A cycling industry rant

I agree with everything this guys says:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e2Jyh8pHss

While everyone’s clicking on random YouTube links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

‘It is better in my opinion to hit a tree at 20-30 kph than at 30-40…’

🙂

Rather than provide the Tube poster with more clicks, can we have a brief synopsis OP?

What @wheelsonfire1 said.

At least the gist…

Wheelsize?

Too many standards?

Pricing?

Marketing 35mm bars are being flexible/comfortable after telling us we need need them because they’re stiffer?

The opener on forks is the same old crap abut carbon fibre that used be around 10-15 years ago. All he’s really saying though is that he’s not very good at repairing modern bicycles. If you get mineral oil on the pads when you’re bleeding brakes (for instance) then you should’ve followed the instructions to remove the pads before starting bleeding. It’s not the industry’s fault that he’s slapdash.

25 minutes? I’m not watching that!

Started watching, got bored and fast forwarded to various bits and rapidly concluded that it was yet another died-in-the-wool old fart who thinks bike technology should have stopped in about 1987.

Also, he’s not a very good mechanic.

All he’s really saying though is that he’s not very good at repairing modern bicycles.

Must be the fourtyeleventh video i’ve seen on the subject of modern being rubbish since youtube was started. Amazed these guys even stay in business.

Edit:- Further digging through his website seems to show he’s pretty poor at repairing/looking after/understanding ancient bicycles too!

who thinks bike technology should have stopped in about 1987.

Apparently according to yer man. “Indexing is overrated”

Amazed these guys even stay in business.

They earn YouTube revenue from people posting “I agree with everything this guy says” with a link to a video and no further explanation on a cycling forum and just waiting for people to click through to find out that actually the entire video is a load of waffle and shite.

There’s a special place in hell for people that post that kind of clickbait without even a summary of what we’re about to click through to. A simple “here’s some bloke who reckons he’s a mechanic complaining about modern technology” would have sufficed, I could have guessed all the arguments I bothered to listen to before I closed the video without going any further!

The opener on forks is the same old crap abut carbon fibre that used be around 10-15 years ago.

… that carbon fibre failure points are often unseen until a major failure happens which is likely to be a nasty crash, it’s responsible for a high proportion of recalls in the industry and you can cause a fair bit of damage if you’re not really careful with headset bearing rings, compression bungs, stem bolt torque etc.

Amazing that 10-15 or more years on, it seems we’re still there. But as long as riders are weight weenies and bike companies buy forks from companies in Asia and think ISO EN test passes are all you need to be safe, little will change.

I didn’t listen to the rest as I suspect it’s Grant Petersen-ist views of current bike tech. But tbh.. through headset routings, digital-only groupsets above 105, 13s Red AXS and some things I know are coming down the line .. yeah Grant, I’m more with you than not. There’s a point where there are no gains worth having, where that point is is highly subjective but from where I am it looks like more and more of us will draw a line as things progress. Bikes are inherently simple things with beauty in that simplicity and the main benefit of complexity is to either very demanding specialist riders/racers or the brands who make money out of this type of progress.

There we go, my own little rant.

All he’s really saying though is that he’s not very good at repairing modern bicycles

There’s a valid point sort of buried away in there, I *used* to be a relatively competent mechanic, servicing my own forks, bleeding my own brakes, building my own wheels etc.

But in the intervening period life has got in the way and tech seems to have accelerated, the old workshop where I used to work now looks like something from the matrix with wires and laptops everywhere!

As you run out of time to work on bikes you also run out of time and/or inclination to start learning new tech and buying new tools. Anything that requires an app to set it up can get in the sea as far as I’m concerned!

Increasing numbers of sprockets, 1x, 29″ wheels is all fine, just requires adapting existing knowledge. I wouldn’t even mind disc brakes if it weren’t for the black voodoo magic required to keep them quiet on road bikes, I think it’s a different use case for an existing technology and much more difficult to keep them bedded in properly when you’re not hard braking all the time like you would on an MTB.

TLDR: for a time crunched home mechanic of a certain vintage, new tech is the work of the devil! <insert shaking fist at sky emojji>

As you run out of time to work on bikes you also run out of time and/or inclination to start learning new tech and buying new tools. Anything that requires an app to set it up can get in the sea as far as I’m concerned!

Yeah, that is a less of a line to me and more of a chasm. Now this is an old fart type of comment – but when I got into bikes, home servicing and mechanical aptitude was part of bike culture (or it seemed that way). MTB was about self-sufficiency and the more you learned about repairs and maintenance the better off you felt you’d be. A few spanners and you could strip down your MTB once a year. The way things have progressed, that doesn’t really happen as much now and with E-MTBs it’s almost a dead concept. Cars are the same. It’s just how it is. I loved Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for how he talked about that point, not taking a ‘progress is bad’ attitude, just a celebration of the full experience of understanding the product and feeling able to work on it and be invested in it. It’s a nail-on-head expression of what I like about simpler bikes.

