Gravel bike with flat bar now "invented"

[hamster]

Well yes, but it's harder and harder for marketing folk to big up a new bicycle, it's all been done. Personally I think tech talk, even hype, is more alluring than some action- packed image, relating to a perceived sense of self-worth, machismo or whatever. The mtb ads of the 90's were cringeworthy in that respect, but tv car ads were probably worse.

I absolutely agree - if you look at a lot of the old cycle stuff from the 1920s then most of the ideas had been tried before.

We have this cycle of optimisation until things become ridiculously specialised for a single task / terrain. Whereupon you revert to the type of go-anywhere / do-anything bikes...which then specialise again. Add the Shimano gimmick machine ('let's do 1x11, a fragile drivetrain with less range than a well-conceived 2x7') and there is something else to spin the hype wheel.

 

[legrandefromage]

Srams' hype wheel really brings the trails alive

 

[Takingabreak]

Re:

An old fashioned gravel bike to feast your eyes on

https://www.secondbike.co.uk/card/vinta ... olds-frame

 

[mrkawasaki]

Circa 1979...

 

[brocklanders023]

Add the Shimano gimmick machine ('let's do 1x11, a fragile drivetrain with less range than a well-conceived 2x7') and there is something else to spin the hype wheel.

TBF the 1x nonsense was SRAM led and Shimano were late to the party.

I have a 1x11 bike. It's neither particulary better or worse than 2x or 3x.

 

[troje]

Add the Shimano gimmick machine ('let's do 1x11, a fragile drivetrain with less range than a well-conceived 2x7') and there is something else to spin the hype wheel.

TBF the 1x nonsense was SRAM led and Shimano were late to the party.

I have a 1x11 bike. It's neither particulary better or worse than 2x or 3x.

I must admit I like my 1x12 Sram setup on my modern bike. Love the simplicity.

 

[Woz]

We have this cycle of optimisation until things become ridiculously specialised for a single task / terrain. Whereupon you revert to the type of go-anywhere / do-anything bikes...which then specialise again.

This.

The MTB scene went hell bent about full suspension, rock gardens, and gravity assisted,

The road scene of course as always obsessed with carbon full speed TdF trickle down tech, electronic
shifting and what not.

It's no surprise a marketing niche gap appeared - although it had all been done before - to actually
just go out for a decent ride on varied terrain on something suitably comfortable. We all know though
the "go anywhere" in between could usually be solved with a simple wheel change with different tyres, and
there is little reason to go and buy another bike.

 

[novekili]

I really love my 1x11. Lighter, more practical, nicer. Would never go back to 2x or 3x. Concerning flat bar gravel bikes, I've just tried this setup on my Merlin. I went back to drops after one ride, tho

 

[legrandefromage]

Add the Shimano gimmick machine ('let's do 1x11, a fragile drivetrain with less range than a well-conceived 2x7') and there is something else to spin the hype wheel.

TBF the 1x nonsense was SRAM led and Shimano were late to the party.

I have a 1x11 bike. It's neither particulary better or worse than 2x or 3x.

I must admit I like my 1x12 Sram setup on my modern bike. Love the simplicity.

Looking at how the posts have evolved in this thread, the marketing department has won:

Ridicule, denial, casual acceptance, purchase, the new normal.

<sighs ever so gently>


Lets wind it all back a decade or so; SRAM didnt want to pay Shimano for patents on the front mechs. SRAM said 'we're never gonna make a front derailleur again!'. It made life easier, i.e, less expensive.

Shimano were not 'late to the game'.

Full suspension designers were stroppy because the then 29er market gave them headaches as to where to put the front mechs, this along with BB standards and so on meant that 1x drivetrains were a bit of a lifeline. It made life easier, i.e, less expensive.

It makes sense if you are a bicycle company looking to make money, you can drop front mechs and shifters then declare 1x drivetrains the new normal regardless of whether they are actually any good or not (ask a busy cycle mechanic if they are, especially SRAM). This saves you money. If you are a struggling company like Campagnolo, you can quickly adopt a similar strategy and save yourself money.

Heres a good example:

SUV's - an Americanisation we never needed but is now the new Normal. The UK called them 4x4, Chelsea Tractors etc, then crossovers (whatever that is) and now SUV. The majority are certainly not 'sporty' (whatever that means), definitely not utilitarian but they do fit the category of 'vehicle'. Nissan pretty much blew the market apart with the CashCow, sorry Qashqai. Other manufacturers shat themselves so we ended up with stupidly heavy inefficient vehicles sprouting up buggering any hopes of a cleaner future out of the carpark.

Ridicule, denial, casual acceptance, purchase, the new normal

 

[hamster]

Agreed. See this from Lewis Mumford's book 'art and technics'
....once established and perfected, type objects should have a long period of use. No essential improvement in the safety pin has been made since the Bronze age. In weaving, there has been no essential modification of the loom in over a century. And what is true for machines holds good in no small degree for their products. When a typical form has been achieved, the sooner the machine retreats into the background and becomes a discreetly silent fixture the better. This again flies in the face of most contemporary beliefs.
At present, half our gains in technical efficiency are nullified by the annual custom of restyling. Extraordinary ingenuity is exercised by publicity directors and industrial designers in making models that have undergone no essential change look as if they had. In order to hasten style obsolescence, they introduce fake variety in departments where it is irrelevant - not in the interest of order, efficiency, technical perfection, but in the interest of profit and prestige, two very secondary and usually sordid human motivations.
Instead of lengthening the life of the product and lowering the cost to the user, they raise the cost to the user by shortening the life of the product and causing him to be conscious of mere stylistic tricks that are without any kind of human significance or value.