Adrian Chiles clickbait drivel

Am I alone in not knowing who he is? Am I the lucky one?

nope.  i had no idea he was a ‘thing’ until i read this thread although I had read the article and dismissed it as guardian junk. i now know to avoidhim in the future though.  the guardian does seem to have quite variable quality these days although the long read is usually great

Back on the ale I assume

the guardian does seem to have quite variable quality these days

I think the problem is the lack of distinction between actual news and magazine content when reading online. The lifestyle stuff is clearly at odds with the editorial direction of the news arm.

You can buy a Honda XL750 Transalp, for less than a than a Spesh Turbo Levo Pro. The Honda has more travel and ABS.

Not tell me that high end bikes aren’t a rip off?

You misunderstand me. Imho high end bikes are indeed a ripoff. That’s not my point. My point is that people seem to be getting on chiles’ case for stating that fact, when dozens of us on here say exactly that in the comments section of every second bike review.

Holy crapballs, have we uncovered an actual Adrian Chiles fan?!!

Yep, I think so. I despise dumbing down, I despise people dressing up stupidity as something clever. I despise pointless waffle.
Chiles’ stuff is very, very basic but doesn’t claim to be anything else. It’s not dressed up in bullshit or anything else. He doesn’t think he’s making some sophisticated point. He’s just making a simple, some might say banal, observation. And I quite like it.

Though I did feel some of the anger you lot clearly do when I saw it listed under the Grauniad top 10 banner – would be interesting to know why I felt that.

Read it.

Drivel.

He probably thinks you can get a nice bike for £150 and he is completely wrong on every point (apart from the vunerability issue – but cargo bikes at least have the most road presence of any bike). Most people I know with eCargo bikes either don’t have a car or have bought one instead of a second car. 4k seems cheap for what you get from them and certainly they are cheaper to run than any other motorised vehicle that can transport stuff and children to school/nursery. They ARE very much an alternative to car use and he should appreciate that there are people willing to pony up for them so that his dog walk is that much less noisy and polluted.

If he wanted to have a go at overpriced bikes there is so much other ammunition out there such as the Trek Madone SLR 9 or most eMtbs They are crazy prices but people don’t have to buy them.

£4000 is a ridiculous amount for a bicycle.

I suspect he’s just thought “columns about cycling seem to do well, might as well try that”.

I don’t think he’s ‘thought’ anything tbf. He just had to write something, anything, and walked past a shop selling a cargo bike. It could just as easily have been a very expensive bird feeder or a log-burning stove. He seems like a perfect combination of nepotism and celebrity culture.

More amusingly…
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/adrian-chiles-onlyfans-lookalike-sunday-sport-b2302040.html

He only gets space in the Guardian because he’s married to the editor.

He’s just making a simple, some might say banal, observation. And I quite like it.

Banal is the best adjective for his work. It’s like some kind of experiment. I can only assume he’s sending intelligence to the North Koreans using code words.

14 Adrian Chiles columns that are pure Alan Partridge

I despise dumbing down, I despise people dressing up stupidity as something clever. I despise pointless waffle.

And yet… still your fingers hit the keys… 😆

The hypocrisy here is amazing. So we’re OK to moan at the hideous price of bikes, even though we know the tech that goes into them. But we pile onto the complete layman when he does the same.

And as for the brevity of his spiels…. that’s the whole point of them

I think the hypocrisy here is that the media’s current obsession with getting LTN’s dismantled.

So the subtext is “LTN’s force you into buying one of these £4000 contraptions”

When it should be “H(igh)TN’s force you into buying one of these £40,000 contraptions”.

You can buy a Honda XL750 Transalp, for less than a than a Spesh Turbo Levo Pro. The Honda has more travel and ABS.

Not tell me that high end bikes aren’t a rip off?

To be fair a better comparison would be the CRF300L/Rally. Which it’s fairly universally agreed is rubbish. A £7k bike that needs over a grand in suspension work to make it useful off-road for anyone heavier than a toddler, and then you’re just left scratching your head as to where the extra 50kg of weight is hidden compared to a Husky 701. If you took an off the shelf Transalp/CRF300L to a rally race it would be awful. Whereas the Levo Pro has pretty much every trick bit you could possibly buy already installed, you could race it, or even the base model, out the box.

