Freedom

The real truth lies here.

Modern society is pretty much fucked. The world is made up of vacuous, self-centered morons brainwashed by the internet and mainstream media, who in turn are no more than puppets of .ooo1% of the population who own 99% of the wealth and pull the strings of every major government, bank, business and institution. 1984 is a reality, we just don’t realise and acknowledge it, because if it was made that obvious then we might just say “wait a minute, they’re fucking us!” We are made to believe we have freedom, whereas, in reality, all we actually have is the illusion of freedom.

Cycling may be the only real freedom we have, and even that is surreptitiously controlled for us, and is controlling us. We are told we need the latest carbon frame that looks like dog shit and rides not much better, while a 30 year old steel bike does exactly the same job, which is: to move us across the earth and put a smile on our face, yet we are convinced that we won’t be happy unless our new standard bottom brackets constantly creak and need fortnightly servicing. Mountain bikers are now being cajoled into believing that an extra 6mm of width on a rear hub will change our lives. It’s enough to make me go back to a hardtail. With a longer fork, slacker angles, wider bars, shorter stays, bigger wheels, fatter tyres, less gears, naturally.

Of course, advancements in technology do make a difference to our rides, especially for mountain biking. Road, I’m not as convinced. My Bosomworth, while heavier, with less gears and slower shifting than my Jaegher, is still a great bike to ride and would no doubt make me stronger if it was my only ride. Suspension and dropper posts for the MTB are pretty much essential and improve the experience, but if I lost the rear shock I’m sure I’d still be able to ride most of the terrain I do now, maybe with a bit more discomfort and a little less control, but wouldn’t that put the emphasis back on me to sharpen my skills and pick my lines a little more carefully? Thinking? No, we can’t have that.

Same can be said with the choices we think we make in our everyday lives: we aren’t making them, they are made for us. We don’t need all that shit they are selling us. We have the freedom to think for ourselves and make our own minds up, yet still just go along with the status quo, what the tv tells us to buy, what the corporations tell us to consume, what the 000.1% want us to do. Be good little happy consumers and shut the fuck up. Or go ride your bike, any bike, and use the time to think about what’s real and what we’re told is real. Don’t be afraid, set yourself free. It’s the only truth we can really believe.

Now head over to The Gear page and buy some shit.

Brett

Don't blame me

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View Comments

frank says:

Nov 12 2015 at 9:06 am

@PeakInTwoYears

It’s good thing to cultivate a critical attitude regarding how one spends resources on bikes/components/kit.

A VMH can be a huge help here. If I can clearly and persuasively articulate to a skeptical interlocutor why, say, TRP mini-Vs to replace Avid Shorties is a safety issue on long, steep, freezing descents on shitty gravel roads, well, I feel a bit less manipulated and more manipulating.

Yes.

@Barracuda

I'm with you. First, being told you can't get anything because it's pointless is just as restrictive as being told you have to buy something because you need it.

Second, there's a huge difference between want and need, and there is no reason in the world why, if you want something - however irrelevant it is - and you choose to spend your resources on that over something else, that you shouldn't go ahead and do whatever the fuck you want.

And I'm not buying the effectiveness of MTB evolution over road bike technology. 99% of both sides is purely change for the sake of change. That MTB up there look idiotic.

I refer you once again to Pineapple Bob.
frank says:

Nov 12 2015 at 9:08 am

@senharv

Ron may get his meds wrong from time to time, but if you're going to call someone on the carpet for using an offensive word, the minimum expectation is you get the right person.
chuckp says:

Nov 12 2015 at 9:18 am

@senharv

@Ron

Really, a “fucktard” what is that ? I know you on the far side of the pond have great difficulty with the English language, ie speaking it and being understood, but that word stretches way beyond that.

Not only is it somehow offensive but, it does not really exist,is neither descriptive nor imaginative and renders the opinions of anyone who who would choose to use it null and void.

Grow up and consider those of us who read your foul utterings………..

?

@frank

@senharv

Ron may get his meds wrong from time to time, but if you’re going to call someone on the carpet for using an offensive word, the minimum expectation is you get the right person.

Yes, I think it was @DeanC who slung the word out there. Sometimes it helps to break a word down to understand it. Fuck ... well, I think we all pretty much know what that means. Tard ... is, according to Wikipedia, a village in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county, Hungary. So I'm guessing @DeanC was referring to some fuck in Hungary.
chuckp says:

Nov 12 2015 at 9:24 am

@frank

I refer you once again to Pineapple Bob.

I have a Bridgestone MB-2. Except mine is purple and the original fork since replaced with a RockShox. But still using Deore XT thumb-shifters!
Dean C says:

Nov 12 2015 at 9:53 am

@chuckp

@senharv

@Ron

Really, a “fucktard” what is that ? I know you on the far side of the pond have great difficulty with the English language, ie speaking it and being understood, but that word stretches way beyond that.

Not only is it somehow offensive but, it does not really exist,is neither descriptive nor imaginative and renders the opinions of anyone who who would choose to use it null and void.

Grow up and consider those of us who read your foul utterings………..

?

@frank

@senharv

Ron may get his meds wrong from time to time, but if you’re going to call someone on the carpet for using an offensive word, the minimum expectation is you get the right person.

Yes, I think it was @DeanC who slung the word out there. Sometimes it helps to break a word down to understand it. Fuck … well, I think we all pretty much know what that means. Tard … is, according to Wikipedia, a village in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county, Hungary. So I’m guessing @DeanC was referring to some fuck in Hungary.

Yup, it was me, I did it, and the Lindbergh baby as well as reloaded for my uncle who took me to the Grassy Knoll.

Fucktard/Dopey dad

Sorry to pollute this site with this picture of these idiots, now I will leave to delete them from my computer.

