Cycling has been ruined by carbon and strava (or so says the Guardian)

“I’ve always liked cycling. Over the years, some of my favourite moments have been spent on a bike: going the distance, getting lost, finding myself in unexpected and beautiful places.

Cycling in the UK has changed massively in the past few years. Ten years ago I would have been proud to describe myself as a cyclist, still a slightly odd, marginal thing to do. [But] a classic south London ride (over Crystal Palace, out to Oxted) has become a miserable slog of unsmiling, un-nodding pink and black Lycra-clad sports cyclists. There’s no bonhomie or camaraderie, just wrap-around glasses and steely determination to overtake.

And the chat is about bikes and times, Strava segments, with the same fervour dull men use to talk about football teams. People are less and less likely to talk about experiences, the things the’ve seen, the places they’ve been, the fun and epic hardship they’ve experienced. They’re less and less likely to talk about the joy of cycling. Again, it bores the shit out of me.

Cycling is now just another example of something lovely, free and non-corporate being turned into a mega industry. And that makes me sad. Can’t we have some things which don’t get packaged up, branded and marketed? Isn’t there any part of life where I can experience a freedom from corporatism without have my experience re-packaged and sold back to me?”

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2016/apr/12/no-more-hippies-and-explorers-lament-for-the-changed-world-of-cycling

Discuss

Well you are never going to get a strava segment unless you are on a carbon 29er….or an ebike

If he lives in london I’m not sure what he expected?

Is it wrong that I’ve never used Strava ever?

Can’t we have anything where people can just get on and do things their way rather than looking enviously around them worrying about everyone else?

Your brand of cycling isn’t the standard. Your enjoyment of what you do shouldn’t be diminished by others doing theirs differently.

Can’t we have anything where people can just get on and do things their way rather than looking enviously around them worrying about everyone else?

Sums up Strava perfectly.

Your enjoyment of what you do shouldn’t be diminished by others doing theirs differently.

From the article:

“I should be able to just let these people get on with it and live and let live, or even just take joy in the fact that there are so many more people who love cycling in any way they like.

But I can’t, and I have my reasons. First, I don’t like being looked down on. I don’t like being characterised as less of a cyclist because I can’t be arsed with sportives and would rather get lost than go hard.

Second, I think it pollutes the rest of the culture. This pernicious strand of macho sport orthodoxy is creeping into all parts of cycling. It’s starting to be the norm. Bike shops are geared towards it, bike blogs are geared towards it, conversations around cycling are geared towards it. You mention you like cycling, now that comes with an expectation that you are a certain type of person; alpha male, serious, competitive, buyer of bikes, regurgitator of facts.”

I think either he wants people to look at him how they used to when he mentions that he’s a cyclist – i.e. treat him like an oddball rather than a sports fanatic – or possibly he’s got pinned down one too many times at a party by a cycle bore.

I’d imagine there are other places to ride

sums up strava London perfectly

FTFY

Some may enjoy the bling nature of shiny stuff or beating their mates by half a second but they can be quite irritating and do miss so much. There are still many of us happy to pootle along on an old comfy bike, upright enough to enjoy the view and breathing gently enough not to taste blood.

Choose cake, not strava.

He’s looking in the wrong place…seem to be plenty of explorers on here?. And fortunately I think the invention of the ebike might have killed Strava. I think someone once said “Golf, a good walk spoilt”….”Strava, a good ride spoilt”.

Sums up (how sone people use ) Strava perfectly

Bores exist in all forms, from those who bang on about their strava times, to those who complain about “how it used to be”

Just buy a gravel bike and get off the roads – or ride a single speed

Sounds more like he’s struggling to put a positive article out and is using his own insecurities to make money

Sounds like a London thing to me. Particularly puts me in mind of certain large London clubs you used to see in Richmond Park. Here in Yorkshire there is that, you can SMASH it on the Leeds chaingang with the local Strava heros or you can join a load of oldies for a tootle to Bolton Abbey. I don’t think the same culture has taken over completely up here…

I don’t think the same culture has taken over completely up here…

This is why we need independence.

