On Thursday, July 30, 2015 at 5:26:29 AM UTC-7, Ron Mc wrote: > > On Tuesday, July 28, 2015 at 8:17:29 PM UTC-5, Patrick Moore wrote: >> >> There's a definite negative attitude on this list toward racers. >> > > no there isn't. >
Gosh, I sure perceive one, and it started at the source. It pervaded the Reader for years. I'm not slamming Grant -- he and I have subsequently handled this, and we're good. > We don't like bike snobs on racing bikes, we don't like an industry that > models itself after cutting-edge racing, and 30-something salespersons > trying to put everybody on a cutting-edge racing bike or a cheap > cookie-cutter facsimile, and pigeonholing everybody else. > A few months back, after reading a boblist statement along these lines, I called every sizeable bike shop within about 15 miles of my house in San Diego. San Diego has a culture of racing, and especially of triathlon, so you'd think that might pervade bike shops. I told the sales people I was going to send a friend in, who wanted to start cycling. I don't remember how I described that fictional friend ... a middle-aged normal non-cyclist person. I asked the salespeople what bike they would show such a person, and then subsequently I asked what tires the bikes had. The responses were 100% either touring bikes or hybrids. Tires were typically 32c. Some were 38c. The shops ranged from Performance to two large Specialized dealers and a Trek Superstore. 100%, the responses had nothing to do with racy bikes. So where are these bike snobs? Where are these salespersons? I suggest (1) it's a generalization that is perpetuated by a group which tends to have a certain set of opinions (gee, that sounds like religion or politics), and (2) when you go out in the world, you often encounter what you are pretty sure you are going to encounter. > A nice enough guy otherwise looking over my upright at a water stop last > weekend - after our in depth conversation was near over - said, "so you > built yourself a cruiser" > I made a point to pass him and leave him in the dust from my Italian > Huffy. > Why? After a pleasant, in-depth conversation, you didn't like one word he chose, so You. Showed. Him. Wasn't he giving you the opportunity to tell him why you liked your arrangement? Made up for it yesterday on a greenway trail - ran across a fellow Grant > Kool-Aid imbiber, who was riding a really nice upright built on a Miyata > Triple Cross.and we shared a great stop > Well, that makes things easy. No cross-pollination. Nice, safe, comfortable, bicycle apartheid. Conversations like this remind me of a time a couple years back when I was entering my own neighborhood in the evening. I was on a fully racy carbon Look, and I'd just ridden the 45 miles/3500 feet of elevation, home from a long day of work at the office. I'd also ridden to work that morning, leaving the house at 5:15 a.m. I had office clothes and shoes and a laptop in my Timbuktu bag, and I was moving quite slowly, because I was three blocks from home, and, as the Brits say, thoroughly knackered. A 20-something fellow in street clothes on a Surly with an upright set-up caught me and passed me quite emphatically. He said nothing, and looked straight ahead with a grin. Yanno, when I pass other cyclists, especially if I am moving much faster than they are, I usually pass slowly and say hello, because I don't want to be perceived as being an a*****e, because I hate to startle people, and because I want other cyclists to feel happy and encouraged. So, did he go home and post online, "you should'a seen the stupid racer dude on the Look I smoked with my Surly today"? I don't know -- maybe he didn't even notice me. Regardless, every group of people has about the same percentage of jerks and the same percentage of regular folks, and the choice of which side to be on is always available. :-) Peter -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
