just wondered really as I think mountainbiking is getting stupid now !

To a degree. But thinking about it it tends to come from the American mountain bike brands. Road bikes the obsession is vertical compliance, tapered headtubes, aero and light, and now internal cable routing and electric gears. The hornets nest of disc brakes could change it all though…

Stop calling them standards, and start calling it progression.

tapered head tubes progression?

My tapered head tube Ridley (1-1/8 to 1-1/2) must be six years old now. So not exactly changing every five mins. Fabulously direct for cornering too.

Fabulously direct for cornering too.

?

was that team GBs problem then – skinny head tubes and forks?

Stop calling them standards, and start calling it marketing

FIFY

Stop calling them standards, and start calling it people having ideas and not talking to each other

FIFY

Not everything new is bad

Not everything new is bad

No. But a lot of the new stuff is fixing a problem that was only a problem for a tiny minority of people. Square-taper bottom brackets were fine for almost everyone, it was only a few who needed the extra strength of splined and external bearing systems, but that lot has been foisted on everyone and now instead of one standard we’ve got dozens, many of which won’t even work on the same frame.

Marketing does have an awful lot to do with it – Shimano must have regretted making UN-52 bottom brackets so reliable.

No. But a lot of the new stuff is fixing a problem that was only a problem for a tiny minority of people.

I’ve been very tempted to take my old six speed steel race bike bike to my regular crit races. I almost always finish in the same place, so in theory I should finish a long way back on it?

No. But a lot of the new stuff is fixing a problem that was only a problem for a tiny minority of people.

and a lot of new stuff is not fixing anything – it is just a new feature that can be marketed, giving people a reason to change.

Golf is one of the worst for this, because people are always looking for an easy fix to their slice, or inability to chip/putt, etc.