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Oxford Professor: Cycling is 10 times more important than electric cars for reaching net-zero cities
(theconversation.com)
this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2025
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Modern bikes are beyond insane. Like, $10K to $15K is considered normal and appropriate - just to get disc brakes, electronic shifting, internally-routed cabling etc. Meanwhile I look for '90s era hybrids on Craigslist for $50 or thereabouts and get thousands of miles out of them - and somehow I'm still able to shift gears and stop when necessary.
I’m an avid cyclist and I would never spend 10k on a bike. For my nice favorite bike it was $2500. I commute on a vintage road bike and it works great, it was $200 on fb marketplace.
Like, with downtube shifters? I obviously like to poo-poo advanced bike technology, but indexed shifting is one thing I'm hugely in favor of.
Yeah it’s a Bianchi Europa. I guess the downtube shifters are bearable for me if I’m not racing. Especially since if it gets stolen I only lose $200. And I guess the $200 of work I put into it for funsies lol.
Agree. I saw a review of an e-bike that could ring using an alarm if you didn't find it or something. Why?!
We need to develop e-bike and cargo-bike vehicules to be fully inclusive to people who can use regular mecanical bike but why make it full of electronics and computer? They only needs lightings and a motor, that's not rocket-science.
Electronic shifting?
Yeah, like the derailleur is moved by a little electric motor instead of by cable. So you can control it with your phone - which is considered important for some reason.
As I understand it, the gears always being perfectly indexed is the big selling point for electronic gears.
I wouldn't know since I run mechanical, but this is what I've heard.
I mean, in 40+ years of bike riding (always mechanical) I've never had a problem with the indexing on shifters. At most I occasionally have to click a lever twice instead of once, or twist the handlebar a bit more. It just seems like a (very expensive) solution in search of a problem.
You've never used the barrel adjuster in 40 years of riding?
Yeah, never. I don't even know how to use it. I just get my bikes tuned up at the local bike shop every year. FWIW I'm kind of embarrassed by my lack of bike mechanic knowledge, and I recently bought an old Diamondback for commuting with the goal of doing all the work on it myself.
No need to be embarrassed. Basically you turn it to get your gears to index properly, which prevents the need to push a bit extra on the shifting levers to actually get the gears to shift.
You can try it yourself by turning a bit in one direction and then seeing if the gears shift better - look for no sounds being present and the shift completing without any additional push. If it got worse, then turn the other direction. Seems a lot more intimidating than it actually is.
I used to be woefully deficient in mechanic knowledge, but then I started going to the local coop bike workshop, which is probably one of my favourite places in the world.
Oh my god
Wow. I bought my city ebike for about $2K and it’s served me fine. I’ve maybe spent $50 in maintenance in the year since, and $200 in cycling gear.