{"id":266108,"date":"2026-10-06T11:41:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T11:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/06\/doing-less-with-more\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T11:41:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T11:41:13","slug":"doing-less-with-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/06\/doing-less-with-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Doing Less With More"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

Remember, you still have until 12:00pm EST on October 16th<\/strong> to submit your Meh-roica Bike Pageant entry<\/a>:<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

In retrospect that\u2019s an insane amount of time, and I\u2019m not sure why I didn\u2019t make the deadline much sooner. Like, this Friday would have made more sense, wouldn\u2019t it? Oh well, whatever.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, I continue to receive entries, and here\u2019s someone who really understood the assigment:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

This one\u2019s definitely in in the running for the jackpot:<\/p>\n

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

Or at least the Belgian lottery:<\/p>\n

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

Really, the biggest strike against it is the steel fork, which objectively speaking is an upgrade, though it does earn the bike a demerit in the perverse and impractical world of Meh-roica\u2013even if the original crabon fork did crack, as the owner informs me it did. (A true Meh-roica rider would have replaced the cracked crabon fork with an even lighter crabon fork.) But how about that Team Issue<\/em> Dura-Ace? <\/p>\n

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

See, traditionally Dura-Ace components don\u2019t say \u201cShimano\u201d on them\u2013it\u2019s like Shimano has an inferiority complex and doesn\u2019t want their own name on their top-of-the-line parts. But for a brief and glorious moment in the 9-speed era (we\u2019re talking the Peak Meh-roica years), not only did Shimano put their name on some Dura-Ace parts (ostensibly the stuff they issued to teams, though you could also buy it), but they put it on there REALLY BIG, even on the shifters:<\/p>\n

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

But it was short-lived, and to the best of my knowledge they went back to their usual routine<\/a> and haven\u2019t put the \u201cS word\u201d on Dura-Ace parts since:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

And I almost didn\u2019t notice the fork because my eyes went right to the green tires. Colored tires are EXTREMELY Meh-roica. Today it\u2019s all bloated tanwalls, but back then it was about skinny tires in primary colors, and if there was any black on the tire at all it was limited to a little landing strip in the middle, sort of like a Brazilian bikini wax:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

[Via Classic Cycle<\/a>]<\/p>\n

How can one bike shop have so many incredible bikes?<\/p>\n

Oh, wait, I figured it out.<\/p>\n

By sending all the crappy ones to me<\/a>, of course:<\/p>\n

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

Anyway, none of the above is to say that all Meh-roica bikes must be aesthetically dated. In fact I\u2019d argue that this submission is downright timeless:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Also, yes, I\u2019d like to remind you that while compact doubles are banned, triple cranks are very much permitted, since Meh-roica is all about arriving at your low gearing honestly, like our pre-GRVL ancestors did:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

That\u2019s two<\/em> bikes out of the ol\u2019 Waterford factory, by the way, which is not only an important Meh-roica landmark, but also produced my own Milwaukee:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Sadly with its compact double and 11-speed drivetrain the Milwaukee is not<\/em> Meh-roica compliant.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s a Meh-roica submission that caught my eye immediately:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Because it used to be mine:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Clearly the new owner bought it from Classic Cycle knowing that one day I\u2019d have a contest and give away some free lube:<\/p>\n

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

By the way, the Waterford is in front of Christmas decorations, and the Litespeed is in snow.<\/p>\n

So are these submissions from the past, or from the future?<\/p>\n

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

Speaking of bewilderment, someone posted this<\/a> in the comments yesterday, and if it is what I think it is then I\u2019m VERY UPSET:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Okay, let me know if I\u2019m understanding this correctly:<\/p>\n

\n

Blackwater and Marginal Gain built the drivetrain around a different layout meant to reduce chain articulation across the range. The idea gets more interesting as cassette counts keep climbing. Marginal Gain says the concept could support 15- or even 16-speed setups while still keeping chain angles more reasonable than many current 1x systems.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

So up until the 10-speed era, if you wanted truly wide-range gearing you used a triple.<\/p>\n

But then we went to 11, and 12, and 13, and we were told how wonderful it was that we could finally get rid of not only the triple, but also the double, and finally bury the front derailleur once and for all<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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

But as soon as they started tamping down the dirt on top of the front derailleur\u2019s grave some brain genius figured out, \u201cHey, actually, moving a chain all the way across a really wide cassette at extreme angles doesn\u2019t make a lot of sense.\u201d But instead of going back to a system that allowed you to keep weight down by using smaller cogs, and keep your chainline optimal, and shift more efficiently by executing a single front shift instead of like ten rear shifts when you get to the top of the climb and start your descent, they came up with A GODDAMN TRIPLE WHERE ALL THE FRONT CHAINRINGS ARE THE EXACT SAME SIZE:<\/p>\n

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

Lob have mercy, DID THEY JUST CALL THAT \u201cPRACTICAL?\u201d<\/p>\n

Again, maybe I\u2019m not understanding this properly and it\u2019s too much \u201ccognitive load\u201d on my front derailleur-taxed brain. But if I am, then this is even more ridiculous than the mythical 8-speed singlespeed<\/a>, and that was built entirely for the purposes of irony:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

You know, I\u2019m going on 20 years of blogular curation, and I\u2019ve managed to keep it up through some of the dumbest trends in cycling, but the three-ring 1x may be the \u201cinnovation\u201d that finally breaks me.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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

Remember, you still have until 12:00pm EST on October 16th to submit your Meh-roica Bike Pageant entry: In retrospect that\u2019s an insane amount of time, and I\u2019m not sure why I didn\u2019t make the deadline much sooner. Like, this Friday would have made more sense, wouldn\u2019t it? Oh well, whatever. Meanwhile, I continue to receive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":266109,"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-266108","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\/266108","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=266108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}