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A lot of veterans of the industry are warning that the evolution of that industry is pointing towards the “electrification and car-ification” of bikes. Old bike

A lot of veterans of the industry are warning that the evolution of that industry is pointing towards the “electrification and car-ification” of bikes. Old bikes indeed remain user-serviceable, but few companies today have an interest in keeping it that way. Even if this company went bankrupt, a lot of companies are not, on the contrary, they seem to have a bright future.

tetris11 3y ago
It will truly be a dystopian day when a user can no longer ride a bike they bought because the software no longer allows it. Parrot drones here are a nice example: users bought Parrot Bebop and Disco drones but as of a few months ago are now locked out of their devices because Parrot no longer supports these devices (in order to push their new Anafi drones). Thankfully the open-source Ardupilot community has stepped in to take up the slack, but it's not enough. The Bebop in particular comes with a state of the art fish-eye lens camera with selective cropping for "virtual gimbal pivoting" and stereo-cropping for 3D mode. This functionality no longer exists. The camera does not work without the Parrot FreeFlightPro App, which is now dead. I can similarly imagine a day when the "boost" function of these E-bikes no longer work because the App said no.
uoaei 3y ago
It's a good thing there's so many old bike frames around still. Having worked/volunteered at multiple bike co-ops, I have never and will never buy a new bike. Often perfectly good if cheapish frames will get scrapped because there's so many donations coming in that can't find buyers. I ride hard and fast, and I don't get passed even by the MAMILs on their $9k S-works riding my $40 steel Univega SS conversion. You don't get much by trying to shortcut your way to a faster bike with money. It just takes time to git gud. My own personal budget is never to spend more than $450 on a bike before repairs (which I mostly do myself, so the only remaining expense is (used) parts), and even then, I'm going to make sure it's steel alloy frame with great geometry, disc brakes, and at least 2x8 drivetrain. My craziest expense was a vintage Marin MTB (top of the line in its day) with some blown but nice shocks that was $300, but I had to send in the rear shock for a full rebuild so more like $425. One of these days I may spring for a sweet, "well-loved" Rivendell frame or something similar. Planning on snapping up some kind of All-City soon since they recently announced they're discontinuing that brand and everyone seems to looove the Space Horse. If you don't have the time to do all that research, there's quite a few online communities open to "is this a good deal" type posts who can help guide you to find a used bike that will work for your needs and inclinations. (PS: I'm in the market for a 55-59cm high-perf steel road bike with Italian threaded BB! Octalink BB with Ultegra cranks burning a hole in my parts bin rn.)
- tetris11 3y ago
  Agreed on all fronts, and I ride similar to you I think (I used to love outracing the spandex-cladders on the steep hills on my shitty racer). I used to spend £350 on old french bikes (I don't remember the brand), just due to the sheer elastic thrill of the cornering, but parts were far and few between and I usually had to ad-hoc some horrible solution to keep them going. This was in central London half a decade ago, and one piece of mind that I had when going for these types of bikes: no one wanted to steal them. I had yuppie friends who would fork out 1-2k on a new bike that they were too afraid to scratch to actually ride, and it would be stolen within a few months of its purchase. My bikes? I would leave them carelessly chained to some weak fence confident in the knowledge it would still be there when I came back to it. There is freedom in cheapness.
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  Rivendell is an example of the cautionary voices I was talking about above. Grant Pedersen has already spoken about having to buy some good traditional parts while they are still around, so that he will still have stock for customers of his bikes. Once some things are discontinued, they are never coming back. Sure, you can find a nice old 1990s frame in an attic. But it probably has rim brakes, and in some countries you can no longer find replacement pads from a local bike shop, only special order, and rim-makers are gradually discontinuing high-quality rim-brake rims. It probably only fits an 8 or 9-speed cassette, and both Shimano and many local bike shops want users to upgrade to 10/12/whatever speed. Product churn alone is forcing the industry in a troubling direction regard of we retro-grouches would like.
  - uoaei 3y ago
    I think we're still in the middle of the 1x hype cycle and it's not clear to me it will completely dominate the market in the end. For modern MTBs with clutched rear mechs it makes some sense but especially watching the whole 'gravel' thing happen from atop a Univega Viva Sport running 37s where most of the time they're just on dusty fire roads it doesn't seem worth it when pliant steel frames with good tire clearance still abound. In certain cases it may be necessary to spread the rear triangle or other minor adjustments for 9-speed and up but RJ the Bike Guy has us covered on that. STEEL IS REAL! I'm surprised to hear that in some countries rim brake pads are getting harder to find. What sorts of countries are those? Disc brakes are pretty fancy all things considered, are you talking about high-COLA hilly places like Norway or Switzerland?

