Five Things We (Sometimes) Miss About Older Bikes
From PinkBike.com
by Seb Stott
There’s no doubt that bikes have got a lot better over the last few years. I don’t want to go back to fixed seatposts, sketchy geometry, inadequate brakes, and carrying five spare inner tubes on every ride. But there are a few features that have inexplicably gone out of fashion and that I’d like back – at least sometimes.
External cable routing
While brands like Raaw are still fighting the good fight, it’s getting increasingly difficult to find bikes with external cable routing. Long before manufacturers decided it was a good idea to start putting cables through the headset, aesthetics had been edging out serviceability for years as brands went fully internal.
It’s really the external rear brake lines that I miss. Being able to upgrade or swap a brake over was once a matter of minutes but now involves a re-bleed at a minimum. Even if threading the hose through the frame is as painless as possible (which it rarely is), it’s the re-bleed that makes it a fuss. Sure, most people rarely swap brakes, but when you do it’s so nice to be able to simply bolt a new one on. When one of my brakes failed on the first day of a riding holiday in the Alps, I was able to swap to a spare set in minutes.
Not having to charge anything
A bicycle is fundamentally a simple, mechanical device, and that’s a big part of its appeal for many of us. While electronic gears and droppers have considerable advantages over cable-operated versions (the lack of cables being the most obvious one) there’s something about having to connect your smartphone to make adjustments or check that the batteries are charged before you can go out riding that doesn’t sit well with the simplicity of cycling.
Sure, replacing frayed or rusted cables and adjusting cable tension may take more time to maintain in the long run, but at least you know your derailleur’s not going to need to be recharged if you forget to plug in the batteries after the last ride.
Photo by James Hoey on Unsplash