When you actually start drilling into it the prices aren’t that different. A mid range motorcycle shock (IFP based damper, rebound adjuster) costs about £500, a fair bit more than a Marzocchi Bomber rear shock (£350). A set of high end forks is £2000, a set of mid range internals is ~£500 (which limits you to cartridge damping), etc etc.

Heck, I just bought a ~£1700 FS bike (for a bit less 2nd hand) and I don’t think there’s any component on it that could be judged as being simpler or worse quality than it’s equivalent on even a proper MX bike in OEM spec (other than lacking an engine).

(other than lacking an engine).

Hardly any difference at all!

And yet… still your fingers hit the keys… 😆

🙂

Made me laugh anyway 😀

Hardly any difference at all!

Indeed, but the Honda also lacks:
Carbon fiber frame
2-way adjustable forks (plus air spring)
Adjustable shock

Basically the difference between a £7k motorbike (an off the shelf CRF300L) and something you could take to a rally and be competitive is probably insurmountable (it’s just too heavy even after you’ve added functional dampers to the suspension). A KTM 690 (or the 390 if they make it) would be closer, but it’s ~£9-10k.

The difference between a £1700 Vitus Escarpe CR and something used in the EWS is relatively minor (2lb in weight and an extra dial on the fork/shock).

£1700 for something you could race.

Vs £10k for a Transalp which will at best plod up and down some easy green lanes as long as they’re neither muddy not rocky.

Even Honda will sell you a crate engine for <<£8k.

Even if you just restricted it to bikes designed for some sort of track/racing use (without going into track only specials).
Fireblade-RR -£14k
Firebalde-RR-R-SP-TT McGuiness 100th special edition £32k

The £32k bike is probably closest to the £10k mountain bikes (i.e. dripping in Ohlins can carbon bits).

What the bike is made of or what else you could buy for similar money is all irrelevant.

The price of any item is based upon what someone will pay for it.

1100 below the line comments so far. He’s won his clickbait badge.

And yet I see plenty of 40 (or more) grand cars which are used primarily for popping to the shops, picking up kids from school etc, and no-one bats an eyelid at this.

Has Adrian actually got you lot discussing his topic now? I thought this was about him being a waste of space!

I’m not going to link to his latest guff in the guardian as he doesn’t deserve the extra traffic.

But thanks for giving the headline thereby making it easy to find. Today I have learnt two things, firstly that Adrian Chiles writes a column for the Guardian, and secondly that he owns a dog.

The first comes as something of a suprise, I had no idea, presumably none of his musings are political despite being categorised as “Opinion” by the Guardian, which might explain it. The second I find easier to believe.

I am aware that my post is in essence pointless but I feel that it is keeping with a totally pointless thread about Adrian Chiles’s totally pointless opinion.

I quite like Adrian Chiles. His USP is that his opinions are generally balanced and gentle. A contrast to the rabid and rabble-rousing opinion pieces that seen to be the norm.
If you get to know his style you’ll find he’s well informed, funny and quite a skilful presenter.

I too had no idea Chiles wrote for the Guardian and I visit their website half a dozen times a day or more.

imo the key to thinking if £4K is a lot of money for a wheelbarrow strapped to the front of a bike is if it replaces a much more expensive car or is in addition.

I am always amazed how triggering Adrian Chiles appears to be on here. He has done some quite sensitive stuff on alcoholism. In any case if anyone actually bought the Guardian you’d know that page 3 of The G2 part features this gentle sort of musing from a varied of columnists including Zoe Williams amongst others. Off the top of my head it has included such things as whether you wash your legs in the shower etc. Quite why people only react to this sort of thing when Chiles does it would possibly keep a psychologist going for a few years.

He has done some quite sensitive stuff on alcoholism.

If only he actually had a bike then this article might have been sensitive too.  We are back to being informed again

In any case if anyone actually bought the Guardian you’d know that page 3 of The G2 part features this gentle sort of musing from a varied of columnists including Zoe Williams amongst others.

Thanks for reminding me one of the reasons why I stopped buying the Guardian many years ago.

Although it has to be said I was always grateful that all the pointless drivel was very conveniently placed together in a easy-to-separate-and-throw-away G2 section.

At least they kept the vaguely interesting stuff in the broadsheet section.

£4000 is a ridiculous amount for a bicycle.

