Coolwall October 2011 - Entry Level Groupsets

[Neil]

Perhaps the term 'cool' is somewhat too subjective?

BITD if Mummy and Daddy were minted and bought you all the latest sh*t because you were an only child and a spoilt brat everyone thought you were another four-letter word that began with a 'c' but definitely wasn't 'cool'

Equally, if you got a job in Daddys company just because he was 'something high up' (while the rest of us were struggling out of bed at some ungodly hour to do a paper round) so that you could 'buy your own' sh*t that was better than ours then ditto...

WE didn't care about your DX/XT equipped bike because you couldn't ride any faster than the rest of us in order to escape the kicking you so richly deserved - and at least Daddy could afford the private medical bill to have the seatpost removed from your rectum afterwards

Found this definition of the word 'cool' online;

'when you are cool, you don't need to be told you're cool cos that makes it lame. however, if no one tells you then how would you know? thinking you're cool makes you uncool. not thinking you're cool when you are makes you ignorant. when you don't care about what others think of you and you're okay with who other people are, you're cool. there is a fine line between COOL and GAY and TRYHARD WANNABE. when you're not hyper/annoying, and people like you, you're cool. rambling on like this is not cool.'

Entry-level groupsets may have been heavy and a touch f'ugly but they were a quantum leap above what came before - everything above was just limited by your parents' income and their willingness to indulge their 'little soldier...' :?

You may infer from this that I did indeed have a paper round, and I would have happily killed any one of my 'spoilt-brat' friends if there was even the slightest chance his grieving parents would have adopted me afterwards!

See, I bet you feel better now, please leave the £50 with my Secretary and she will book you in for another session next week.

£50? Session?

That's entry level therapy rates...

 

[Rod_Saetan]

Good job I'm perfectly kiiiiill them normal then eh?

 

[gump]

Really, these groupsets are a crock of shit and are in no way cool!

 

[RockiMtn]

what's next, we gonna have a cool vote for BSO??? :roll:

 

[utahdog2003]

what's next, we gonna have a cool vote for BSO??? :roll:

Only ones with "Fire Mountain" on the top tube and Altus parts.

 

[hydorah]

Entry level groupsets, necessary, but uncool

At some points in time and for some purposes they may achieve the lofty status of being acceptable??? Maybe... Interesting from a historical perspective??? But never cool

 

[snowdonstumpy]

Horrible. And wtf are those pedals on the bottom pic? :shock:

They look really functional, saving tons of space in your garage, clearly. :roll:

 

[bishopdante]

Re:

I had those 1 tonne cranks and plastic brake levers on a splatter finish ammaco. Daily machine, must have put a thousand miles on it.

14X0g cranks, eh. Shocking. Wore out the chainrings & carried on riding it.

Did not get me any cred whatsoever, but I learned how to ride fast on it. Whole thing was so heavy that landing on the front wheel would blow the tire, very easy to do hitting a small ramp or tree root, because the bike would rotate in the air popping off the back wheel, rather than lifting up properly. Even with careful weight positioning and wrenching at the handlebars it'd do *oh sh*t* mid-air endo! SLAM psssssssssss. Land it properly and it'd make a terrible clank sound, and the wheels needed weekly re-truing. Daily. Saying that, the headset never developed play.

Plastic brake levers would sometimes jam the brakes on with the barrel retainer lodging in the lever, resulting in the brake blocks being yanked out of alignment.

How could that be cool?

Pulling your weight against guys on proper bikes, might be cool. That is the rider not the bike. That might make me cool, but if I am cool then I am allowed to say... today...

No way would that be cool today. I ain't riding that.

Rode a manitou hardtail with full XT one time, and that ammaco was swap-shopped for a 1991 one inch headset GT with mag forks (which was later given to my brother, then got stolen). Never looked back.