tetris11 3y ago

It will truly be a dystopian day when a user can no longer ride a bike they bought because the software no longer allows it. Parrot drones here are a nice example: users bought Parrot Bebop and Disco drones but as of a few months ago are now locked out of their devices because Parrot no longer supports these devices (in order to push their new Anafi drones). Thankfully the open-source Ardupilot community has stepped in to take up the slack, but it's not enough. The Bebop in particular comes with a state of the art fish-eye lens camera with selective cropping for "virtual gimbal pivoting" and stereo-cropping for 3D mode. This functionality no longer exists. The camera does not work without the Parrot FreeFlightPro App, which is now dead. I can similarly imagine a day when the "boost" function of these E-bikes no longer work because the App said no.

uoaei 3y ago

It's a good thing there's so many old bike frames around still. Having worked/volunteered at multiple bike co-ops, I have never and will never buy a new bike. Often perfectly good if cheapish frames will get scrapped because there's so many donations coming in that can't find buyers. I ride hard and fast, and I don't get passed even by the MAMILs on their $9k S-works riding my $40 steel Univega SS conversion. You don't get much by trying to shortcut your way to a faster bike with money. It just takes time to git gud. My own personal budget is never to spend more than $450 on a bike before repairs (which I mostly do myself, so the only remaining expense is (used) parts), and even then, I'm going to make sure it's steel alloy frame with great geometry, disc brakes, and at least 2x8 drivetrain. My craziest expense was a vintage Marin MTB (top of the line in its day) with some blown but nice shocks that was $300, but I had to send in the rear shock for a full rebuild so more like $425. One of these days I may spring for a sweet, "well-loved" Rivendell frame or something similar. Planning on snapping up some kind of All-City soon since they recently announced they're discontinuing that brand and everyone seems to looove the Space Horse. If you don't have the time to do all that research, there's quite a few online communities open to "is this a good deal" type posts who can help guide you to find a used bike that will work for your needs and inclinations. (PS: I'm in the market for a 55-59cm high-perf steel road bike with Italian threaded BB! Octalink BB with Ultegra cranks burning a hole in my parts bin rn.)

tetris11 3y ago
Agreed on all fronts, and I ride similar to you I think (I used to love outracing the spandex-cladders on the steep hills on my shitty racer). I used to spend £350 on old french bikes (I don't remember the brand), just due to the sheer elastic thrill of the cornering, but parts were far and few between and I usually had to ad-hoc some horrible solution to keep them going. This was in central London half a decade ago, and one piece of mind that I had when going for these types of bikes: no one wanted to steal them. I had yuppie friends who would fork out 1-2k on a new bike that they were too afraid to scratch to actually ride, and it would be stolen within a few months of its purchase. My bikes? I would leave them carelessly chained to some weak fence confident in the knowledge it would still be there when I came back to it. There is freedom in cheapness.
OfSanguineFire 3y ago
Rivendell is an example of the cautionary voices I was talking about above. Grant Pedersen has already spoken about having to buy some good traditional parts while they are still around, so that he will still have stock for customers of his bikes. Once some things are discontinued, they are never coming back. Sure, you can find a nice old 1990s frame in an attic. But it probably has rim brakes, and in some countries you can no longer find replacement pads from a local bike shop, only special order, and rim-makers are gradually discontinuing high-quality rim-brake rims. It probably only fits an 8 or 9-speed cassette, and both Shimano and many local bike shops want users to upgrade to 10/12/whatever speed. Product churn alone is forcing the industry in a troubling direction regard of we retro-grouches would like.
- uoaei 3y ago
  I think we're still in the middle of the 1x hype cycle and it's not clear to me it will completely dominate the market in the end. For modern MTBs with clutched rear mechs it makes some sense but especially watching the whole 'gravel' thing happen from atop a Univega Viva Sport running 37s where most of the time they're just on dusty fire roads it doesn't seem worth it when pliant steel frames with good tire clearance still abound. In certain cases it may be necessary to spread the rear triangle or other minor adjustments for 9-speed and up but RJ the Bike Guy has us covered on that. STEEL IS REAL! I'm surprised to hear that in some countries rim brake pads are getting harder to find. What sorts of countries are those? Disc brakes are pretty fancy all things considered, are you talking about high-COLA hilly places like Norway or Switzerland?