Bikes are inherently simple things with beauty in that simplicity and the main benefit of complexity is to either very demanding specialist riders/racers or the brands who make money out of this type of progress.

Yes and no. Bikes are very simple things to use – even a 5 year old can ride one without knowing anything about any aspect of mechanics or physics!

However, even a basic 80’s/90’s bike could be pretty complicated when you get down into it. Specialist tools for headsets and BBs and hubs, the mysteries of indexing a cable… Delve into the innards of a shifter and you need a degree in watchmaking!

It’s undoubtedly got worse with the proliferation of “standards” and the issues of compatibility but in some respects things are actually at least as simple to use now as they ever have been.

You can index your gears with an app! Most people can’t manage that with a supposedly simple cable – in fact many of the worst problems I saw in bike shops were from people going “oh my gears weren’t working so I just turned this screw a bit…” and then they’re wondering why the rear mech took out half their wheel.

You can index your gears with an app!

Smart point about how that makes it easier for many people, a point that also doesn’t undermine or go against the Zen and the Art of.. point about how we can become more removed or detached from a process by a product dictating a reliance on tech rather than simpler mechanical function. It’s about the willingness to engage with something perhaps. And I can see how things have flipped, people like me are less willing to engage with apps yet will pull apart a hub dynamo quite happily Vs most people being ok with spending time in front of a screen. The physical repair process Vs a digital interface. And you can’t solve every problem with one or the other anyway.

new tech is the work of the devil!

It’s not really changed that much, and I don’t know any part on a even a modern bike that doesn’t have a YouTube video of some-one taking it apart and messing about with it. Dimensions change and perhaps you’ll need some different tools with new interfaces*, but it’s still mostly unbolting things, greasing/lubing them/replacing them, and doing it all back up again.

* I think this is probably the thing that scuppers most folks, the right tool makes everything about a billion times easier. For the longest time, like everyone else I just whacked in star-nuts with a screw driver and hammer, and said “Yeah, near enough” and then I bought a £10.00 setter of the ‘Bay, and it so ridiculously better it’s silly. multiply that by all the other stuff you need, and faffing about with the tool that not quite the right thing is most of the time you spend servicing your bike.

I’m old enough to remember seized quill stems and wacking cottar pins out to remove cranks. And chrome rims, and tyres that puncture if you sneeze on them, and a whole load of other dreadful things.

Can’t be bothered to watch a 25 minute video though

I’m old enough to remember seized quill stems and wacking cottar pins out to remove cranks. And chrome rims, and tyres that puncture if you sneeze on them, and a whole load of other dreadful things.

Same. But still have no issues with composites, gears that require a laptop or app to program, integrated headsets (and the internal routing that goes along with them), funny spokes, clutched hubs and all that stuff and it’s not a lot of work to keep up to date, if you’re up to speed with whatever is the outgoing standard is, the new one is (generally) only incremental.

Only thing i avoid is stuff where you need a bespoke interface to service stuff. I’ve got my little cable for Di2, but beyond that, no thanks!

Old tech was a massive pain in the arse.

I can pretty much strip a modern bike down completely with a multi tool, BB tool and cassette tool.

In fact I could probably get that done in the time it took to replace a square taper BB. Assuming the crank arm didn’t have to be cut off.

Also this-

I’m old enough to remember seized quill stems and wacking cottar pins out to remove cranks. And chrome rims, and tyres that puncture if you sneeze on them, and a whole load of other dreadful things.

Can’t be bothered to watch a 25 minute video though

In fact I could probably get that done in the time it took to replace a square taper BB. Assuming the crank arm didn’t have to be cut off.

Not if the modern bike was built and ridden by the same person who installed and rode the square taper…

I can pretty much strip a modern bike down completely with a multi tool, BB tool and cassette tool.

Yep – can also fit a wireless groupset in a fraction of the time it’d take to cable up even an external-routed set-up. Cutting cables to just the right length, ferrules, indexing…

Now you just bolt a mech on and pair it with the shifter!

I’m with 13thflormonk on this one.

I don’t really disagree that electronic groupsets are better than mechanical.  But it’s the shear cost of spares and lack of cross compatibility that’s putting me off. My Dura Ace 10s is almost 20 years old, and I can still keep it going with generic cables, any (old) 10/9/8speed mechs etc. Once Shimano swaps to an integrated battery how many years do you think you’ll be able to buy the seat tube mounted one for?

