Good job! A career change to mountain bike pro may be in order! Or more
likely, it's surprising what a lifetime of cycling will give you in skills.
I think what people mostly are reacting to when they identify as
"Un-Racers" are the attitudes of racers (or more often, wannabe racers),
rather than the fact that pushing yourself a bit can be fun. When we are
returning from a long trip in the mountains with panniers on our bikes, and
every "racer" on the (flat) bike trail picks us as a target, passing us,
and then slowing down exhausted, it gets tiring.
But that doesn't mean that riding a performance bike isn't fun, and the
better the bike performs, the more fun it can be. In fact, I sometimes give
in to the temptation and up the pace myself, drop the wannabe racers, and
then keep up the pace, if only to get home sooner. Feeling the bike in sync
with my pedal strokes and my entire body working hard is fun.
The true high-level racers I've known are usually very pleasant. They don't
need to prove to everybody how fast they are – if you want to race, line up
at the start line! It's the non-racers who treat every commute as a
competition, and every guy (or even better, woman) on a heavily loaded bike
as an opportunity.
It's easy to confound "anti-attitude" with "anti-performance", but I think
that is a mistake. Cycling is fun in part because of its speed. Otherwise,
we could be walking. That doesn't mean that we should prioritize speed over
everything else – comfort and fun are more important. But when the gains
come without penalties, such as wide supple tires – faster, more
comfortable and more puncture-resistant – or frames that get in sync with
your pedal strokes ("planing") – lighter, more fun at any power output –
then it makes sense to embrace them.
Fortunately, the image of a "performance bike" is changing. No longer is it
a harsh-riding machine with skinny tires pumped to 100 psi or more. With
the new "Gravel" and "Allroad" bikes, the industry finally is espousing
what this group has been about all along.
Jan Heine
Editor
Bicycle Quarterly
www.bikequarterly.com
--
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 https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
