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Even though a hobby may be competitive, you don’t have to do it competitively. Maybe you just want to go fishing and catch fish and you’re happy if you caught o

Even though a hobby may be competitive, you don’t have to do it competitively. Maybe you just want to go fishing and catch fish and you’re happy if you caught one and want to catch more. As a hobbyist cyclist, I like having a decent bike simply because it’s more fun to cycle with less effort. Of course I could get an old crappy one to show off my skill and constitution, but that’s not the point for me. The point is to have some fun and while part of this fun is due to achieving goals, achieving a hard goal with a little help such as a good bike is still more fun than not achieving the hard goal, especially if it’s due to comparably-bad tech. Whether your threshold for bad tech is now a really old bike or a not-newest bike is merely a quantitative difference and in the end subject to personal preferences.

benj111 8y ago
Where do ebikes fit into that picture?
- amelius 8y ago
  Ebikes can be of assistance without spoiling the entire experience. For example, they may allow you to make more miles with the same human effort. One application is that they might allow you to bike to work, in cases where it would otherwise not be practically possible.
- jdietrich 8y ago
  They fit a different niche. Some people cycle for fitness or sporting reasons; a motor might compromise the sense of achievement of going faster and further under your own power. A lot of people cycle just to enjoy the outdoors; the idea of going faster and further for the same effort might seem perfectly logical. Ebikes are a great solution if you're just using a bicycle as functional transport, serving as a convenient halfway house between a bicycle and motorcycle.
scruple 8y ago
People who go fishing for competitiveness are going fishing for the wrong reason, AFAIC. "Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish that they are after." - Thoreau

benj111 8y ago

Where do ebikes fit into that picture?

amelius 8y ago
Ebikes can be of assistance without spoiling the entire experience. For example, they may allow you to make more miles with the same human effort. One application is that they might allow you to bike to work, in cases where it would otherwise not be practically possible.
jdietrich 8y ago
They fit a different niche. Some people cycle for fitness or sporting reasons; a motor might compromise the sense of achievement of going faster and further under your own power. A lot of people cycle just to enjoy the outdoors; the idea of going faster and further for the same effort might seem perfectly logical. Ebikes are a great solution if you're just using a bicycle as functional transport, serving as a convenient halfway house between a bicycle and motorcycle.

scruple 8y ago

People who go fishing for competitiveness are going fishing for the wrong reason, AFAIC. "Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish that they are after." - Thoreau