At least the L-twoo version lets you (in an app, which maybe makes it’s own future problems with the inevitable march of OS updates) configure the number/spacing of the sprockets so it’s completely agnostic of any future cassette spacing.

Dropper posts I’ll begrudgingly accept even though they don’t seem all that durable.

But it’s incrementally reaching the point where it seems like the average MTB needs more TLC post ride than a motorbike. Maybe more durable than a decade ago, but the mid-to-late 2010’s were IME an low point for crap half developed products that didn’t last, which is a close run race with Fox’s 2000’s pre Kashima stanchion coatings. 20+ years ago I could spend time nursing a cheap bike with unsealed bearings, soft rims, v-brakes,  front mech, etc, through the winter.  Now my bike has less derailleurs, the rims / brakes are durable, the hub bearings last forever with zero maintenance, yet every weekend there always seems to be something that needs a strip down or a service or some sort of tinkering.

I remember when all this were fields…

Yep – can also fit a wireless groupset in a fraction of the time it’d take to cable up even an external-routed set-up. Cutting cables to just the right length, ferrules, indexing…

This is true, we can put it alongside PF BBs with ‘things that make bike factories more efficient’ because time is £..

Oh, and Aheadsets although they certainly were a step fwd from threaded for riders and factories alike.

but the mid-to-late 2010’s were IME an low point for crap half developed products that didn’t last,

Ahem.. The early 90s also want credit where it’s due

digital-only groupsets above 105

So buy 105 – I don’t see a problem there.

Cars are the same.

No, they’re not.  Cars tune themselves as they drive, and if there’s a fault you plug the widget in and it tells you what’s wrong.  The widget is as important as a socket set these days, and probably no more expensive.  I wouldn’t know where to start adjusting a carburettor or trying to diagnose a rough idle in a pre-electronic car.  I once had a vacuum timing advance actuator seize up on an old car – a squirt of WD40 sorted it but I needed someone else to suggest it as the car couldn’t tell me anything.  Without a large body of arcane knowledge delivered through word of mouth by someone else, I was stuck.  I think the people who hold that body of knowledge are a bit upset that it’s now no longer relevant, but since I work in IT I am used to it…

‘things that make bike factories more efficient’ 

They also make your bike cheaper, or a higher end bike with the same gear.

My 2007 Kona Zing Deluxe was £2,000 RRP back then. It had rim brakes, but was broadly similar in spec to my 2020 Cube which was also £2,000.   However the Cube is far better all round, has discs, and the drivetrain is Ultegra vs 105 on the Kona.  So yeah, no problem with more efficient factories.

Now my bike has less derailleurs, the rims / brakes are durable, the hub bearings last forever with zero maintenance, yet every weekend there always seems to be something that needs a strip down or a service or some sort of tinkering.

I think you’re unlucky there – I’ve barely touched my Nukeproof, in terms of things going wrong. I’ve fettled the forks though.

And you know what, you don’t have to buy any of this stuff. You can ride around quite happily on a rigid bike with cable gears.

So buy 105 – I don’t see a problem there.

Neither do I. The point is Shimano filter down everything and I’d like the choice above Sora/Tiagra/Cues in future.

No, they’re not.  Cars tune themselves as they drive, and if there’s a fault you plug the widget in and it tells you what’s wrong.  The widget is as important as a socket set these days, and probably no more expensive.

They are on the same path. I used to service my old car and now I don’t service a more recent car. The reason is complexity, access and diagnostics that certainly are expensive. E-bikes have diagnostics anyway so maybe they are the same.

They also make your bike cheaper, or a higher end bike with the same gear.

If only it were that directly related. Your Cube is better value because they make many times the number of bikes that Kona make. Different businesses and scale. That Cube model might be made in their Bangladesh facility now, they’re that kind of scale and have been for some time.

 I don’t service a more recent car.

Servicing is no harder than it used to be.  Repairs aren’t really harder either, just different – a new thing to learn just as you learned the old ways once.  I saved tons of money on my Passat reading codes and replacing modules and sensors. Most of that work was a piece of piss.  Car won’t warm start?  Check codes, camshaft position sensor faulty. Change, done.

You can index your gears with an app! Most people can’t manage that with a supposedly simple cable – in fact many of the worst problems I saw in bike shops were from people going “oh my gears weren’t working so I just turned this screw a bit…” and then they’re wondering why the rear mech took out half their wheel.

the latest one (transmission) as I understand it doesnt need indexing at all. direct mount means that annoying fiddly task has been removed. Not sure how the b-tension works and how the incompetent mechanic works out chainlength though.

