As any Continental Army regular or John Wayne Bobbitt* will tell you, you don\u2019t want to go off half-cocked, which is is why you shouldn\u2019t buy that exciting new gravel bike you\u2019ve had your eye on<\/a>:<\/p>\n *[I really do deserve a Most Dated References On The Internet Award, or \u201cDatie\u201d]<\/p>\n And yes, that\u2019s Part 2 in the series, which started way back in March of 2025<\/a>:<\/p>\n This means the Bicycling<\/em> magazine subscriber and prospective gravel bike owner has been waiting over a year now for a green light, which raises an important question:<\/p>\n What have they been riding in the meantime?<\/em><\/p>\n Like, are they on some old road bike with rim brakes? No, I doubt anyone who reads Bicycling<\/em> is still using rim brakes. This is because back in 2018, when the UCI legalized disc brakes on road bikes, Bicycling<\/em> ran a program modeled on the many firearm buybacks organized by police departments across the country in which riders could anonymously surrender their dangerously obsolete rim brake bicycles in the name of public safety. They then followed it up with Cash For Mechanical Drivetrains, thereby completely modernizing America\u2019s road bicycle fleet.<\/p>\n As for gravel bikes, apparently that\u2019s more like cryptocurrency. Are we at the bottom, or at the top? How many more wild swings can we expect? Or is it all just going down to zero? If you bought a gravel bike a year or two ago, it\u2019s now worthless<\/a> because it doesn\u2019t fit 50mm tires. But buy a gravel bike with 50mm tire clearance today and it could be obsolete tomorrow because it doesn\u2019t fit 32-inch wheels. Yet you could still buy a 32-inch wheel bike tomorrow and find out six months later they got the geometry all wrong. Or maybe you shouldn\u2019t be looking at gravel bikes at all and should be shopping for drop-bar mountain bikes, which either are gravel bikes or aren\u2019t, depending on who you ask.<\/p>\n Whew!<\/p>\n Meanwhile, having just sold an ISGB for like nineteen bucks and a 12-pack of Pamplemousse LaCroix (how the hell has the National Beverage Corp. not done a commercial for Pamplemousse LaCroix sung to the tune of \u201cCloser To The Heart\u201d by Rush?), I know all to well that the gravel bike market is stagnant. In fact, one year ago I myself warned that the bubble was about to burst<\/a>, citing the glut of gravel conversions as one of several symptoms, and this one<\/a> is still for sale<\/em>:<\/p>\n Not only that, but one pro team will ride Paris-Roubaix this year on an \u201camateur-focused\u201d bike<\/a>:<\/p>\n Shocking:<\/p>\n Now it seems Factor is at it again with a non-standard raceday option for the Queen of the Classics, with the news that Modern Adventure Pro Cycling will race on Sunday aboard the Monza rather than the lighter and more aerodynamic OSTRO VAM.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2026ly boring.<\/p>\n It is ironic that the racing bicycle has been completely reinvented over the last 25 years or so, during which time we went from basically this\u2026<\/p>\n [Via here<\/a>]<\/p>\n \u2026to basically this:<\/p>\n And yet what difference has it made? I guess the average speeds have crept up a little bit, but there are all sorts of contributing factors to that, and no doubt at least some of them are pharmacological. And yet the advancements in rider safety during that have amounted to\u2026well, nothing, apart from helmets becoming mandatory in 2003, which has not made the sport measurably safer, and if anything you\u2019re always reading about how pro cycling is more dangerous than ever<\/a>. <\/p>\n So maybe everyone involved in the sport and the marketing around the sport will realize they\u2019ve taken bike tech as far as they can take it and move on to stuff like developing airbag skinsuits<\/a> instead:<\/p>\n Rider safety does seem like something that deserves more focus than how to remove the hook from a rim in order to make it .000000005% more aerodynamic, though is \u201creducing concerns about crashing\u201d really a good thing?<\/p>\n The suit\u2019s protection is focused on the rib cage and thorax, stabilisation of the neck and spine protection, says Van Rysel. Its \u201cdetection algorithms\u201d are based on more than 450 million kilometres of data, analysing rider movements at 1,000 a second, it adds.<\/em><\/p>\n The team\u2019s CEO Dominique Serieys, says the suit will improve rider performance by reducing mental stress and concerns about crashing.<\/em><\/p>\n Isn\u2019t that called \u201crisk compensation?\u201d Won\u2019t they all just ride around hitting each other like they\u2019re wearing inflatable sumo suits?<\/p>\n If the ultimate goal is \u201creducing mental stress and concerns about crashing\u201d then a shot of whiskey at the start seems like it would be a lot easier.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bikesnobnyc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2026-04-10-081455.png?resize=526%2C744&ssl=1\")
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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nLike this:<\/h3>\n