samc
Retro Guru
At the risk of sounding old and rose-tinted... remember looking at brochures that listed bike weights? Or going into a shop and being amazed at the 22lb label on the almost-affordable Orange?
I went into a Cannondale shop a few weeks back and a Giant shop today, and found that nothing had weights on, and when pressed the guy would grudgingly weigh the £1.2k bike and proudly say it weighed ... almost 30lbs.
30lbs?! What has happened to manufacturing and retail that's made mid-range bikes so heavy and over-engineered? It's weird. I told him I've built a 90s sub-24lb Kona for £300, and although clearly it wasn't as strong as the latest stuff, the only thing he could show me which matched the weight was £3.5k.
So a 19 year-old steel Kona weighs the same as a brand new carbon fibre Giant that costs 10 times the amount. Clearly the Giant has a few more gears, much better brakes, three times the amount of suspension travel, and isn't covered in crap, but still. It's a bit like finding the latest supercars aren't any faster 0-60 than your 1963 Morris Minor.
Maybe I am just getting old and whingey. Time for my bath.
I went into a Cannondale shop a few weeks back and a Giant shop today, and found that nothing had weights on, and when pressed the guy would grudgingly weigh the £1.2k bike and proudly say it weighed ... almost 30lbs.
30lbs?! What has happened to manufacturing and retail that's made mid-range bikes so heavy and over-engineered? It's weird. I told him I've built a 90s sub-24lb Kona for £300, and although clearly it wasn't as strong as the latest stuff, the only thing he could show me which matched the weight was £3.5k.
So a 19 year-old steel Kona weighs the same as a brand new carbon fibre Giant that costs 10 times the amount. Clearly the Giant has a few more gears, much better brakes, three times the amount of suspension travel, and isn't covered in crap, but still. It's a bit like finding the latest supercars aren't any faster 0-60 than your 1963 Morris Minor.
Maybe I am just getting old and whingey. Time for my bath.