Do i have the bike for you!
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It’s irritating that Lael Wilcox got a same-day front page article for winning Unbound XL last year on both the Radavist & Bikepacking.com but this year it’s complete silence for winner Cynthia Frazier.
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gravelgravelgravelgravelgravelgravelgravelgravelgravelgravelgravelgravel
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… gravel
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NYT boldly reporting on hot trends from a decade ago.
Surest sign that something has at best plateaued is the big feature on it in the Times.
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These new kids don’t know. They never used a bash guard and cut up derailleur for chain retention to do 1x
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my old coworker at EMS left a ton of feature stickers on my cobbled together rockhopper one day. he labeled that the “ultra inactive one sided front un-derailleur”. fucker worked.
See also their crypto “explainer” article (which was total trash from a crypto head) that ran in march.
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Road racing is basically dead in Oregon, now. We have tons of fondos/gravel events, however.
I’d been wondering if it was just a permitting thing. It would make sense that a promoter could run an event on less-traveled roads and not get a lot of push back from the locals.
This is 45% of the reason. Permits to close down roads are fucking expensive. The other 45% is the costs to have police be on site and enforce the closing of the roads. Then the last 10% is the added stress of people waiting till the very last minute to register and not knowing if you just spent $10k plus for 30 people to race.
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the few times I’ve been vaguely involved in hosting a road race, I saw the tab we racked up for the cops to be on site (aka sit in their car at one intersection for X hours) for and my jaw dropped
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Who would have thought a protection racket could be lucrative.
Nice bike race you have here, shame if someone drove an suv through it
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I assume this was seen?
Weird read. Like, don’t jocks and dentists eventually take over basically any organized cycling event? I got yelled at to move over for a paceline in ragbrai in like 2014. Seems like you can show up and ride your ride and not get freaked out about a $8000 road bike ruining your event
Also lolling remembering “the pro” Juan Pelota always showing up to do a day of ragbrai. Goddamnit stop ruining my drinking event you freakin racers!!
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jocks take over a lot of niche physical activities/hobbies and can sometimes push out the previous, actual enthusiasts – examples i’ve seen include ultimate frisbee, long-distance skateboarding, downriver kayak racing, etc
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Several events around here cancelled specifically because of cop fees
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The idea that organized go fast bike rides only became less inclusive recently is a fucking joke. Go fast cycling groups of any kind typically start off as repellently exclusive and judgmental in my experience. Hey are designed to exclude
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I don’t think this is universal. But definitely common.
Bikesnob (I think) dug into the pass/fail nature of many cycling disciplines and how they are not so much exclusive by design, but rather exclusive in nature. I think there’s a distinction to be made there.
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Yup. Most experienced roadies I first interacted with were nice and supportive, and when the morning ride out split into two groups at the first breakaway I watched them disappear over the horizon. Not being rude, just practicing the sport at a different level.
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