons, have had a life time of experience, and have sorted out logical from what high pressure sales types tell us we should buy.

WhyFi

How much of your lifetime of experience includes riding 1x12 on gravel or MTB, which is where it's most prevalent?

Vintage Schwinn

Companies exist to maximize the returns to shareholders. The marketing executives in charge of their respective marketing, product promotion, and product development departments do their calculated very best in trying to give the people what they want. Time marches on. It is exceedingly rare that ever at any time that there is a fad that causes technology to go backwards. The current fad where young people have embraced vinyl records for whatever nostalgic or idiotic reason and thus after vinyl record production had been dead from 1989 to around 2017, there are companies giving these young folks what they want, even if it is more noise & distortion and reduced signal to noise ratio and a continued sound degradation with each subsequent playing of the record, compared with the compact disc.

Yes, it happens every year that some companies make mis-steps in marketing stategy. No one has a crystal ball and no one can sustain a perfect batting average.
Market forces are brutal if said company or companies miss the mark for too long and find themselves behind the 8 ball. SCHWINN, HUFFY, COLUMBIA, ROSS, MURRAY, etc... did not survive to see the 21st Century because they could not forsee the problems that they would encounter without swift changes in reducing manufacturing costs(going overseas quickly enough, where labor is low) and products & product marketing. The American companies that did survive from the late seventies were very tiny and thus nimble enough to make strategic decisions swiftly and continue in the black and gain in market share.
Huffy, Schwinn, Murray, Columbia and Ross were huge players in comparison to those then very young and tiny American companies that did survive. Yes, you can definitely say that that those then tiny, and very young American bike companies in retrospect certainly taught the old longtime American behemoths a lesson that they ultimately did not pay enough attention to before it was too late.
You are not likely to see somebody like Shimano get complaceant and just rest on its past and simply just churn out XX-equipment no matter how great it is & was when it was newly introduced. They view things with the engineering vision that it is always possible to revise, refine, and completely innovate with new and possibly better solutions when the engineers find new ways to use new & existing materials in better ways. Most leading companies try to stay focused in both innovation and product quality to retain the world's top spot, or to become the world leader in their field. I doubt that any large successful manufacturing company sets out to just be half-ass mediocre, but the Detroit automakers come to mind, particulary GM, where it seems for years they seemed to irrationally believe that they made better products than the Japanese, German, and Asian automakers. They would have ceased to exist if not for the taxpayer bailout some twelve years ago. They have worked hard to shed the Garbage Motors image and are no longer producing absolute junk as they once were. Who knows where the electric push will lead them but historically GM has done horribly with all of their cutting-edge innovational products of the since 1959 but todays GM is not your fathers' GM, as they are building decent quality products today and their engineering is much improved. Still, you've got to give the people what they want, and you have to be both accepted and perceived by the buying public as worthy in relation to the current competition. They aren't likely there in being accepted and perceived as being on par with the Asian and Japanese nameplates. It is very difficult to fool the consumer public when it is such a significant purchase decision (price, average annual cost, frequency of repairs, etc....total cost..).
Bicycles are a little different than when one approaches a new car buying decision. One can find simple, basic bikes, and even the worst of those new basic bikes are worth the dollars spent to the person simply seeking the most basic new bicycle. This does not mean that a large segment of more serious cyclists would ever be satisfied with such a basic low dollar bicycle. The best and most profitable companies are gonna be on top of trends and they are certainly gonna follow the money..
You typically have much higher margins on higher-line items and models. Certainly, this is ultimately dependant on at least meeting the projected sales expectations of those higher-line items and models. Whatever, .... the companies must be good at what they do in order to deliver a decent return to shareholders and remain a solid ongoing concern. There are multiple ways of doing that too. I don't pretend to know a fraction of the many challenges that the executives and marketing heads of the various bicycle manufacturers and parts-component manufacturers face every single quarter. It does appear that those that take the basic low end, big box channel route can do well too, if they know what they are doing, e.g. KENT International, and others. Huffy, Schwinn, Murray and others were slaughtered because they had significant investment in American plants, and American labor costs and didn't forsee the lower cost foreign mfg competion and the pressure exerted from major big box stores like Walmart to provide said bicycle for xx-amount per unit cost or fuggetta-bout it. They then rallied their only hopes on seeking tariff protection for US Bicycle makers as had once been done in the 1950's & 1960's. It was bye bye to all the American bicycle makers that were in the bike racks at the elementary and junior high schools for anyone born in the years between 1935 and 1965. Should we shed a tear, absolutely not, as you either do it better, perceived as being better and worthy of a price premium, or you do it at least as good, for the same approximate price point, as your basic competition peers that are produced wherever. The people ultimately have the final say with what they open their wallets to. Certainly marketing does matter somewhat and the very successful firms ultimately do give the people what they want at that particular snapshot in the era of time.

tomato coupe

1) 24 or 27 gears is logical.
2) Present road gearing is 2 x 12, which gives you 24 gears.
3) But, the ever increasing number of gears is hype and overkill.

Hmmmm ...

3alarmer 

....ageist scum.

3alarmer 

...the past is a wonderful memory. In the past I was strong, and fast, and women adored me.
The present is much less enjoyable in those ways, but it's still OK in a lot of ways.

It's mean of you to ridicule the small pleasure I might get from spending some time in the past.
And the women who are so fond of me in the past, when I imagine it, won't even give you the time of day.

livedarklions

You actually see a lot of 28 gear or more bikes? What the hell are you talking about?

You already demonstrated in your own troll thread that you don't understand that the people who want lots of closely spaced gears and the 1x riders aren't the same people or, if they are they're riding different bikes for different purposes. You ain't sorted out spit from Shinola.

rebel1916

90% of posts are this same nonsense. The OP want's to ride some ancient rustbucket, some people won't be happy with out this year's TdF winning bike, some of us think that a generation or so old, offers the best bang for the buck. Who cares. Ride your rusty old bike, OP, and let other people ride theirs.