Keo Spin
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I can’t be bothered to read deeply enough to see if this is lamenting a lack of innovation or is it a lack of whimsy
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I mean, he isn’t wrong. I’ve been to several Euro shows and the stuff they are putting out (at the show) is much more experimental and interesting to look at. That doesn’t make MADE/USA framebuilders worse than Euro ones - just different. I honestly don’t have the bandwidth to get into why nor do I really want to, but it would be nice to have more facts, figures, graphs, or whatever to back up some claims and have more substance beyond vibes.
I’d also love a Euro perspective on this. For example, someone brings a F&F-era Nissan GTR to an American car show, people lose their shit. But in Japan, they are not uncommon. If I brought my 2002 Pontiac Grand Prix to a Japan car show, people would be enthralled by it bc they’ve never seen one before, but over here it’s whatever.
I would love to show at Bespoked Dresden, but it is basically at the same time as MADE which makes logistics a PITA.
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It’s hard to think about this without reduction to zero because:
Everything that changed the way I ride already existed in slightly less optimized form. Although I’m engaged with only a small slice of cycling in general over a relatively short period.
Hydroformed aluminum tubing reduced aluminum frame failures by some significant factor, specifics of which I don’t remember. That seems pretty innovative but did it change the way anyone rode?
The things that helped me achieve a higher plane do not seem innovative, even if they were all new products at time of my adoption:
Off-road worthy fenders
Wide clearance road-style bikes
Wide fast tubeless tires
Wide range RDs
Standard fit production racks, and universal fit bikepacking bags
Rack spacing standards were innovative?
The availability of a wider variety of bicycles that are more functional in their niche? I have this book from 2014 and it’s basically 50 custom road bike builders making bikes that max at a 28mm tire; and 30 fly-by-night multi-colored fixie brands. Reading the book makes the industry seem completely dead, uninspired. It’s hard to look at what is available today and say there is little or no innovation, in the mass-market normie space.
It’s actually a poorly disguised missive about old mountain bikes.
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Definitely one of those nothing is truly new in cycling things, vintage trick cycling which kind of became artistic cycling was doing that stuff decades earlier.
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None of these came from boutique builders
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Yeah, which is why the article seems so silly. The lack of examples diminishes whatever point he may have had to nothing.
Would the Madrone RD count? Would the Growtac shifters count?
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Disagree. Every major innovation to off-road cycling started in the hands of small builders before widespread acceptance by the industry.
see: mountain bikes, gravel bikes, fat bikes etc etc.
I mean..Endpoint was literally a response to the lack of what we now take for granted as a massive segment.
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I think events like the Tour Divide really did kickstart some of those things. Riders were doing that on 29ers they found lacking and had boutique builders make bikes or components that would work better together, leading directly to the proliferation of wide-tired adventure bikes, bikepacking bags.
Three-pack rack mounts evolved from boutique 2xbottle cage bosses + 1clamp mount cargo cages didn’t they?
Edit: thinking of how long it took for big mfers to finally make their mountain danglers and cassettes compatible with their drop-bar brifters. Boutique adapters and garage hacks were making those combos out of necessity well before Shimano and SRAM caught on.
Double edit: Hat tip to tandem riders and companies tho, who were also working on drop bar shifters + mountain drivetrain early on.
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all three of those were weirdos repurposing things in their garages.
and there where like three fatbikes before surly took the risk on rolling rims and tires.
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I recognize this part of the equation, but I also think about the flip side of the coin, which is that a framebuilder in the EU de-facto has like social insurance (unemployment benefits, etc) and health insurance. The US folks are either playing their luck, working other/full-time jobs, or maybe coming from a position of privilege. Seems a lot easier to be a small proprietor in the EU from that perspective. Not that I disagree with your position at all.
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I think the ‘innovation’ is being under-sold.
Product innovation doesn’t necessarily mean ‘bringing something to the world that never existed before’, it can mean ‘changing the way things are done in a way that benefits customers and creates profit and/or growth’. It often means cross-pollination from an outside place, bringing something that’s typical elsewhere, that’s novel - or an improvement - to the status quo.
Sometimes, an innovation can mean less things - look at Wahoo, they took a huge chunk of the market from Garmin by having fewer features and less capability on the device, just done better with a nicer and easier user experience. Moving the config to a phone app enabled that.
So, don’t knock the stuff that’s coming in incrementally. Those add up over time.
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It’s fun to contextualize innovations (if you will) from grassroots ditherers among innovations (if you will) that seemed to appear spontaneously out of the major manufacturers. Zertz inserts, anyone?
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Innovations should be categorized
- Competitive racing tech (carbon, tubeless tires, hydro brakes, clipless, brifter, 650b/29/32 etc)
- Manufacturing tech (threadless headsets, hydroformed alu, monocoque carbon)
- Rider utility tech (bakfiets, xtracycle, minivelo, folding bike, fatbike, ebike)
How many of these are forced on us? How many are things we’re sold on because they add convenience and make riding easier? How many are things we’re sold on because they make life easier?
We shouldn’t take the first 2 categories for granted, but more in the last category please
For sure me too. Trying to figure out where TPU tubes goes, probably manufacturing tech (haven’t tried them yet though).
highlight → copy quote → edit post → paste
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Tubeless 100% makes riding more convenient for me
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I just thought it was funny that one of the strengths was machining dropouts and whatnot in house, when I assumed that was a product of paragon becoming cost-ineffective for Europeans given tariffs and exchange rate changes. I don’t really want my frame to have a bunch of one-off parts if it means I can repair and replace things more easily 5-10 years down the line. Same for the dig on many frame builders moving to a production/non-custom model - I’d file that under innovation if it means more people have access to these bikes (when I picked up the retrotec Curtis was talking about starting the production lineup and how first impressions are how much it speeds things up for him - definitely sounded like an improvement in work-life management and avoiding burnout)
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I think that the torque-sensing ebike motors should have been a game-changing innovation for bikes but ebikes writ large transitioned straight into e-moped shit bikes so fast. This seems to be another thing that the Europeans got right first but that also circles back to the Euros biking differently than we do in the States
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This^^^^^^^^
can I use your rollgabelschlüssel