Revisiting this thread still gets that vein a'throbbin' and a pulsin'
Cycling is suffering from its own marketing bullshit.
Endless repetition of '' technology'' and the rather insidious threat that you are (yes, you) inadequate because you are still riding that?? You should be riding this! (insert any particular 'this')
Playing on that insecurity for the last 20 years has ruined it (here, I lay that responsibility firmly on the shoulders of STRAVA)
Personally I don't give a flying **** about what brakes you have. If a designer can't make a lever push a piston properly then they are incompetent Same with shoving a chain up and down a cassette
Simply wanting to go for a a ride seems to be illegal these days without the thought police eyeing up you and your choice of bicycle / apparel
I notice that after not buying magazines in the early 2000s, I started riding what I had and not what worrying about what I should be buying next. Then the fun actually started. I looked behind me and saw the great swathe of cycling gear that was sloshing around, old high end kit, out of fashion (before retrobike.co.uk) and it was a lot more fun
Personal fitness too, that got better and, wait for it, what I was riding, oh shit, DIDN'T MATTER.
Once I got over that crippling insecurity, cycling was back to what it was always envisaged by a few bright folk whose message had been drowned by the forever grinding marketing machines that say i am wrong.