Are All Mountain Bikers A-Holes?

Dear Uncle Dave,

When I read the comments under articles online it’s pretty obvious people comment before reading the article a lot of the time. Especially on Facebook. They get phantom offended and say all sorts of ridiculous things and make themselves look like assholes before they even know what the article is about.

Is this unique to mountain bikers? The mountain bikers I know are actually kind of smart (except for the dudes – they are really stupid about women) and they aren’t really assholes (unless you start talking about dumbing down trails or E Bikes).

So what’s the deal? Are most mountain bikers semi-literate homophobic assholes and I just happen to know a few that aren’t? Will they be voting for Ted Cruz? Is there any hope for humanity?

Yours most sincerely,
Hoping All Might Be Facebook’s Fault

Dear Hamface:

I like your question so much.  I hope you are given a fantastic prize for it.  You’re probably not referring specifically to the comments on this here column, but in keeping with tradition, I’m going to make this all about me.  And oh boy, are we ever going to digress.

This may be surprising, but I’m honestly under no illusions that my opinions are particularly valid.  I’m actually kind of surprised that anybody cares what I have to say.  I’m baffled that people keep sending in questions.  And I’m confused that the powers that be keep running the meandering ramblings that I produce (quite frankly…I’m starting to question their motivations). Life is funny, I guess. But I’ve been struggling over the last few weeks. Every time I sit down to write one of these things I’m faced with a gigantic wave of “why bother,” Why bother taking the time to think about a subject and then present your honest thoughts with as much supporting information as you can wrangle, only to be ripped apart by anonymous people who aren’t in any way accountable for what they say?  Why would anybody want to do that?

Let’s take last week’s discussion about tubeless as an example.  Here’s what I think I said:

• I’ve spent a fair amount of time on both set-ups over the last little while
• A really nice, light tubeless set-up can feel amazing …but if I’m honest, I can’t really tell the difference without pulling the tire off the rim
• If you take a moment to think about it, current tubeless technology is pretty crappy
• On my personal bikes, which I hardly ever ride, I haven’t felt it is worth the hassle to make the switch (so don’t feel too badly if you haven’t either)
• You should try it out for yourself and see if it is worth it for you

Based on (some of) the comments, I’m a luddite who doesn’t know his ass from his face because tubeless is the greatest thing ever and how dare I go on a tirade against this wonderful advancement in technology. Maybe the article didn’t read the way I intended? Maybe people misinterpreted what I said? Maybe some didn’t read past the headline? I don’t know.

I struggled with this for a few hours.  I re-read the article to figure out if I’d screwed things up.  I reached out to a few people to see if they had gotten my point. I concluded that I probably could have done a few things to clean it up and make things a bit more clear, but the article was not an attack on tubeless or a suggestion that you shouldn’t be running it. So where did that idea come from? Is it a question of reading comprehension, or attention spans or of not reading the whole article? Or is there something else at play?

My thought is that the world seems to be drifting towards more of a black/white kind of place. Politicians are expected to form an opinion at birth and never waver from it. Every product is either amazing or horrible. People are falling into their echo chambers and there isn’t much room for discussion, dissent or speculation. That’s just weakness, the narrative tells us. Strong people have strong convictions. As a result, we’re now more likely to formulate an opinion, think it is valid for everybody, and stick with it no matter what. If we see something that doesn’t align with what we feel, we’re more likely to ignore what is actually said and respond to what we think was said. Or focus in on the one point that we can argue against. And writers are to blame for this too. Weak opinions and bland conclusions don’t really excite. Polarity is drifting into articles, so why wouldn’t it be present in the comments?

And to throw some further shit on the writers, who are these clowns anyway? I mean, I’m just some jackass explaining that I’m too lazy to pump my tires every ride and who hates having a floor pump banging around in the back seat of his truck. Maybe it’s totally fair for some other jackass to complain about that? I get upset when Sarah Palin proposes building more reservoirs to harness water that doesn’t exist. Why shouldn’t you get upset when an equivalent buffoon challenges your firmly held beliefs about tubeless tires? Maybe the people that we think are idiots with their stupid responses are the ones that are actually getting it? Maybe there is only one valid opinion and it just happens to be yours?

Taking things even further (and this is going to BLOW MINDS!) I don’t particularly feel all that strongly about most of the subjects, opinions and ideas that I’ve expressed over the course of the Uncle Dave series. I can hardly even remember most of them at this point. 90% of the words created for this column, and probably a full 90% of the words ever written about mountain bikes or mountain biking, barely cross the threshold required of “marginal information,” and are worlds away from being anything close to “important facts that matter.” Most of the really interesting thoughts and ideas about bikes are un-printable, and the people that are forming them are probably busy doing other things. Any mountain bike writer who thinks their words are the least bit consequential to the world as a whole is delusional. Anybody getting super upset about these same articles needs more important things to think about.

Back to tubeless for a minute. In the wake of last week’s question, I locked myself in the bathroom and really, really thought about tubeless tires. Am I an idiot for not running them?  Do only noobs run tubes?  Is there something wrong with me? I thought about this, and I came to this conclusion.  And then scrubbed as much of the profanity out of it as I could muster, which makes the whole thing way less fun:

Screw this.  (Oh…I want to swear so badly!)

I don’t care if you think that tubeless tires are the greatest thing ever. Right now, I’m struggling to find a few hours every week to ride my bike. The last thing I want to do is dick around for an evening setting up tubeless tires and then worrying about my air pressure for the entire ride. I want to be able to grab my bike, pull it out of the closet and ride the thing with the minimum of hassles. If that means strapping an extra half pound to my wheels, so be it. I’ve never cared about weight and always leaned towards simplicity and reliability on my builds.

That is my deep down, honest opinion on how I theoretically feel about tubeless tires and if I was sensitive to my own motivations I could probably conclude that I chose to write about this in order to provide a very subtle counterpoint to the thousands of OMG!!! YOU HAVE TO RUN TUBELESS!!!  YOU DON’T RUN TUBELESS?!!!! YOU HAVE TO RUN TUBELESS!!! bits scattered around the internet. And in the end, I didn’t even suggest not running tubeless.

And here’s the really, really stupid thing about this whole discussion.  The bike I’ve been riding for the last 4 months… HAS TUBELESS TIRES ON IT.  The one I rode for 3 months before that had them too.  And the one before that. I’m quite literally riding a bike with tubeless tires on it while people call me out as a moron for not riding tubeless tires. And those tubeless tires have had (most likely) less than a 2.6% impact on the enjoyment I felt while riding those bikes and are totally inconsequential And all I’m left with is shame for expending so much effort on such a frivolous topic.

What I wrote was a thought exercise and an opinion and a justification for the “greatest” not always being the “best”, and for some reason that’s not okay.  Okay?

Sorry…What was your question?
Dave

For so skillfully unlocking Uncle Dave’s rage, Hamface, you win some new skins from Specialized!

Hamface – your prize is a pair of Specialzed Ground Control Tires. Size 650b. Not recommended for your e-commuter.

Send your question to Uncle Dave here. You could get hooked up, or abused. Or both.

Many of us become darker, nastier versions of ourselves online (but not Uncle Dave). We think he needs to grow a thicker skin, and he probably is as we speak.