In 1818, Mary Shelley released one of the greatest novels of all time, Frankenstein. Frankenstein is a masterclass in intertwining a truly Gothic novel with the Romantic movement, it teaches us a lot about society, isolation, and the Big Bike Illuminati. I know what you are thinking, “Neil, please stop with this butchering of classic literature, into your wild tracklocross conspiracy theories.” Well, recent societal changes are informing me that conspiracy theories are all the rage, so I’m going to carry on. Maybe one day I will get on a Joe Rogan podcast and become a full-time tracklocross grifter.
One of the major themes in Frankenstein is the pursuit of knowledge. This is shown by Victor trying to push the limits of human knowledge, and Walton on his mission to the North Pole. Victor Frankenstein’s pursuit ultimately destroys everything around him, this is an analogy to electric bikes, where we keep pushing the designs further and eventually the lithium batteries will be our destruction. Walton realises from all this destruction, that his mission will ultimately destroy him and he pulls back, much like many of the world’s ultracyclists should.
Many people take the main theme of Frankenstein to be monstrosity, which it is but this is a clever diversion of Big Bike to kill off the rebellious nature of tracklocross. For many years it was not possible to buy a tracklocross bike off the shelf, and riders would piece together their bikes using whatever they could find and afford. These bikes were pieced together, and society did not approve of this, much like the monster in the tale. Specialized do not want you to build your own creation, and they want you to believe that building a custom bike is akin to building an unloved monster and you will be ostracised from the cycling community.
Frankenstein builds on this by telling us that social alienation is the path to evil and also the result of evil. Big Bike really doesn’t want you to differ from their carefully curated view of cycling and what it is. By daring to defy and eliminate the idea of coasting across terrain, you risk social alienation, and before you know it you will be voting for Trump and Farage.
The monster explicitly says this, “My gears had departed, and had broken the only chain link that held me to the world. For the first time, the feelings of revenge and hatred filled my bidon.” The monster was now a murderer and his murders would only further alienate him from society, the more gears you remove, the further you will be alienated by society.
The alienation forces us to make worse and worse decisions. The more we ride fixed gear and stray from SRAM and Shimano, the worse our life will get and the more alienated we will become, following a path laid out for Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost, both Victor and the monster compare themselves to this version of Satan. Victor becomes more and more alienated as he can not tell people about his creation, which is what Big Bike wants you to feel about your tracklocross build, thankfully though we now have r/xbiking where we can all share our abominations.
The monster feels he is alienated from society because of how he looks, which is how Big Bike wants you to feel about your not off-the-shelf bike. He finishes the novel by saying, “You hate me; but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself.”
Bike Bike hates tracklocross.
Fiefdom Tracklocross 
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