First gen of anything is often the problem. my old road bike was one of the early disc bikes. QR wheels and cable pull, single sided brake calipers meant adjusting was needed for pad wear and sometimes even if you just removed a wheel. All issues resolved on a modern bike with hydros and thru-axles, and have now become easier than rim brakes to adjust/maintain.

modern (MTB) tubeless is now on time and cost parity to faffing with tubes.

yet every weekend there always seems to be something that needs a strip down or a service or some sort of tinkering.

That’s most likely a you issue, or at least a “you not putting things together properly” issue.

My servicing/strip down tally of *my* bikes, or bikes i look after is about 4 hours this year. And that’s mostly going over the second hand bikes we bought for the kids at easter.

All i’ve done other than that is lube chains, clean and pump tyres. Including the kids and ex doing 2 weeks at a bike park with her bloke and his kids, only thing that failed was her blokes freewheel. Which he serviced himself.

I’ll have a couple of pairs of forks and a shock or two needing a service soon though.

modern (MTB) tubeless is now on time and cost parity to faffing with tubes.

My LBS used to dread internal cable routing – and certainly the early days of it, especially with actual cables, there were some really naff designs out there. Now, it’s pretty sorted – partly that most bikes of that nature are Di2 or SRAM AXS anyway, partly the routing is just much better designed with split spacers, hose guides and so on.

He’s done so many internal routings now that it’s second nature, he knows all the tricks for getting cables and electronic wires around bends. As mentioned, it’s simply a different set of skills.

Same with tubeless. Might take a bit longer to set up initially but then it saves hours of sitting by the trailside fixing punctures.

(car) Servicing is no harder than it used to be

Well the mechanical side no not necessarily, if you can get at the parts under covers and stuff like that. My point was that things generally are getting more digitised and less accessible. Overall the trend goes that way. There are exceptions and some of the things that make it faster for the people who are expected to do that work, we may all be able to tap into. And whatever the product the level of learning (and/or faff) the owner is prepared to take on to work on it will vary, my argument is just for products that encourage that relationship.

(edit to add, and how that is relationship is encouraged is not a catch-all solution – some won’t want to work with apps, some think cable indexing is a faff – no-ones wrong it’s just a different way of thinking and working).

things generally are getting more digitised and less accessible

Why do you say that more digitised means less accessible?

I said “more digitised and less accessible” which could be read as you say but I’m not saying one means the other. Less accessible = a design or layout that suggests ‘You are not really supposed to do this, leave it to someone else’, or ‘just bin it and buy a new one’. Accessible is something made with ease of serviceability (or even adaptability) as part of the design brief.

As crazy-legs said and I agreed with, digital apps make some things more accessible for many. Someone might not want to work in that way but if the interface is good and open to all then it’s accessible.

We’ve all got a cycle industry rant I guess, this was mine

Why do you say that more digitised means less accessible?

Think more blackbox life recorder 21f by aphex twin rather than ride on time by black box.

Things i don’t miss from older standards.

Threaded steerers. I know I’m not the first to mention them. But anyone who goes on about the good old days needs to explain why these were great.

Down tube shifters

Cup and cone wheel bearings and bottom brackets

Coter pins

Brakes that use cables or destroy your rims

Bikes without dropper posts

7 speed rear hubs that snapped the rear axle

Horizontal drop outs

Wheel nuts

And you know what, you don’t <em style=”box-sizing: border-box; –tw-border-spacing-x: 0; –tw-border-spacing-y: 0; –tw-translate-x: 0; –tw-translate-y: 0; –tw-rotate: 0; –tw-skew-x: 0; –tw-skew-y: 0; –tw-scale-x: 1; –tw-scale-y: 1; –tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; –tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; –tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; –tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246/0.5); –tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; –tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; –tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; –tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; caret-color: #000000; color: #000000; font-family: Roboto, ‘Helvetica Neue’, Arial, ‘Noto Sans’, sans-serif, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ‘Segoe UI’, ‘Apple Color Emoji’, ‘Segoe UI Emoji’, ‘Segoe UI Symbol’, ‘Noto Color Emoji’;”>have to buy any of this stuff. You can ride around quite happily on a rigid bike with cable gears.

I do and I am just as happy as when riding newer bikes.  Started with a 1996 MTB and missed road riding so now have a 1990 road bike.  Both are as enjoyable to ride as any newer bikes I have had and where I ride they are not any slower.

I enjoy tinkering with bikes so am happy with dealing with ball bearings, cutting and fitting brake and gear cables etc,.  And generally the parts are a lot cheaper (mainly based on them being 30 year old used but some NOS) with exception of Uniglide cassettes