Atone It Down For Chrissakes! – Bike Snob NYC

It’s 2024, and we’ve now reached the point where the cycling media considers purchasing a road bike with rim brakes so remarkable as to be newsworthy:

Wait a minute. Which trends is he scoffing at? Certainly not the integrated everything trend, or the hidden cable trend, or the plastic bike trend:

I realize I’m old and out of it, but I’ve never felt quite so old and out of it as I do at this moment. When I see a photo like that I think, “Wow, look at the futuristic crabon space bike!” Meanwhile, the entire article is about how antiquated the bike is.

Also, on a semi-unrelated note, the cycling world really needs to get on the same page with regard to shifting terminology:

The thumb-actuated lever on a primitive Campagnolo rear mechanical shifting system moves the chain onto a smaller cog, which is technically an upshift. However, you’ve no doubt noticed that when discussing cycling people use the terms “upshift” and “downshift” interchangeably–which I personally find irksome, but which is understandable when you consider that a cassette resembles a slope:

So when you downshift you’re moving the chain up the slope, and when you upshift you’re moving the chain down the slope, which I guess is why people get confused. Furthermore, unless you’re using a RapidRise derailleur (or I guess an electronic one), the up/down sense is further reinforced by the fact you’re physically pulling the derailleur and hoisting the chain up to a larger cog when you’re downshifting, and you’re releasing it and letting it drop the chain “down” to a smaller cog when upshifting. So yes, everything about the act of downshifting a bicycle sort of screams “up,” and vice versa.

None of this is really an issue in cars, where the transmission is hidden from view, the gears are numbered, and the ones you use when you’re going fast have a bigger number than the ones you use when you’re going slow. It’s also not a problem with motorcycles, where you actually lift the shifter up with your foot to upshift, and down with your foot to downshift. (Yes, you do push down with your foot to go from neutral to first, but whatever.) So really it’s only with bicycles that people seem to confuse the concept of upshifting with the concept of downshifting.

Given this, maybe we need to change the terminology. As a curmudgeon, the idea of doing so bothers me, as I resent changing language just to make things easier for people who refuse to grapple with uncomfortable truths. At the same time, constantly seeing people refer to upshifts as downshifts and downshifts as upshifts makes me uncomfortable, and ultimately it’s my own comfort that’s most important. Furthermore, laypeople have already solved this problem, for you’ll no doubt have noticed that regular humans simply call the lower gears the “easier” gears and the higher gears the “harder” gears. So maybe it’s as simple as that.

But this is bikes we’re talking about, and things aren’t allowed to be simple. You don’t just have fat tires and skinny tires; you have road tires, and all-road tires, and gravel tires, and cyclocross tires, and… Given this, it’s clear that when discussing shifting we need to move away from adverbs and prepositions and adjectives altogether and instead describe a highly specific set of uses and terrains to each and every conceivable gear ratio. That way when you hit the thumb lever on a Campagnolo system you won’t be “upshifting;” instead, you’ll be “moving the gear selector into descent mode.” This will also work great for electronic systems, which I imagine will soon be little dials with pictures on them just like modern automotive transmissions.

All of this will be justified as something that will make cycling more “inclusive” and “beginner-friendly,” and people will eventually come to appreciate the need to banish terms like “up” and “down” altogether as they’re clearly discriminatory and imply one gear is somehow better than the other.

And if you think I’m overthinking all this, you’re right, but we’re cyclists and it’s our job to overthink things. Consider this opinion piece about “ultra-distance” cycling events instituting “no-fly policies:”

This is savvy marketing on the organizers’ part, who clearly understand that, like the bar that bills itself as a “speakeasy,” the more inaccessible and inconvenient something is the cooler it becomes:

Though of course the ostensible reason is that they’re concerned about their “carbon footprint:”

This is an incredibly dangerous precedent, because it’s only a matter of time before the Tour de France adopts this, and we’re at most five years away from a tie-dye jersey for the new Smuggest Rider competition:

More competitions will inevitably follow:

And before you know it everyone’s a winner:

Moralizing over pointless feats of ultra-recreation is self-indulgent, yes:

But more self-indulgent is seeing a good life and the hard work of your parents as something that needs to be atoned for and “undone:”

Sins of the father??? He was an airline pilot! What was his crime? Flying Carlton Reid around?

By the way, the good news for the author is that God walked back that whole “sins of the father shall be visited upon the son” thing, so fly wherever you want:

That said, anyone who still feels guilty should feel free to send any unused frequent flier miles my way.