Blood-boiling article in the Grauniad

[Racing roadkill]

Yes, but if you're wearing SPDs on a road bike then you're not a proper cyclist anyway. Right?

Amen brother, praise the Lord.

 

[Racing roadkill]

Shh, no-one mention cyclocross.

CX is fun. Muddy cruddy, carry your bike through a boggy nightmare fun

 

[Racing roadkill]

I had to walk or stop on a number of hills when I was not as fit. One local >20% hill had me walking several times, but I kept going back and going back until I eventually conquered it. Now I can do it no problem. I guess that's what Boardman was on about.

That's what it's all about. After a while, the hills that used to fill you with dread, are 'part of the fun'.

 

[swansonj]

Does it bother you that much?

I will concede that there may have been just a touch of hyperbole in my description as "blood boiling". But yes, the article did get me quite riled because it touches on the whole issue of racing-derived attitudes and equipment being regarded as normative of all cycling. It is possible to cycle without seeing it as some macho competitive face-saving status test. It is possible to have spent an entire cycling career realising that hills are more fun with lower gears and equipping your bikes accordingly, long before anyone dreamt of 11 speed (Come to think of it, I arguably cycled LeJog thirty years ago on an 11 speed - it was 2x6 but you couldn't reliably get the lowest except by lifting the rear wheel off the ground and twiddling - but that bottom gear must have been around 20"). Actually, it's possible to cycle simply for the pleasure of it....

You are nonetheless free to draw deductions about the sadness or otherwise of my life.

 

[ufkacbln]

Get a recumbent trike...

You can have a kip on the hill without ever touching the ground

 

[byegad]

Does this mean that my 12" (I kid you not.) bottom gear on my 'really steep hill' trike means I'm not a cyclist???

 

[dan_bo]

Actually, it's possible to cycle simply for the pleasure of it....

yeah ok.

 

[Pat "5mph"]

t's the attitudes that emerge in the course of the discussion.

The author puts it like most cyclist view a "hill walker" in their group as disgraced. Which, of course, is not true in friendly group rides.
I would say in competitive pro events walking a hill is a bit of a failure, no?
Unless the weather conditions make riding impossible, of course.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Sorry,I didn't finish the article. I found it rather dull.

But here's a picture of the 1910 Tour de France

That's Octave Lapize by the way. The eventual winner of the tour that year.

 

[Drago]

I seem to remember low gearing decades before the sportive boom of the OO' s. If you're out there and you're riding and you're enjoying it then that's all that matters. Sod what the Gruinard thinks, cos no one except Adrian reads it.

That's the problem with the World today. Too many twots worrying about what everyone else is doing instead of paying attention the their own lives. Sad little people.

 

[Gravity Aided]

Used to have it on touring bikes and mountain bikes. E'en in the eighties

 

[boydj]

Yes, but if you're wearing SPDs on a road bike then you're not a proper cyclist anyway. Right?

But at least you can walk up the steep bits more easily than the 'proper' cyclists.

Personally, I can't understand why any non-racing cyclist would want to wear shoes that make walking difficult.

 

[swansonj]

Personally, I can't understand why any non-racing cyclist would want to wear shoes that make walking difficult.

Perhaps for the very same reason he'd* want to make people who push up hills feel inferior.

*deliberate choice of pronoun on statistical grounds

 

[clid61]

Nowt wrong with SPDs on road bike .matter of choice ,and one I choose for comfort and ease of interacting between that and my other bikes I use just as much !. Oh and just off topic a little , why on earth would anyone wear white shoes ? Look naff and something an LA pimp would wear with his cape and stick !

 

[Gasman]

"I still feel that variable gears are only for people over forty-five. Isn t it better to triumph by the strength of your muscles than by the artifice of a derailleur?"

Henri Desgranges, 1902

So I'm alright but you young 'uns are all wimps.