I hear what you're saying. I think for the most part, we have created a functional aesthetic with bicycles. We're guided a bit too much by what other people are doing, or what we're supposed to be doing, but most of what we think looks correct is that way because it's what we feel works. It just takes some time to get there.
We have a lot of pride in these bicycles. We put a lot of money and effort into them, and slapping something on them that looks wrong can hurt a bit. Should it? Probably not, but what are you going to do? To a certain degree, we all care what these things look like and we all subscribe to the way things should be. I'd say it's part of our job to nudge that in the right direction every so often. We get to try the goofy shit so that you don't have to take the risk.
If I wasn't able to find something that worked as well as those goofy commuter grips, I would probably still be running them. I was planning on giving them one final ride before I published this piece, just because, but I'm in the midst of a whole bunch of bike changes and I'm trying to keep it to one change per ride and I ran out of time. But there's a bunch of options in here that work as well, or as well as I remember, and look a whole lot less goofy, so I'm going to go with that.
Sept. 19, 2022, 2:54 p.m. - Dave Tolnai
I hear what you're saying. I think for the most part, we have created a functional aesthetic with bicycles. We're guided a bit too much by what other people are doing, or what we're supposed to be doing, but most of what we think looks correct is that way because it's what we feel works. It just takes some time to get there. We have a lot of pride in these bicycles. We put a lot of money and effort into them, and slapping something on them that looks wrong can hurt a bit. Should it? Probably not, but what are you going to do? To a certain degree, we all care what these things look like and we all subscribe to the way things should be. I'd say it's part of our job to nudge that in the right direction every so often. We get to try the goofy shit so that you don't have to take the risk. If I wasn't able to find something that worked as well as those goofy commuter grips, I would probably still be running them. I was planning on giving them one final ride before I published this piece, just because, but I'm in the midst of a whole bunch of bike changes and I'm trying to keep it to one change per ride and I ran out of time. But there's a bunch of options in here that work as well, or as well as I remember, and look a whole lot less goofy, so I'm going to go with that.