Comment on the comments
Is it me or are the people posting comments on our stories getting increasingly more negative and cynical?
SRAM launch their 10 speed groupset and within minutes of Dave posting his report from the launch itself the comments are ‘what’s the point?’, ‘it’s all just marketing bollocks.’, ‘It won’t work’. There’s even someone whining about 7 speed being more reliable! I really hope that person is being sarcastic.
We’ve started running reviews from the mag on a daily basis on the website now. Mainly because we’ve put a fair bit of effort into those reviews and they are surely valuable for longer than the short lifespan of each issue of the mag and so we thought we’d start posting up some selected reviews regularly from our mag to the website reviews section and there-by begin to build a useful online archive of reviews. There’s more web readers than mag readers after all. So far every review that’s appeared has been comprehensively panned.
Some classic comments like ,’Don’t bother with this. I had one and it broke!’.. Brilliant insight! Because of course no ‘good’ product ever breaks. Hmm. never buy a Vauxhall btw! Their tyres are shit! I had a puncture the other day in my Astra.
Come on guys! If you are going to comment, have something to say! So many of you have been riding for years and many of you longer than we have. Post something constructive and how about possibly some positive comments? Reading the latest comments paints a picture of mountain bikers as being miserable cynics who struggle to find any joy in what they do. We all do this for fun. Riding bikes is not going to save the world but it’s going to raise many a smile. How about reflecting that in what you add to this website for a change?
Posted on: May 26, 2009 by Mark
Please keep posting the magazine reviews up. I find them very helpful. I do not subscribe to the mag, but I think will subscribe to the digital issues soon (what a great, environmentally friendly, and simple idea.)
Thankyou STW team
I posted one of the negative comments. A comment about 10 speeds. Before I explain let me just say. I love innovation and new kit. I also like singletrack (I don’t want to sound luvvy, so I won’t use the “L” work again).
Anyway, as far as my current opinion on 10 speed goes. I was cleaning my bike on the weekend and decided to have the chain off for a really thorough going over. It’s a Shimano 10 speed chain without a split link so I pushed a pin out. No grief there. Except that I didn’t have a spare Shimano pin. Doh! I have ten 9 speed pins but no 10 speed pins. I have 3 new SRAM 9 speed split links but no 10 speed. Aaahhh. The nearest bike shop is 30 minutes drive away and it won’t be open on for 2 days until Tuesday (everything is closed on Mondays around here). Obviously I could push the pin back in but that means risking a broken chain miles from home.
What a pain. Which made me start to rant to myself about standards (or the lack of them) and why I have so much obsolete kit in my garage because things move on.
I know I can’t have it both ways. A vibrant, innovative bike industry, loads of new stuff every year or we could still be riding 5 speed blocks and rigid forks (OK some do, but that’s their choice). I did go down the hill yesterday, the bike shop didn’t have a 10 speed pin but did have an SRAM 10 speed link. Duly fitted and tested. Guess what though, it’s one use only. You can’t undo the 10 speed pins. That’s a shame, rant rant rant.
A bright note. Les Gets is opening the lifts early. It’s dry too. I’ll post some pics on http://www.chaletgeorge.com once I’ve tested the new trails out!
You want people to stop bitching and moaning on an internet forum/discussion board/comments? Only known way, turn ‘em off. Sadly. Or moderate them all, but then you become “Hitler” for no allowing someones comment… and so it goes on.
People have always bitched on the internet.. It’s just got a lot worse it seems.
A basic fact of life is that when folk are skint they find more to bitch about.
endlessride – Thanks for proving Mark’s point; “All 10 speed is rubbish because I broke my chain without having the needed parts to reassemble it”. Well done sir!
In an effort to be constructive, Shimano are now producing joining links (Look for them under the Dura-Ace 7900 moniker), and KMC have made compatible parts for quite some time.
Maybe we as consumers are not going to be all fired up about a new standard as previous experience (betamax, compact cassette, DAT etc.) shows that the next big thing is soon to be obsolescent rubbish with no back-up. By all means show new stuff, it is after all the reason for large parts of the magazine content, but unless it’s an improvement on existing standards I’m not really interested. After all I run more than one bike and the existing standard works well but any change will be expensive as I don’t want lots of spares in the garage. I need carry only one chain, sprocket and derailleur as spares with a common standard.
Hate to agree with the negative nannies (and therefore, becoming one) but I think a lot of riders, and consumers in general, are getting tired of the “newer is better” mentality the advertisers (and some editors) spew.
The best shifting, most reliable drivetrain I ever had was 8 speed XT.
