I used to write a blog about goings on in the bike trade and being salty about it, which is pretty easy as the bike trade is a horrible place. I got bored after a couple of years, as essentially, it is like shooting fish in a barrel. It was too easy; a trade that thinks adding another cog is progress is probably still in nursery school education, which is not to bad-mouth toddlers.

Also, how many blogs do we need about hating the bike trade in such a simplistic style? Do we need another person to tell us what SRAM means and that their brakes are shit? No, no, we do not, or maybe we do, and that is why Bike Snob NYC is still a thing. I mean, I went and looked there, and it is still going. It was good around 2010, but I couldn’t see the blog’s relevance anymore, says the man writing a tracklocross blog. This is probably my saving grace, as I have never been relevant or needed to be held up as some blogging pinnacle.

I went and looked at Bike Rumor, a site I used to always find something to be annoyed by, and now I realised I don’t care. Which is probably worse; I mean, love and hate are different sides of the same coin, but to be numb, well, that means the coin has upped and left; there is nothing there. The bike trade has brought me to a state of complete apathy with it.

Shimano has made 105 and RX106 a twelve-speed groupset. It used to be 20-speed. Okay, you can buy a double chainset and have 24, but I’m not being a Luddite, I just think adding a cog to a cassette isn’t a big thing, unlike cassettes nowadays. Also, all the doubles have more gear range, even the old hat 11-speed ones. It’s always lovely to get less for more cost.

See, now I’ve gone down that easy route, rather than sticking to be the hardcore tracklocrosser I know myself to be. I am off to say ten Hail Sheldons, and I’ll be back, I’m also sure being a bike blogger and referring to Sheldon Brown makes me so passe. To carry on my voyage, I moved over to road.cc, I did debate Bike Radar, but honestly, that site annoys me in so many ways.

After years of being on the internet, I am immune to their click baity ways. I could not find myself wanting to click on any article. Am I really that jaded, have I reached my old man shouts at clouds phase, no, I think I’m more the out of touch Skinner meme.

I think I’m just going to go and ride my bike.