Originally Posted by Troul

28 spoke, 36 spoke, 32 spoke.... Where will the market settle & just pick a number for spokes!?

Originally Posted by Troul

28 spoke, 36 spoke, 32 spoke.... Where will the market settle & just pick a number for spokes!?

Originally Posted by Troul

28 spoke, 36 spoke, 32 spoke.... Where will the market settle & just pick a number for spokes!?

Originally Posted by 70sSanO

No.

John

Originally Posted by PeteHski

Yes, you are wrong. Just because you prefer to ride old 80s and 90s tech to save money, doesn't make newer tech any less desirable to those who appreciate it. The stuff you are riding was once marketed in exactly the same way as the modern gear too. They still wanted to sell new bikes in the 80s unless I'm very much mistaken.

Originally Posted by tkamd73

Pretty simple, buy what you want, ride what you want. No one is forcing you to do anything!
Thanks to the Internet, you can pretty much replace, or buy parts to repair pretty much anything, even the new stuff, someone has it somewhere.
The new stuff just requires a bit deeper pockets, which is all this rant really boils down to anyway.
Tim

Originally Posted by ColonelSanders

I would loves me a 48 spoke wheel.

Originally Posted by cb400bill

If the bike manufacturers don't get profit they will cease to exist.

Originally Posted by rydabent

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.

Originally Posted by Zas

Wow, I had to go offline after my original post, now suddenly we are on page 5. Sorry for not responding. I admit my rant was made tongue in cheek to generate a response.

But I think some people missed my point entirely. I agree, we are not forced to do anything. All I´m saying the industry is pushing unnecessary marginal gains to get more profit. Of course, if you have deep pockets, you are not seeing the problem.

Originally Posted by Zas

... I admit my rant was made tongue in cheek to generate a response...

Originally Posted by Zas

Wow, I had to go offline after my original post, now suddenly we are on page 5. Sorry for not responding. I admit my rant was made tongue in cheek to generate a response.

But I think some people missed my point entirely. I agree, we are not forced to do anything. All I´m saying the industry is pushing unnecessary marginal gains to get more profit. Of course, if you have deep pockets, you are not seeing the problem.

Originally Posted by Branko D

Compared to 80ties bikes, there's nothing marginal about the benefits of a modern bike.
​​​​​​
I rode a rim brake bike today for the first time (discounting the few short rides on loaned bikes years ago). It didn't help it was a TT bike with TT tires and it was wet, but braking compared to my road bike (which, with mechanical discs, isn't the latest and greatest, itself) was almost shockingly bad on the first serious downhill. By the end of the ride I got used to it, but, really... to a rider who isn't used to old bikes and came from riding a MTB or something, if you want to sell them a road bike it has to be something with modern components.

Downtube shifters and old time road bike gearing... frankly, I can't imagine it and I don't care to try. There are plenty of climbs where I live and where I have travelled with the bike which lead to interesting places with sections of 15-20% - with a modern road bike that's, well, suffering, to be honest, it's always going to be suffering, but manageable to do for a normal person. Wide range gearing which works at a click of a button or a flick of the lever makes it a whole lot more accessible for a normal person.

Having started on relatively modern back the old bikes seem like interesting curios of a bygone time, but there's no chance I'd actually buy one, and they’re in no way nearly as good as the modern stuff. It's like comparing a modern car to something with something ancient with carburettors where you had to wrench on the car for it to work instead of the modern "pour gas in, turn key, take it to an annual service".

Nostalgia is nice and all, but there's nothing marginal about the improvements in the last forty years.

Originally Posted by 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.

Originally Posted by 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.

Originally Posted by rydabent

After that the ever increasing number of gears were hype and over kill.

Originally Posted by rydabent

Now they are back to 12 with a huge heavy cassette, that is not logical at all.

Originally Posted by rydabent

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.

Originally Posted by rydabent

What about all the the real cyclist that said every shift should only be a few gear inches to be efficient.

Originally Posted by rydabent

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.

Originally Posted by WhyFi

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

Originally Posted by Maelochs

First off ... why is 27 "logical" but say, 33 would be "illogical"? Wouldn't the logic that explained why 24 or 27 were "logical" apply equally to 33? More closely spaced gears for a fine-tuned cadence along with a greater range of gears overall, and less need to shift between rings ..... same logic that led us from one to three to ten to here ...... Along with "Logic," there is "fact." Please post an advertisement or link to a manufacturer's website where they are selling 33-speed bikes, or more if you can .... waiting .... on those facts ..... Logic is not defined by "What Rydabent is willing to accept." First it is too many gears (27 is okay, 28 is Blasphemy!!!111!!) Now it is fewer gears---Blashphemy!!11!! In fact the logic of 1x12 has been explained to you repeatedly, but you are not able--or perhaps not willing--- to grasp it. This you straight-up lying and hoping no one will call you out.

I will. You Are Lying.

No one is saying that "what was old is new all over again." 1x12 is indeed new .... and in no way related to 2x6 (which in fact rarely gave even 8 distinct ratios, whereas 1x12 gives Twelve distinct and useful ratios ... for people who ride on terrain suited to 1x12---which you don't which makes you an ignorant liar. On top of that, you have sufficient experience to understand all this---If You Chose To. That makes you a willfully ignorant liar. Have you considered a career in politics?)

Another dishonest question. You absolutely understand that the people using close gearing and the people using 1x12 have different needs and desires, but if you were a decent enough human to admit the truth, you wouldn't be able to whine all day on BF, so you lie to all of us and act a fool.

Exactly this. You might have a lifetime of experience riding horses, but you cannot accept the horseless carriage. You have a lifetime of experience ... but you haven't, apparently, Learned anything from it.

I was going to say I get sick of defending you all the time .... when every time I do, you post some even more ridiculous crap .....

Now, though, I see you for the artist that you are. You have taken trolling to a new height, and new depth of subtlety. By playing the character "Rydabent" you can say the most ridiculous things, and get hours of laughter watching people take you seriously and try to debate you, when in fact you know better all along ... as a man with 85 years' experience surely does.

There is no way you could have lived as long as you have, and ridden for a long as you have, and still remain so completely ignorant of your own shortcomings and mental rigidities, and so ignorant of bicycle mechanics, as you pretend to be.

The only answer is that you are trolling us all.

Well played, sir. Well played.

Originally Posted by 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.

Originally Posted by Paul Barnard

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

Originally Posted by Maelochs

The only answer is that you are trolling us all.

Originally Posted by Maelochs

The only answer is that you are trolling us all.