I believe those are aero shoe covers. Even worse.
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That’s the thing. If they tell the parks dept, they’ll have to get permission to do it and that will involve closing trails and paying money for permits and such. And there’s likely no way in hell the parks dept would actually let it happen.
It’s a guerilla ride. And as such, folks need to be prepared for backlash.
There are a surprising number of these guys in my region. Large muscular men that didn’t/don’t road ride and seem to be a different type than MTB guys. I haven’t been in a position to ask how they ended up in the niche but I’m extremely curious.
We’re all inclusive or whatever but if you have no problem bench pressing 1.5x your bodyweight? Specifically what marketing grabbed you and got you to spend high 4 figures on a bike and gear, and hundreds of hours training, to ride gravel?
Making the hardcore metal gesture while riding a bike in a calm pastoral setting. Hey, if this is edgy sport for you, go for it. Kind of like shotgunning ginger beer and smashing the can into your forehead.
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I’ve never tried to shotgun a ginger beer but I have the feeling that it’s worse than a real beer.
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ok the funny part about that photo is that the dude is not only wearing tall socks and shoe covers but they are the most pristine white that any sock has ever been.
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“new jersey man”
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Take this with a kind and jovial tone, but that is a terrible analogy. None of the bikes in either equation is thousands of pounds and traveling over 30mph.
I’m not going to completely discount your argument, but as an organizer of unsanctioned rides, I get that some unfortunate friction is inevitable.
However, the reality is that parks are for people, and as long as you are following the rules of the park and doing your best to not harm the experience of others, there’s not much argument to be made. Yes, a large spike in a particular type of use on a particular day can alter someone’s experience, but that’s life.
My daily commute takes me through a park that on Saturdays has a farmers’ market. On those days, I have to either slow down significantly or take an alternate route. That’s life.
Also, people are going to hate bikes in parks no matter what they are doing, so fuck em.
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do the people that throw tennis balls to their dogs on soccer fields get mad when a soccer game shows up? i suspect not. so i’m not sure why a band of cyclists should make anyone more mad than that.
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Both of y’all are using examples involving sanctioned activities. The farmers market has permission and pays for permits to block portions of the park. The soccer field is specifically designed for soccer and probably actually has rules saying no dogs allowed that the dog people are ignoring.
you’ve never seen pickup soccer?
the battle between tennis and pickleball is another good example. there are shared spaces. not everyone necessarily likes each other. but everyone can use the space.
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Kyle. The entire purpose of the permit system is to deny access to public spaces in wealthy areas for people without the financial or political backing of the bourgeois fucks that treat public land like their private parks.
The dirty chilly would never be given a permit.
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i lost a lot of respect for permitting when our cross country ski club had a huge week-one showing in a local park. probably 60+ kids and including parents, over 100 people. literally in a field that gets zero use, parked in an expansive lot that was not near capacity.
the parks department sat in their pickup truck and leaned on the horn and then yelled at me and a few other volunteers HEY. HEY. HEY. with no specific request.
i went to talk to them. they just went straight to 100 about needing a permit, who’s in charge, we can’t be here.
why can’t we be here? it’s a park. it’s not like we’ve set up a festival tent with generators and food trucks and porta potties. it’s a two hour gathering.
anyways, i told them it’s not a “gathering of over 40 people” it’s six separate gatherings as referenced by the clearly distinct six separate groups of kids all over the field.
like what are we doin here. people can’t just use a park?
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I think I’ve become that old man shouting at clouds.
Looking at the new Panorama Taiga EXP, it’s called a ‘touring bike’.
Yeah, a touring bike with a 75º seat tube. Remember our track bike days? I do, on my Soma Rush with the 75º seat tube that made my hands numb unless I was practically sprinting the entire ride.
Drop bar tourer? The reach on the XL is 451mm. By comparison, a drop-bar touring specific mountain bike, the Stargazer, has a reach of 405mm. That’s almost two Freedom Inches, which is a larger increase in distance from the size Small to XL.
It’s clearly a freakin’ flat bar rigid trail bike with a steep seat tube that can be converted into a ‘progressive geo’ drop bar trail bike.
Am I out of touch? No, it’s the children Panorama who are wrong.
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Tarckelbee for double Simpsons reference in a single post.
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Seems like they’re counting on people not knowing or caring about details like seat tube angle. Curious if the flat/drop bar thing was the idea from the start.
Yeah… I never wanna yuck anyone’s yum but I just see bikes like those and don’t understand who they’re for. Like. Who wants more weight on their hands when shredding a rigid bike?
That being said I quite like my steep seat tube angle on my Starling but that’s a completely different horse for a different course.
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steep seat tube is the trend for climbing but don’t forget the assumption that if you’re not going up, your going down and have your seat dropped. Long reach is counteracted by short stem, and you need weight on your hands to get weight on the front wheel because of the long front center. Needless to say both these geo choices kind of suck for riding on flat roads …. unless you get your dork on with aerobars
Those drop bars though, I cannot understand
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Is this bad?
They share the same geometry, but Panorama explained that enough people were asking for both handlebar options that they decided to offer them as standard options.
There are some number of people who want a dropbar trail bike for bikepacking or whatever. The dropbar model with carbon fork is only a $417 upcharge over the Deore flatbar model, which also has a steel fork. That’s a pretty good deal for someone who wants this type of bike.
The geometry isn’t any more outrageous than any number of flat-bar MTBs relative to what they used to be. With the massive stack there isn’t really any issue with close to zero stem length. I don’t think people really know enough to decide what they want, or what is the average geometry to make these sorts of bikes ride well.
The more recent round-ups for TDR and so forth make it clear that many people have no problem riding whack hacked together dropbar MTBs for ultra-packing events. A lot of these bikes look like they ride like complete shit but good luck finding anyone honest about the handling. My own dropbar MTB adventures have produced 3 bikes that were awesome and 1 bike that has a very narrow window of performance handling.
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As if the steep seat angle wasn’t enough, then they go and put a 120mm fork spec on the Taiga and it’s clear it’s trail first…touring afterthought. the squish fork spec debate on a tourer is 0 v 100mm….and I’m glad there’s all those options in the marketplace as some hands/wrists/terrain call for it .
As someone who just sold a steep SA mtb for a PBJ, I can honestly say that I’d rather make do with a 74 bike on the steeper singletrack that put up with a 75+ bike on the flat…especially when the sag of a 120mm+ fork is involved.
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