The Bikes These Days

I tell you, the bikes these days. How do you even understand them. As “bike nerds” have gotten nerdier, putting together more and more specialized (pun entirely intended) bikes, the production bike world has descended into absolute madness. There was a time when you knew what a road bike was, you knew what a commuter bike was, and you knew what a mountain bike was. Now they all exist on a continuum that can seem a bit inscrutable at times.

You see, we got disc brakes, and everything blew up. Suddenly tires could get wider, because they didn’t have to fit between a set of rim calipers. The features that used to constrain categories were scattered to the wind.

What came first? The disc brake or the gravel bike? The answer is yes.

At first, I think there was a natural urge to define new categories, but the more flexible the supporting components became, the more fluid the categories became.

And now I wonder, are bike categories too fluid?

In practical terms, the answer is probably not. Today, you can get a bike that suits your preferences to a T. You can get a bike that is a good road bike and a reasonable gravel bike at the same time. You can get a mountain bike that is a serviceable gravel bike. I think the benefits of all this evolution are unquestionable.

If you know what you want, you can get it.

But this brings up the other side of categories being so fluid, which is, do less savvy consumers understand what they’re looking at? Are buyers more or less informed than they used to be?

If you’ll allow a diversion, let me compare bikes to art. That should be non-controversial for this audience. If you walk into a large, urban museum, you’re likely to see art from a number of different eras and movements. Some of it will be easy to understand and appreciate, figural sculpture, Impressionist landscape, etc. Some of it will be more abstract, and your ability to appreciate what it’s doing might be related to understanding the thinking behind it. Many pieces don’t make a lot of sense, unless you know what the artist was inspired by or responding to. If you keep up with fine art, you might know all this. If you don’t, you mumble under your breath that any 4th grader could have done a given painting.

People like you follow the art of bicycle design and are largely capable of understanding what a new bike offers. But I wonder if the casual rider gets it.

I had this experience myself, despite being a lifetime bike person. I rode 26” hardtails back in the ‘90s, and I loved them. They formed my idea of what a mountain bike was. Then I got into road riding. I went all-in actually, and my mountain bike gathered dust. While I was busy racking up miles on skinny tires, the whole notion of what a mountain bike is changed, and by the time I was ready to get back to it, I didn’t know what I was looking at. In fact, full-suspension mountain bikes looked ugly to me, not like bikes. It probably took me two years to assimilate the information I felt I needed to commit to a new, modern mountain bike.

And I wonder if we’re in this strange transitional period with bikes, where aficionados have access to better and better, and more purpose-oriented bikes than ever, but the average consumer is confused and hesitant, not even really clear on what they’re looking at.