A couple of months ago, I installed a new Shimano 105 R7000 drivetrain on my Milwaukee:
In so doing, I preserved in amber (though technically the bike’s color is copper) the very last “legitimate*” mechanical rim brake road bike drivetrain offering from Shimano.
*[The first thing all novices learn is that you need to have at least 105, if not Ultegra or Dura-Ace, even though it’s completely untrue.]
Thankfully, professional women cyclists no longer have to suffer this same indignity:
Instead, they now have access to the same crap their male counterparts are using:
I’m sorry, rim brakes and mechanical groupsets arre not “designed for the rigors of a professional racing season?” Really???
But this is?
Amazing, I had exactly the same problem with the Clem last weekend:
[Photo: Dan Leto]
Just kidding!
Here’s Dan, by the way:
[Photo: Tanley Tenovo]
He’s sitting because the battery on his e-Silver electronic friction shifter died:
[Rivendell e-Silver Shifter: no indexing, all electric]
Oh yeah, you didn’t know I was out there to test the latest Rivendell electronic stuff?**
You’ll read all about it on Escape Collective soon.
**[I shouldn’t even have to say it, but obviously this is not true…though I do expect something similar from Growtac at any moment. It’s perfect for their growing line of needlessly complicated shifters.]
Come to think of it, I had a bike with electronic shifting for a little while…
…and while I admit I never had any real problems with it, every time I removed the rear wheel the skewer nut would catch the rear derailleur’s power cable and unplug it, which I’d never notice until I started riding again and tried to shift.
Fortunately, the bicycle industry has since addressed this by doing away with the utterly reliable and wildly convenient quick release skewer and replacing it with a large bolt:
Problem solved.
And yes, wireless also solves this, just like it will solve the internally-routed cable problem when wireless brakes finally hit the market:
Granted, this article is almost a year now, but the question isn’t if wireless brakes are coming, the question is what kind of shoes will roadies and mountain bike bros choose to wear when it finally does so they can most effectively run over their own mothers as they run out to buy it?
And if you’re worried about wireless brakes, you shouldn’t be, because they’re already in use on cars and planes, duh:
Planes??? Wright Brothers aside, what the hell do planes have to do with bikes? You know what else is in use on planes? Vacuum toilets and passive-aggressive flight attendants.
Clearly we should use those on our bikes too.
Finally, I’m reluctant to share this story because it’s so awful, but a woman was brutally attacked for her e-bike on Randall’s Island:
Curmudgeonly kvetching about rider behavior is one thing, but violent theft is the real ugly side of the e-bike explosion.
