{"id":245282,"date":"2026-05-26T11:36:54","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T11:36:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/26\/please-just-make-it-stop\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T11:36:54","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T11:36:54","slug":"please-just-make-it-stop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/26\/please-just-make-it-stop\/","title":{"rendered":"Please Just Make It Stop"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

I can\u2019t anymore, I just can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

It happens every time I take a vacation or there\u2019s a long weekend. After a few days off I feel rested and rejuvenated\u2013so much so I promise myself I\u2019m going to ditch all the complaining and the negativity and focus on everything that makes cycling so wonderful. Then I begin a new post with the best intentions, only to immediately come across something like this<\/a>:<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

I was already angry last week when the industry decided 60mm tires are the new 50mm tires<\/a>. (The 50mm gravel tire trend appears to have lasted exactly one season.) And the whole \u201caero gravel\u201d thing has always been annoying, because it makes about as much sense as scented toilet paper. So the fact that we\u2019re already up to 66mm tires was infuriating enough, but I think \u201cmicro aero\u201d enhancements may have been what finally broke me:<\/p>\n

\n

The seatstays are thin to improve compliance (and, their words, have \u201cmicro aero\u201d enhancements). That\u2019s paired with a 27.2 seatpost for more compliance, and there\u2019s routing for droppers if you want to add one.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Because you need \u201cmicro aero enhancements\u201d on a bike with 2.6-INCH WIDE MOUNTAIN BIKE TIRES.<\/p>\n

So, to recap:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 2026, AI is running rampant, trends get grafted onto other trends like some sort of SEO fever dream, bikes are modeled on computers and then emailed overseas where they\u2019re made out of plastic, and the result of all this is overpriced mismatched grotesqueries like this.<\/p>\n

And as I\u2019m sure I\u2019ve noted before, \u201cOpen WIDE\u201d is the most obnoxious name in cycling, even more so than ENVE, the implication being that you, the consumer, should just Open WIDE and take it, you filthy dirty gravel trend whore.<\/p>\n

It just makes me want to retreat deep within myself and ride bikes with limited tire clearance, rim brakes and triple drivetrains entirely out of spite:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

And to revel in the delightful obsolescence of over-geared bicycles with friction shifting and non-slant parallelogram derailleurs:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

By the way, when the Cervino first came to me it looked like this<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

And the reason I kept it instead of returning it to Classic Cycle<\/a> was that it was the quintessence of a classic road bike, plus I liked that it was a Viner disguised as a Nishiki, since I enjoy the irony of most people dismissing it for an old crappy 10-speed. Also, I like to pretend that one day I\u2019ll get to go back to It\u2019ly and ride L\u2019Eroica<\/a> again, though the days when people used to invite me places are long gone:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

[Wrinkly elbows being thrown at the water fountain at L\u2019Eroica. Many of these participants are so old they don\u2019t realize it\u2019s a theme ride.]<\/p>\n

And yes, I could organize and finance my own trip to L\u2019Eroica, but let\u2019s get real here:<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

[Pay? For a ride<\/em>!?!]<\/p>\n

If it\u2019s coming out of my own pocket I\u2019ll just put on the wool shorts I kept and do my own personal L\u2019Eroica Yonkers for free, thanksverymuch.<\/p>\n

Besides that, the other thing that made the Cervino a keeper was that it fit and handled similarly to the Vengeance Bike<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

I\u2019d requested that bike from Classic Cycle mostly for irony\u2019s sake, but I ended up really falling for it. However, the Cervino shared many of its best attributes while also having a little more tire clearance and being made out of steel. I can\u2019t say I was particularly concerned about the structural integrity of the Vengeance Bike; nevertheless, with a steel bike there\u2019s even less to worry about in that department, plus I can use wheels with different rear spacing with reckless abandon:<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Let us pause to reflect on the twin miracles of steel frames and friction shifting, which means a bicycle from 1982 can happily accept 9 or 10 speeds (and no doubt 11, though I haven\u2019t tried it) with no modifications, apart from using the appropriate chain and adjusting the derailleur limit screws accordingly.<\/p>\n

Also, I understand the significance of the slant parallelogram, but in practice all you really need is some modern ramped Hyperglide-type cogs to dramatically improve the shifting on an old bike like this, because it shifts like a dream\u2026assuming that dream is one in which you\u2019re riding a bicycle that shifts really well.<\/p>\n

Speaking of shifting, I enjoy true one-handed shifting thanks to the rabbit-ear setup:<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Of course the Cervino is no longer period correct after I performed some post-crash rehabilitation<\/a> on it, and while I\u2019m tempted to restore it properly, I\u2019m also enjoying letting it evolve organically. Plus, it\u2019s a reminder that you don\u2019t need the new Specialized Aethos<\/a> or whatever when simply changing the wheels, pedals, and handlebar on an old road bike is sufficient to reinvigorate it.<\/p>\n

Sure, it\u2019s easy for me to say that when I have like eleventy billion other bikes to ride too, but I maintain the point is still valid.<\/p>\n

Of course if I were to purchase this specimen<\/a> I\u2019d have eleventy billion and one<\/em> other bikes:<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

This is what it looks like when a bike dresses as the 1990s for Halloween:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

It\u2019s also just a handlebar bag and a rigid fork away from something you\u2019d pre-order from Ultraromance.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I can\u2019t anymore, I just can\u2019t. It happens every time I take a vacation or there\u2019s a long weekend. After a few days off I feel rested and rejuvenated\u2013so much so I promise myself I\u2019m going to ditch all the complaining and the negativity and focus on everything that makes cycling so wonderful. Then I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":245283,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6804],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-245282","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}