Mine was £5000. But it does have an unreliable motor 😀

Wait till he finds out some bikes are £13,000. He’ll totally poo himself.

I quite like Adrian Chiles. His USP is that his opinions are generally balanced and gentle. A contrast to the rabid and rabble-rousing opinion pieces that seen to be the norm

The problem with Chiles is that Five Live only put him on (thankfully) when Naga Munchetty is off and then he’s followed by Nihal Arthanayake

Both of them are intelligent, articulate, insightful and clearly tirelessly research their subject matter to make sure they’re absolutely up to speed and on the ball with whatever subject they’re on, which they then handle with tact and sensitivity

Chiles is none of those things. He is what he is … an ill-informed, barely literate halfwit who’s research appears to be whatever he heard in the pub last week. I can’t believe they continue to (mercifully rarely) put him on air.

It’s frequently embarrassing to listen to, as he’s so totally ****ing clueless about the topics he’s meant to be covering you cringe at the outright stupidity and banality of the questions he asked, delivered with all the subtlety of a house brick. You can literally feel the guests eyes rolling as they attempt to explain things to him like they’re talking to a 5 year old.

He’s a complete ****ing idiot! Literally!

People moan about Gary Linekers salary, but it’s incredible that the BBC continue to pay this complete plum hundreds of thousands of pounds a year

At least he’s got some nice jeans

Don’t mind him myself, the documentary he did on drinking I thought was quite brave.

It’s frequently embarrassing to listen to, as he’s so totally ****ing clueless about the topics he’s meant to be covering you cringe at the outright stupidity and banality of the questions he asked, delivered with all the subtlety of a house brick. You can literally feel the guests eyes rolling as they attempt to explain things to him like they’re talking to a 5 year old.

He’s a complete ****ing idiot! Literally!

It’s a shame he doesn’t pretend to ride a MTB, I reckon he would enjoy it on here.

He’d fit right in Ernesto, but if he thinks 4 grand is steep for a cargo bike, he’ll have a coronary when he discovers what some carbon fibre boutique exotica costs 😂

As someone already mentioned, he probably thinks bikes are something that cost 300 quid from Halfords

More top end journalism from the brummie chunkster this week

Do you suffer from shop blindness? I’ve struggled to locate coconut milk for years

It is like he has a reminder on his phone that pings 30 minutes before his deadline, and he literally writes about the first inane thought that comes to his head. Staggering that he gets paid for it, even with his wife as the Editor.

Probably, only because his wife is the editor

Probably, only because his wife is the editor

I know for a fact that if my wife was editor and I submitted vacuous crap like that she would tear strips out of me.

She’s married to Adrian Chiles. I’d imagine that having pretty low expectations has been a constant theme in her life.

His ‘articles’ (obviously that word is doing some pretty bloody heavy lifting here) can all be summarised as ‘I’m obviously such a complete ****ing moron that I struggle with even the most basic facets of modern life. Heres what has defeated me this week…’

I sometimes yearn for an era where people like him would never have made it to adulthood

It’s so well written too “This happens most frequently in supermarkets” “It’s in Boots that I struggle the most” & “Worst of all are garden centres”
Utter genius

Wow, and I keep thinking to myself ‘I really should pay a sub to the guardian’. I don’t feel guilty for freeloading anymore.

Nah – not since they joined in the pile-on on Corbyn.

Probably best he stays away from bikes if he’s confused by supermarkets; his head would explode if he ever needed to buy any parts.

It’s so well written too “This happens most frequently in supermarkets” “It’s in Boots that I struggle the most” & “Worst of all are garden centres”
Utter genius

It’s like listening to my 6 year old:

‘Ugh, Broccoli is the worst!’
‘Spinach is my least favourite food!’
‘I hate carrots most of all!’

He just struggles most with whatever happens to be right in front of him at that particular moment.

I can imagine the meeting at the Guardian:

We’re looking for a new columnist. Any suggestions?

I know this bloke who’s always in the pub watching lower league football, who is constantly droning on about
how he’s literally baffled by the shelves in Tesco’s and finds the idea of people buying bikes utterly incomprehensible. He’d surely have some interesting articles in him?

Could you get him in for a meeting?

Yes, its my husband, I’ll bring him in with me tomorrow

Honestly, every day in the UK media Nathan Barley becomes more like a prophecy…