I use Strava as a cycling diary and like the heatmap function. I also like seeing what my pals are up to. He’s just making sweeping generalizations to fill column inches.

I’m also definitely an explorer.

I used to ride in a plaid shirt, circa 1990 #truefact .

Now I ride carbon and am occasionally quite ‘aggressive’ (when no one else’s around) #sadness

^opusone…here, here. Freedom!!!

I don’t think the same culture has taken over completely up here…

What makes you think it has in London? I live 30seconds from the main SE cycling route/cafe so have a fairly good idea of ‘the scene’ and the kind of people swinging a leg over a road bike and heading out of town.
It’s not London centric it’s everywhere, if you look at the strava heat map it will tell you exactly where they are. And it’s pretty much indicative of cycling numbers in general so large conurbations will have more cyclists (with slight variations where there is good riding nearby or a cycling friendly city)
It’s not just poor flat capped wearing penny pinching cyclists in a grim northern town who have bling desires and the need for strava glory.*
*just to redress the regional stereotype bias in this thread.

I can certainly agree with many of the sentiments in this article. You can still forge your own groove in cycling though, but I get that cycling ‘society’ has changed greatly. I’m just glad he mentioned Lael Wilcox a couple of times. I’ve been following her exploits (and her partner Nick on gypsybytrade)for a while and I like her style a lot: she’s basically an elite hobo.

But, this kind of rant against the corporatisation and homogenisation of a particular activity/art/whatever, is a well trodden trait. It is what Raymond Williams called the ‘common human propensity to use the past as a stick with which to beat the present’. It’s a classic way of holding up the values of the past (whether they are your values, or a shared group value), and using them to judge an inevitably failing present. It’s common in environmentalist debates, but i’m sure in many other countless cultral and social fields. The main issue with this kind of thinking is that it gives undue value to the past, and also places that value in an arbitrary moment (X years ago…) that blindly ignores the failings of that time, whilst ignoring/glossing over the positives of the present.

Some may enjoy the bling nature of shiny stuff or beating their mates by half a second but they can be quite irritating and do miss so much. There are still many of us happy to pootle along on an old comfy bike, upright enough to enjoy the view and breathing gently enough not to taste blood.

You can have both, you know, sometimes even on the same ride.

Interesting article – and I can see where he is coming from..
I see the full spectrum where I live (Bromley) from Chaingangs of badly behaved middle-aged men shouting at each other to weathered pensioners on ancient steel bikes enjoying the sun outside a cake shop.

I guess the change in cycling was inevitable – the sales of mega-money carbon roadbikes must have gone crazy if what I’ve seen around here is a good barometer.

I use Strava to log my rides (more out of personal interest in my fitness – I only follow a few people) and do one or two Sportives per year (with friends)
The only thing the badly behaved MAMILs have proved to me is that I don’t want to join a club at the moment – as I don’t want to be associated with these people.

New user to strava here…..Im liking it so far as its motivating me to ride more.
Im using it purely as a tool to get myself fitter….getting home after a ride and seeing that ive climbed a hill/done a route faster than last time makes me feel better.

Before strava literally NOBODY worried about how fast they were going. Except road racers and sportive cyclists and audaxers and MTBO people and time traillists and track cyclists and xc racers and downhillers………………

The only thing the badly behaved MAMILs have proved to me is that I don’t want to join a club at the moment – as I don’t want to be associated with these people.

I got “boxed in” by some mamils from the local roadie club recently (I didn’t know what boxing in was until I described what had happened to someone in the know) because I’d had the gall to pass them on an uphill section and was then freewheeling on the descent. Really soured me to the whole roadie thing.

Before strava literally NOBODY worried about how fast they were going.

