Atone It Down For Chrissakes!

It’s 2024, and we’ve now reached the purpose the place the biking media considers buying a highway bike with rim brakes so outstanding as to be newsworthy:

Wait a minute. Which traits is he scoffing at? Definitely not the built-in every thing pattern, or the hidden cable pattern, or the plastic bike pattern:

I understand I’m outdated and out of it, however I’ve by no means felt fairly so outdated and out of it as I do at this second. Once I see a photograph like that I feel, “Wow, have a look at the futuristic crabon area bike!” In the meantime, your complete article is about how antiquated the bike is.

Additionally, on a semi-unrelated observe, the biking world actually must get on the identical web page with regard to shifting terminology:

The thumb-actuated lever on a primitive Campagnolo rear mechanical shifting system strikes the chain onto a smaller cog, which is technically an upshift. Nonetheless, you’ve little question observed that when discussing biking folks use the phrases “upshift” and “downshift” interchangeably–which I personally discover irksome, however which is comprehensible when you think about {that a} cassette resembles a slope:

So once you downshift you’re transferring the chain up the slope, and once you upshift you’re transferring the chain down the slope, which I suppose is why folks get confused. Moreover, except you’re utilizing a RapidRise derailleur (or I suppose an digital one), the up/down sense is additional bolstered by the actual fact you’re bodily pulling the derailleur and hoisting the chain as much as a bigger cog once you’re downshifting, and also you’re releasing it and letting it drop the chain “down” to a smaller cog when upshifting. So sure, every thing concerning the act of downshifting a bicycle form of screams “up,” and vice versa.

None of that is actually a difficulty in automobiles, the place the transmission is hidden from view, the gears are numbered, and those you utilize once you’re going quick have an even bigger quantity than those you utilize once you’re going gradual. It’s additionally not an issue with bikes, the place you truly carry the shifter up together with your foot to upshift, and down together with your foot to downshift. (Sure, you do push down together with your foot to go from impartial to first, however no matter.) So actually it’s solely with bicycles that individuals appear to confuse the idea of upshifting with the idea of downshifting.

Given this, perhaps we have to change the terminology. As a curmudgeon, the concept of doing so bothers me, as I resent altering language simply to make issues simpler for individuals who refuse to grapple with uncomfortable truths. On the similar time, continually seeing folks confer with upshifts as downshifts and downshifts as upshifts makes me uncomfortable, and finally it’s my very own consolation that’s most essential. Moreover, laypeople have already solved this downside, for you’ll little question have observed that common people merely name the decrease gears the “simpler” gears and the upper gears the “more durable” gears. So perhaps it’s so simple as that.

However that is bikes we’re speaking about, and issues aren’t allowed to be easy. You don’t simply have fats tires and thin tires; you’ve got highway tires, and all-road tires, and gravel tires, and cyclocross tires, and… Given this, it’s clear that when discussing shifting we have to transfer away from adverbs and prepositions and adjectives altogether and as an alternative describe a extremely particular set of makes use of and terrains to each conceivable gear ratio. That method once you hit the thumb lever on a Campagnolo system you gained’t be “upshifting;” as an alternative, you’ll be “transferring the gear selector into descent mode.” This may also work nice for digital programs, which I think about will quickly be little dials with photos on them identical to trendy automotive transmissions.

All of this will probably be justified as one thing that can make biking extra “inclusive” and “beginner-friendly,” and folks will finally come to understand the necessity to banish phrases like “up” and “down” altogether as they’re clearly discriminatory and suggest one gear is one way or the other higher than the opposite.

And in case you assume I’m overthinking all this, you’re proper, however we’re cyclists and it’s our job to overthink issues. Take into account this opinion piece about “ultra-distance” biking occasions instituting “no-fly insurance policies:”

That is savvy advertising on the organizers’ half, who clearly perceive that, just like the bar that payments itself as a “speakeasy,” the extra inaccessible and inconvenient one thing is the cooler it turns into:

Although in fact the ostensible cause is that they’re involved about their “carbon footprint:”

That is an extremely harmful precedent, as a result of it’s solely a matter of time earlier than the Tour de France adopts this, and we’re at most 5 years away from a tie-dye jersey for the brand new Smuggest Rider competitors:

Extra competitions will inevitably observe:

And earlier than you realize it everybody’s a winner:

Moralizing over pointless feats of ultra-recreation is self-indulgent, sure:

However extra self-indulgent is seeing a very good life and the arduous work of your dad and mom as one thing that must be atoned for and “undone:”

Sins of the daddy??? He was an airline pilot! What was his crime? Flying Carlton Reid round?

By the best way, the excellent news for the writer is that God walked again that entire “sins of the daddy shall be visited upon the son” factor, so fly wherever you need:

That mentioned, anybody who nonetheless feels responsible ought to be at liberty to ship any unused frequent flier miles my method.