There was a whole section/segue in the original draft of this about how setup never used to be an issue with rigid bikes, that we could obsess about saddle tilt and bar roll and lever position and all the other "small picture" details but the bike handling traits were for all intents and purposes set in stone. That led to a wormhole about the whole notion of rider preference and how it may or may not diverge from designer intent and manufacturer recommendation, amid the highly variable dynamic of using front and rear suspension sag to totally alter the way a bike can behave on so many different levels, but then the wormhole kind of began to collapse in on itself so I just avoided it altogether...
July 18, 2024, 8:43 a.m. - Mike Ferrentino
There was a whole section/segue in the original draft of this about how setup never used to be an issue with rigid bikes, that we could obsess about saddle tilt and bar roll and lever position and all the other "small picture" details but the bike handling traits were for all intents and purposes set in stone. That led to a wormhole about the whole notion of rider preference and how it may or may not diverge from designer intent and manufacturer recommendation, amid the highly variable dynamic of using front and rear suspension sag to totally alter the way a bike can behave on so many different levels, but then the wormhole kind of began to collapse in on itself so I just avoided it altogether...