I just wanted to crack the passenger side window, like one-and-a-half cranks of the old lever that did the job when you could actually “roll down the window.” But we don’t roll the window down anymore. Rolling the window down is a paleolithic activity, like making fire with two sticks. So now I have to press the power window button, but I have to press it just right, because if I’m too resolute in my power windowing, the brain inside that switch decides I want the window all the way down, and then I have to reverse course and try to get the window cracked by a frustrating back and forth process akin to an 18-point turn in a narrow parking lot.
Are power windows better than crank windows? Yes. And no.
My attitude is less Luddite (a group who get a bad rap…they really only wanted us to consider ALL the ramifications of a new technology before rushing to adopt it), and more of effectiveness and expense. But why the F am I talking about cars on a cycling website?
Because bikes are expensive, and part of the reason they’re expensive is that we’ve incorporated a lot of new tech (e.g. disc brakes, electronic shifting, motors, etc.) that raises their costs. Are disc brakes better than rim brakes? I think so. Is electronic shifting more accurate than cable-actuated shifting? Yup. Do these new modalities raise the prices of bicycles? Yes.
And it’s not just “high-end” bikes that are more expensive as a result, it’s all bikes, because the companies who have adopted the new tech are still amortizing the costs of the tooling and manufacturing that produce the new bikes.
The thing is, the march of technology is mostly uni-directional. The improvements to bicycle performance that we’ve received over the last two decades are here to stay. I don’t want to give up my disc brakes. I have become accustomed to a certain level of performance now, and I don’t want to go backwards.
The 1980 Honda Civic got something in the neighborhood of 50 miles to the gallon on the highway. It cost $3700 (about $15k in today’s dollars). As you’re probably well aware, you can’t buy a new car for $15k now. Ironically, and perhaps to prove my point, you CAN spend that on a bike.
Some of the advancements in bike tech are advancements while others are an unnecessary extra layer of icing on the cake that just makes the cake sickly sweet (and overly expensive).
I don’t have an exhaustive list of what falls into which category but it still blows my mind that people seem to be OK with riding around using a derailleur that has a limit on the range it will work before it needs charging while simultaneously being mounted to a machine that only requires human power to keep moving forward (ie, it’s range is virtually limitless). This is especially galling given that what we had before electronic shifting was actually already really, really good. If pre-electronic derailleurs were awful like dial-up internet was awful before broadband, fibre, etc then sure but I can’t imagine needing electronic shifting over mechanical Ultegra or Dura Ace and swallowing the downside of the limited operating range.
I guess this also speaks to the march of technology being mostly uni-directional. It’s mostly uni-directional but not entirely. Shimano’s 105 mechanical came back, Microshift seem to be doing a roaring trade on their mechanical stuff and there’s still a very definite market for steel frames, bar end shifters and hardtail trail mountain bikes for example.
I guess the industry needs to keep inventing new things to sell in order to stay viable but at the same time I think there’s a line between innovation and contrivance and it could be that the bicycle reached a point where it was the best it could “naturally” be some years ago.