9 not quite as good
10 speed Campy road bike is finicky.
11 speed — too smart to buy it. I’ll wait until the new, carbon fibre 12 speeds are perfected.
>Some classic comments like ,’Don’t bother with this. I had one and it broke!’..
>Brilliant insight! Because of course no ‘good’ product ever breaks. Hmm. never
>buy a Vauxhall btw! Their tyres are shit! I had a puncture the other day in my >Astra.
Dare I say better insight than the two lines that were actually about the product in the review
Honestly tho it’s a really poor product.
Honestly.. it isn’t and the ‘review’ is actually more of an opinion piece written by Ben. Sort mixing it up a bit. Challenging the reader a little.. looking for a new angle. The great thing about Singletrack in my view is that we don’t need to stick to strict magazine templates. We don’t have a committee approving editorial approaches.. we sit around the coffee table twice a day. If we followed the traditional magazine review ‘rules’ we’d not be the fastest growing mag in the UK mtb market in my view. Do you really want 300 word reviews on a £6.99 seat clamp? That’s not even rhetorical cos we aint gonna do any.
Its good to see the reviews. Either in print or on-line. I think they will become a valuable archive at some point. I think a lot of people are cynical of new stuff being released. Especially as a lot of the current kit works so well. I can still remember the first review of SPD pedals!
And as an opinion piece, even with a review tagged on the end, it works great – and I agree completely with his comments. The problem is that the title of the piece is “Reviewed: Identiti Alloy QR Seat Clamp”.
If it was “Ben on seatclamps” that’d perhaps not give people the wrong expectation.
I think Ed has one of these on his bike, and he’s not broken it.
As an aside I was discussing with him the other day the new scourge of the trails – and how (I might be going off a bit here) “remote dropper seatposts are killing the social aspect of mountainbiking”. No more stopping to drop saddles, having a look what’s ahead – it’s just click, drop, ride, click, up, ride… Where’s the fun? Where’s the virtual skinning-up and passing-around. The sizing things up… The devils work I tell thee.
>>Honestly.. it isn’t and the ‘review’ is actually more of an opinion piece written by Ben. Sort mixing it up a bit. Challenging the reader a little.. looking for a new angle. The great thing about Singletrack in my view is that we don’t need to stick to strict magazine templates. We don’t have a committee approving editorial approaches.. we sit around the coffee table twice a day. If we followed the traditional magazine review ‘rules’ we’d not be the fastest growing mag in the UK mtb market in my view. Do you really want 300 word reviews on a £6.99 seat clamp? That’s not even rhetorical cos we aint gonna do any.<<
Yes I know, and I enjoyed the opinion piece (and I subscribe to the mag) but in this instance I strongly disagree with the review of the product (as did several other people who posted).
It’s a poor design because the little washer-thingy that the lever runs against gets crushed by the lever and then you can’t get it done up tight enough.
Down with negativity
‘The wrong expectation’.. God forbid we should surprise people and deliver something they didn’t expect. That would be awful! Perhaps we should stick to labeling everything explicitly for the hard of understanding and those with a ‘special’ sense of humour.
And yes… I’ve had a bad week.. I’ve been off bike for two weeks now and It’s pissing me off but I’m still right
It’s not just here in the news and reviews, the whole forum seems to be filled with anger, misery, moaning and upset. People can’t post a genuine question without being derided…Long gone are all the light hearted P!$$ taking posts that everyone joined in.
All the forum is used for now are the same old tired arguments which are pointless.
I genuinely do not like coming on here much any more, the place has changed for the worse, it’s not fun which is what Mountain Biking represents for me.
This is no fault of Mark, Chipps et al, the work/writing they do is great – It’s the fault of the fekkin miserable old men sat there reading this – YES I MEAN YOU.
Lighten up FFS!
I read most reviews and enjoy them, so keep it up.
Personally, I would have liked a bit more insight and a longer piece on the Double Barrel shock, as it is technically complex, and how it justifies the pricetag.
The XX info is great to have, but the kit cetainly didn’t wow me, and i really can’t see anything to get overly excited about.
I’ll have a read and if i’m not bothered then I’ll read something else. I don’t tend to bother posting.
As it is an open forum of opinion you need to expect posters who will immediately badmouth something because something broke/their mates dogs uncle who once saw one, said so/grass is green.
…just don’t have a comments box on the front page! I seldom read the comments page anyway (errr, i seldom read the from page now i think of it…)
Everyone can moan about 10 speed in the forum liek they always do anyway and you can have a nice shiny front page full of fresh captivating stories to attract newcomers and keep err, oldcomers interested.
