I agree with this overall. However, I think one issue is that for racers "fun" in the classical sense isn't actually their goal. That causes their bikes to get made so they can rail corners, handle steeps and do whatever else as fast as possible, damn the ergonomics. Then that race bike (enduro, xc, whatever) becomes a bike that I can buy and I think to myself "I like going fast, fast is fun" so all the fit compromises made in the quest for speed seem like they might be reasonable tradeoffs. In many cases those compromises may add some negligible amount to the actual cornering speed, especially for someone like me who will never be on their level, and the costs are meaningful and felt on a two hour ride so it's a bad tradeoff for the general population, but (collectively) we're dumb and bad at making beneficial decisions when we don't actually understand what we're trying to balance. And to the articles point, marketing generally tries to keep those comprimises out of sight and out of mind.
Oct. 7, 2022, 11:42 a.m. - shenzhe
I agree with this overall. However, I think one issue is that for racers "fun" in the classical sense isn't actually their goal. That causes their bikes to get made so they can rail corners, handle steeps and do whatever else as fast as possible, damn the ergonomics. Then that race bike (enduro, xc, whatever) becomes a bike that I can buy and I think to myself "I like going fast, fast is fun" so all the fit compromises made in the quest for speed seem like they might be reasonable tradeoffs. In many cases those compromises may add some negligible amount to the actual cornering speed, especially for someone like me who will never be on their level, and the costs are meaningful and felt on a two hour ride so it's a bad tradeoff for the general population, but (collectively) we're dumb and bad at making beneficial decisions when we don't actually understand what we're trying to balance. And to the articles point, marketing generally tries to keep those comprimises out of sight and out of mind.