Quinney's piece is written from a selfish, meritocratic standpoint. "I want the best because I deserve it!". As I commented there, seems like he thinks all MTB happens at bike parks, with bike shops at the bottom sorted well enough to be able to have him back in the saddle in just a matter of minutes if he breaks something. Or he believes his privileged position as a reviewer on a MTB themed website, with free replacement parts just a Facetime call away, is the new yardstick. Classic bellybutton staring syndrome right there.
Seems like he never did multi-day alpine trips, delving into the wild with 10 more people and their bikes. When access to spare parts and reliability matter, standards become important. So you don't have to haul a monowheel trailer topped with every single spoke length/gauge, different headset parts, brake pads, etc. Right now my riding crew still features a few 26", 1⅛ headset equipped bikes. What should we do, tell them to stay home because of their outdated stuff? Tell them to find a better job to be able to afford a "current standards" bike?
Also, what about all those riders in non-central/first world countries, shall we all suffer to find some not-so-obscure spare part* simply because some gimp at pinkbike wants to have the latest and greatest? Outside North America, Europe and Australia bikes and spare parts distribution is a convoluted mess. You can argue about online shopping and how it made the world smaller, but that still means if I break something I'm not able to replace by walking into a local bike shop or logging into a national web shop, I'll have to stay off the bike for an uncertain amount of time until said part arrives here and clears the Customs office. Not to mention the added shipping/customs/taxes cost.
*I'm looking at you Giant, with your stupid Overdrive steerers/headsets/stems!!!
Also, as @papa44 said:
![](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/standards.png)
Aug. 25, 2021, 2:10 a.m. - Luix
Quinney's piece is written from a selfish, meritocratic standpoint. "I want the best because I deserve it!". As I commented there, seems like he thinks all MTB happens at bike parks, with bike shops at the bottom sorted well enough to be able to have him back in the saddle in just a matter of minutes if he breaks something. Or he believes his privileged position as a reviewer on a MTB themed website, with free replacement parts just a Facetime call away, is the new yardstick. Classic bellybutton staring syndrome right there. Seems like he never did multi-day alpine trips, delving into the wild with 10 more people and their bikes. When access to spare parts and reliability matter, standards become important. So you don't have to haul a monowheel trailer topped with every single spoke length/gauge, different headset parts, brake pads, etc. Right now my riding crew still features a few 26", 1⅛ headset equipped bikes. What should we do, tell them to stay home because of their outdated stuff? Tell them to find a better job to be able to afford a "current standards" bike? Also, what about all those riders in non-central/first world countries, shall we all suffer to find some not-so-obscure spare part* simply because some gimp at pinkbike wants to have the latest and greatest? Outside North America, Europe and Australia bikes and spare parts distribution is a convoluted mess. You can argue about online shopping and how it made the world smaller, but that still means if I break something I'm not able to replace by walking into a local bike shop or logging into a national web shop, I'll have to stay off the bike for an uncertain amount of time until said part arrives here and clears the Customs office. Not to mention the added shipping/customs/taxes cost. *I'm looking at you Giant, with your stupid Overdrive steerers/headsets/stems!!! Also, as @papa44 said: ![](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/standards.png)