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One of the reasons the tech nerd in my is against some of the fancy modern e-bikes like Cowboy. And the silly wireless shifter stuff.
The only thing I realize and accept I won’t repair myself are hydraulic brakes and wheel truing. At least I understand the mechanism, I just think someone with more experience should do it. Everything else on a bike should be simple enough to fix with the right (cheap-ish) tool, an hour or so of time and a good manual.
It's funny that the high end (human powered/"analog") bikes tend to actually be pretty good at this. Want to change your $5k+ bike from 11s to 12s? Yep, should be doable
you'll need to replace group set and possibly the rear hub, but it's totally possible.
Upgrade from cable to electronic shifting? Again, totally doable.
Switch from Shimano to SRAM or Campy? Yep, should be possible.
Now, if you crack your carbon frame...well, that's another story.
I hate this trend.
My "gravel bike" is a '90s mountainbike with dirt drop bars.
My "travel bike" is a '90s mountainbike with rack and fenders.
And my "cruiser" is a '90s mountainbike with ape hanger handlebars.
I guess the best thing to do is to research the bikes that do this bullshit and don't buy them.
Since steel frames seem to last forever, Id just get a decades old used bike. Maybe get some new wheels
The vast majority of consumers don’t care. They look for a product which is in their budget, and they think does what they want.
The market will select for companies which and most profitable.
The best thing to do is to pass laws that make this practice of enshitification illegal.
Legislation like that seems reasonable considering the standards that exist for cars and bikes serve literally the same societal purpose as cars.
It's sad, but there is such a small percentage of people that care about this at all. When Shimano announced they where going with a new driver for 12s cassettes called microspline instead of using the standard XD from SRAM I said to myself people won't fall for this crap.. but they did. And now we have three different freehub standards.
I just bought a relatively decent folding bike, a Tern Link C8. Have no idea how repairable it is but it is definitely simpler and better made than my previous bike which was a lectric xp lite which was just getting worse and worse after getting about 800 miles out of it. So I definitely feel like bike makers are following auto makers with this stuff and it sucks.
What I was hoping for was for electric bikes to get cheaper, lighter and more efficient as time went on but it feels like the opposite. Those ebikes are like 3 grand still while the shitty heavy and obtusely designed "cheap" ebikes still cost as much as a decent normal bike. Im happy avoiding ebikes for now which are just glorified motorcycles that still cant keep up with shitty impatient drivers.
This really is a concern.
All the bikes I ride, are still using standard components that are easy to fix/tune/replace at home.
But I'm seeing more and more bikes with great tech, don't get me wrong, but they have a very limited lifespan and almost no longevity in the coming decades.
Meanwhile, my 90's MTB, which goes anywhere and carries anything, has very inexpensive and easily replaceable parts. The only way I could make it even more future-proof is to run a friction shifter on it.
Join the friction shifter gang!
There are so many bike things that I want to try, but have no good way to: friction shifting, single-speed, cargo bike, belt drive, etc...
I keep hearing the dude from The Path Less Pedaled constantly bringing up friction shifters, but they remain a dream for now.
I used friction shifters back when they were all you could get. Click is much nicer. In theory my 10 speed had 10 different gear ratios, but in practice it had 4 as I could never reliably find the 3 middle gears in the back.
I wonder if friction works better when you have fewer gears. That way, you can feel the steps more easily.
Is that possible? I suspect it is, because on my 11-speed Shimano 105, some steps are so similar, that even with an index shifter, you sometimes don't notice the jumps!
You cannot feel the gears with friction shifters. Your move the lever until you hear the change and your legs report a difference. There is zero feedback for your fingers as to what gear you are in. With a click shift you move the lever one click and you move one gear making it easy to select any gear you want.
Of course I'm assuming well adjusted click shifters. My old bike (was 15 years old but the frame cracked so I replaced it last week) the something was not adjusted right and so sometimes I couldn't hit a gear anymore, but it started out very nice for a few years. With my newer bikes the click shifters always put me exactly on the gear I want with no trouble.
Your move the lever until you hear the change and your legs report a difference.
Right, but when you've got something like an 11 or 12 speed cassette, your legs can't really feel much difference between some of the higher gears.
My assumption is that if the difference between the number of teeth is greater (i.e. a wide range cassette with only 6 - 8 cogs), you'll probably be able to feel the difference more easily.
This is why i want to try one! I'd like to actually know what it feels like, rather than assuming.
The great thing about bikes is that there's just... a shitload out there, especially vintage repairable units. And LOTS of vintage frames and parts that are often tossed to the road as trash, just cleanly available to take. It does of course require one to have the drive to do the repairs yourself, but that is another thing; thank goodness DIY bike repair shops exist.
My main bike right now is around 20 years old and is still trucking along. Cars usually don't even last that long lol.
My ~30 year-old MTB cost me $150. Good luck finding a car with that much value! It's already paid for itself twice over in the last year, just from not having to spend it on gas.
And the kicker? The components are dirt cheap compared to modern bike parts. AND I can fix the entire thing at home.
I bought a new cassette, chain and derailleur for my main bike; it's probably 20-30 years old in it's frame and has some signs of wear, but those parts are probably the most I've "invested" in keeping it running well. Compare to a car with new belts, filters, etc. It's crazy our cities are not designed more densely.
My city used to have a tram system until they ripped it out in the 1950s. We've been going backwards in time here in north america.
The additional complexity and manteinance needed by ebikes is the major factor that scares me, more than price.
I want to do as little manteinance to my bike as possible, to be able to do it on my own, and ebikes don't look like something that would allow me to do so, at the moment