Yes, but they mostly went to a race/event, or used some other metric to measure how fast they were going. (Power/weight, best time over a 10 etc)

Strava has turned the world into a racetrack. Even when it’s stupid to be racing.

and MTBO people and time traillists and track cyclists and xc racers and downhillers………………

And people who were late for work/tea/when they told their mum they’d be home…

edit.

Strava has turned the world into a racetrack. Even when it’s stupid to be racing.

I spent most of my teenage years racing my mates in places it was definately stupid to be racing. Wondering if canti brakes would stop you prior to the fence and the bottom was part of the fun 😆
Amazingly, I dont think one mobile app has completely changed human nature

From the article

They’re less and less likely to talk about the joy of cycling

But what if the people he dislikes get joy from Strava, sportives and carbon bikes?

A classic case of “it doesn’t fit with my world view ergo it’s wrong”

I know where he’s coming from.
In the UK we MUST DO IT CORRECTLY… i.e. Buy the ‘best’ bike, wear the correct gear, travel miles to do an organised ride or to ride a certain place, stop at the right cafe, record it all in pictures and via satellites etc etc…
But ask the vast majority of cyclists if they go shopping on a bike and they look at you like you’re speaking Swahili, they just don’t get it.
We rode 45-50 miles in 2 days over the weekend wearing no specific cycling gear at all, in jeans, on the flat, at 10mph, for no other reason than to be outside and it was lovely.

Strava has turned the world into a racetrack. Even when it’s stupid to be racing.

Back before strava and kids and wives me and my mates used to go out 3/4 times a week and race each other into the ground, first to the next sign, first up this hill, first to bottom of the hill, you know TRAINING, we didn’t even race that much. And you know what? Sometimes we stopped to look at the view or have a cake or something. Eeeeeeh , them were the days.

Strava has turned the world into a racetrack. Even when it’s stupid to be racing.

That’s a problem that goes beyond being a value judgement – i.e. it’s not bad just because it doesn’t fit with what I like – because it seems to make (some) people behave like dickheads. That in turn gives the whole (sub)culture of cycling a bad name.

Is this a road thing? I can’t say I’ve noticed this in the MTB world, if anything it is going more in the ‘just ride’ direction (e.g. compared to the MBUK years), even considering enduro fluro.

London’s what you make of it.

There’s plenty of more relaxed clubs that are all about exploring.

E.g.
http://www.centrallondonctc.org.uk/rides
http://www.pollardshillcyclists.org.uk/links.html

The Crystal Palace route is well known as a local roadie training route, so you’d expect there to be lots of people going as fast as they can out there.

It’s as much or more to do with aspiration lifestyle marketing as a bike computer for your phone.

Someone should go back in time and kill wiggo, that’d sort it.

Is this a road thing?

More of a road thing, I reckon, although I can be a massive gear bore.

must be a tight lycra thing. agree with llama, don’t see this with any of my MTB friends.

Is it wrong that I’ve never used Strava ever?

Nor me, Mainly cos I’d be depressed about the very slow times 😀

My neighbour complains that he posts a time and almost immeadiately it’s beaten. I suggested that he didn’t use Strava. He looked at me like I’d taken a dump on his lawn 😛

No carbon on my bikes either, not knowingly anyway.

Aluminium, you know it makes sense………..

I should be able to just let these people get on with it and live and let live, or even just take joy in the fact that there are so many more people who love cycling in any way they like.

But I can’t, and I have my reasons. First, I don’t like being looked down on. I don’t like being characterised as less of a cyclist because I can’t be arsed with sportives and would rather get lost than go hard.

I think he has mental health issues and/or it’s just click bait. It’s pretty sad that he seems to have taken so much of his perceived identity from being a ‘cyclist’ but now he doesn’t like what that implies any more. Just ride your **** bike and ignore all the stuff you don’t like.

Aluminium, you know it makes sense………..

Steel. Puts a smile on my bum.