July 9, 2014, 9:53 a.m. -  Cam McRae

#!markdown The biggest point Dave is making is that consumers have largely given up on questioning the industry. When I was a kid people were skeptical about advertising but that seems to have been beaten out of us as well. Not long ago I saw an ad by Gillette telling consumers to change our blades more often. They were losing sales because the blades didn't wear out fast enough. There was a time when they would have boasted about this longevity instead of trying to coerce you to change them more often. Another point is that innovation isn't always innovation. Sometimes it's marketing. 15mm, as mentioned above, is a great example. It's not as stiff but it's no lighter. You'll notice 35mm bars and tapered head tubes proliferating I imagine? Because, up to a point, you can increase strength by increasing diameter without a weight penalty. So you can decrease diameter and compromise stiffness without a weight advantage. Everybody wins! And many press fit bottom brackets are turning out to be problematic in terms of durability while being more difficult to service. While you correctly say that bike technology has made great leaps in recent years, the equation isn't quite as simple as you make it out to be.