"I referred to it as my road bike on a recent group ride, and one of my more category-oriented companions incredulously asked, "you call THAT a road bike?"
Yea, to a lot of the biking world, we pose a dilemma by not fitting neatly into a box. More than once I've encountered MTBers on simple jeep or hiking trails, nothing particularly technical or challenging, and they ask "what are you doing out here on THAT?" Heck, these are just roads that aren't paved, not ski runs or goat tracks; the Atlantis is perfectly happy. We are apparently mis-understood. I for one can live with that. dougP On Jun 28, 10:41 am, Jim Thill - Hiawatha Cyclery <thill....@gmail.com> wrote: > This is why using a handful of narrowly defined marketing categories to > describe bikes is preposterous. Among a lot of cyclists, it's either > "mountain" or "road" (insert the word "performance" anywhere you like), > unless it's a "hybrid" or a "cruiser" that only a nerdy old lady would > ride. My fastest bike is a Cross-check that has drop bars and 40 mm tires > and weighs at least 30 lbs. I referred to it as my road bike on a recent > group ride, and one of my more category-oriented companions incredulously > asked, "you call THAT a road bike?" I asked him what else he'd call it, but > he was at a loss to find the appropriate pigeonhole. Country Bike is a neat > concept, and one with which most of my bikes closely identify, but nobody > outside the Riv Bubble knows the term. > > > > On Thursday, June 28, 2012 10:07:23 AM UTC-5, James Warren wrote: > > > Grant writes a book to promote something to counteract a prevailing > > mentality. The reviewer's review itself has one sentence that shows how > > pervasive that mentality is. The reviewer generally responds positively to > > Grant's book and offers the following as constructive criticism: mentioning > > a couple of Grant's points with which he disagrees, the reviewer writes, "I > > also think the notion of a 31-pound “performance” road bike (that’s how > > much his personal bike weighs) is ridiculous." > > > This tells me that the reviewer has not really gotten the point. I know > > the word "performance" is in quotes, so I'm not sure how he is defining > > performance. But the phrase "road bike" is not in quotes. The reviewer > > adheres to the idea that one's road ride can be only be high-performance > > when lightness and acceleration are the highest goals. Elsewhere in the > > article, the reviewer says that cycling should be much more. But he himself > > can't allow the thing called "road riding" to incorporate cycling's other > > joys. That's a bummer. > > > -Jim W. > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Steven Frederick > > Sent: Jun 28, 2012 4:38 AM > > To: "rbw-owners-bun." > > Subject: [RBW] Review of "Just Ride." > > > From none other than BIKE magazine, one of the best mtb mags. out there... > > >http://www.bikemag.com/news/reviewed-just-ride/ > > > Steve > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > > "RBW Owners Bunch" group. > > To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > > For more options, visit this group at > >http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