In fact, [tinfoil hat] get this one off the front and into the forum now before you scare even more people! [/tinfoil hat]
ahem, (interweb blush) see, i read the front page solittle i can’t even tell this story wasn’t on it…
But the first 2 bits, yeah!
Hello – Havent posted anything for 3+ years but having read this yesterday, felt I had to comment. To the average punter out here it appears that Dave has beens in sunny Tuscany soaking up the spin fed to him by SRAM. Amongst the comments there is some pretty sensible “why” questions. Surely this is what we should expect you guys to be asking – more critique and less bling blindness.
Don’t forget we are just talking about push bikes after all!
Indeed we are. A bit of perspective is all I’m asking and less of the bitching. If we are doing that ‘from an outsider’s view’ thing then I reckon the picture painted of us mountain bikers is not a pretty one at all judging by the vitriolic comments. Dave is reporting from the launch. He’s had a couple of rides on the kit andhe’s impressed. Apparently that’s not good enough for a considerable number of armchair engineers who don’t like the fact Dave has been given the chance to go to Italy to try this stuff out before them. He’s asked for your questions and he’s been asking them and reporting back. Since he’s the only one of us who has actually ridden the stuff I think it’s a reasonable expectation to trust what he is reporting. Perhaps he’s positive about the new kit because it’s actually quite good?
We’ve all been on these types of press launch before and to blow our own trumpet a bit, we are pretty good by now at filtering the bullshit.
Quote:”Apparently that’s not good enough for a considerable number of armchair engineers who don’t like the fact Dave has been given the chance to go to Italy to try this stuff before them”
What a stupid thing to say.
Unfortunately that’s exactly what it reads like from that ‘outsider point of view’ thing we were discussing.
Dave has beens in sunny Tuscany soaking up the spin fed to him by SRAM.
Or actually basing his opinion on riding the stuff then reporting that, shock horror. (I’ve also got 4 hours worth of interviews with designers, engineers, racers, mechanics and marketing dudes about the product to still sift through and edit down)
It’s easy to recognise spin and I’m grown up enough to make my own mind up thanks. You’ll notice I’ve only given a first impression based on riding the test bike out there, I’ll be writing a review of the groupset when I’ve ridden it on familiar trails and in typical conditions.
Have to agree i’m deeply underwelmed by the sram stuff. The excecution and finish seems very very impressive but at its heart its only road gearing with integration of forks and brakes. The news you bring me of brown SDG saddles however has warmed my heart and is a genuinue public service. for this i thank you.
i did write some comments about the cane creek shock review,,,
firstly it said a long term test,, then it hardly described what it did,,
now sadly suspension is my thing,, and i was sad that this product only got a couple of paragraphs it would have been a good spring board for a good suspension article
i do find this forum has a lot of armchair engineers and has a lot of negative people but under that there are some very knowledagble people you just have to filter out the rubbish
@ Dave – Above I was referring to impressions the articles gave. I’m not casting any doubt your ability to filter out the bullshit and deliver a fair assessment of the groupset. Only adding my tuppence as to why the first SRAM XX article, in particular, might have led so many, uniformed, negative comments. The point I was trying to make is that some of these more obvious comments could possibley have been pre-empted in your reports, and so reduced the noise.
I’m in total agreement that the negative rubbish is not good for anyone – and is particularly unfair on the guys who have devoloped these products for our riding pleasure. Anything to reduce this has to be a good thing.
Honestly.. it isn’t and the ‘review’ is actually more of an opinion piece written by Ben.
Well, if it’s an opinion piece, what’s the problem with folk posting their own opinions? Confused
When reviews of the latest top-end SRAM or shimano kit are posted all i feel is completely left out. Its just gotten sssooo expensive.
Feels like the manufactureres are coming out with all this great stuff almost unaware that most people can’t afford it anymore due to exchange rates etc.. Are people really spending 500+ on forks?? it also feels like stuff isn’t tested properly despite the MASSIVE prices. e.g. The recent Marzocchi air forks, Fox standchions wearing, Joplin seatpost hopeless in the wet (I’ve experienced all these) Too much focus on features and new stuff without testing it actually works. Hence the tendency for people to be a bit reluctant to get enthusiastic about high end kit, preferring to stay with tried and tested stuff.
What about a ‘how to run your bike on the cheap’ article. Serivce forks using oil from motorbike shop, bearings from no-name supplier. Deore cassette chain. Use cheap pads for the disc brakes (does it make a difference or not?). Using ghetto tubeless, cheap non bike specific LED lights etc etc
ALL this info is on the forum and peoples posts are generally positive when talking about it!
No.