Sorry, did not mean to derail the thread from its intended use. My apologizes.

Dean
samdewhidbey says:

Nov 12 2015 at 10:14 am

The true illusion is that Road Biking is not technical. I learned to Mountain Bike on a hybrid and then went to a hardtail...I endo'd and had the worst fall ever 2nd ride in (why even have a fucking front brake that works when the shocks are compressed? Because I'll hit it instead of the rear).

Hell I even did a century on a Mountain bike, 9k of climbing took me 9hrs. I got a road bike, and figured I'd be KOMing every thing because I had strong legs and endurance. Nah, had to start all over...to get past an 18mph average takes time and skill on very particular levels...hence why roadies adapt technology slowly, and MTB'rs will take it right away...because one can see the change right away...the other takes time to see if it really works.

Both bikes are freedom, so I love it either way!
wiscot says:

Nov 12 2015 at 10:33 am

@Dean C

@chuckp

@senharv

@Ron

Really, a “fucktard” what is that ? I know you on the far side of the pond have great difficulty with the English language, ie speaking it and being understood, but that word stretches way beyond that.

Not only is it somehow offensive but, it does not really exist,is neither descriptive nor imaginative and renders the opinions of anyone who who would choose to use it null and void.

Grow up and consider those of us who read your foul utterings………..

?

@frank

@senharv

Ron may get his meds wrong from time to time, but if you’re going to call someone on the carpet for using an offensive word, the minimum expectation is you get the right person.

Yes, I think it was @DeanC who slung the word out there. Sometimes it helps to break a word down to understand it. Fuck … well, I think we all pretty much know what that means. Tard … is, according to Wikipedia, a village in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county, Hungary. So I’m guessing @DeanC was referring to some fuck in Hungary.

Yup, it was me, I did it, and the Lindbergh baby as well as reloaded for my uncle who took me to the Grassy Knoll.

Fucktard/Dopey dad

Sorry to pollute this site with this picture of these idiots, now I will leave to delete them from my computer.

Sorry, did not mean to derail the thread from its intended use. My apologizes.

Dean

No need to apologize! There have been WAY worse photos posted here. That one of Cipo shirtless comes to mind. BTW, Homer is one of the great philosophers of the late 20th century.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns9jAN-OudU

BTW - burning down the Reichstag - that was you too, wasn't it? Or was it you who almost stepped on Cadel's dog?
Gianni says:

Nov 12 2015 at 10:39 am

@brett

This is what I’ll be riding when I head back to Aus in a couple of weeks for a visit…

Along with a Ken Evans, my dad picked it up for $10. Super Record. Wheels were from a roadside rubbish throw out, and he picked these up the other day… free.

Two things: Nice article Brett, one of the very few benefits of getting older is not needing to obsess about all bike bits. It's like cars for me. I want one that works faultlessly and is fun enough to drive. I no longer care about all the upgrades.

Secondly, even if you put tires on that MBK, you will discover how harsh those wheels are. I have the same ones on my steel steed and they are cruel. Put some 25s on and lower the pressure a bit, that's your only hope.
brett says:

Nov 12 2015 at 11:02 am

@Captain Birdbath

You’re forgetting the most important rule of them all. Bill’s rule.

‘It’s just a ride.’

This.
brett says:

Nov 12 2015 at 11:32 am

@Ron

Wow, and here I was thinking I was the biggest cynic ’round here. Strong work, Brett! I’ve long hoped/worked to make the world a better place, but I’ve hit my mid 30s and I’ve accepted that it’s hopeless. Too many humans are narcissistic, greedy, selfish bastards. And the problem is that cycling brings me in contact with these people on a daily basis, meaning the cagers who drive lawlessly and while monkeying with their damn phones.

Cynicism is healthy, otherwise we become one of the lazy uncaring fucks who ruin the world and bring more lazy uncaring fucks into it. It's the "won't someone think of the children" mob who have condemned the planet to its inevitable death, driving the gas guzzlers, powering the cruelty industry, burying their heads in electronics and teaching the little shits that they are the most important thing.

I see two things as huge culprits of making the world shittier: smartphones and the NFL. Phones have made people so fucking distracted, rude, and bored with actually living and experiencing life. The NFL is the new religion in America. Weekend after weekend bored, distracted folks waste hours and hours watching a slow, boring game where every play is overanalyzed and over-reviewed. The players are all doping, but no one wants to talk about it. The shit they eat to get to 350 pounds leads to terrible environmental and animal abuse. Forget the first openly gay football player, I want to see the first openly vegan! And then you have 80,000 idiots tailgating and drinking all day and driving home in 30 cities across the country every weekend.

Insert rugby/league/AFL down here. The amount of misguided importance put on a rugby tournament here the last month was sickening, like it actually meant something to the national identity. There was an outcry to make bars be open at 5am so morons could drink while watching the games live.

Openly vegan, now that's bold! Saying you're vegan is a surefire way to get a bunch of vitriol aimed at you. It seems being aware of mass abuse and doing something about it is in some way to be ridiculed and seen as "extreme", whereas supporting these horrors just so you can get fatter is manly. But there is change happening, I'm seeing it more and more, so working towards a day when eating animals is seen as wrong as slavery or sexism or racism or any mass genocide is my mission while I'm here.

If you want to support an openly vegan sports team, these guys are doing great things in England...

http://www.itv.com/news/west/2015-11-04/forest-green-rovers-the-worlds-first-vegan-football-club/

And they're leading their division, and just pulled off a big upset win in the FA Cup against a higher division team. Leaders on and off the pitch.

I won’t even get started on the fact that it’s the modern day plantation. Almost all black players, and almost all white coaches, owners, athletic directors (college is worse than pros with almost no black coaches), officials. And let’s not overlook the serious brain trauma. And how many of our best universities have 110 doped up, aggressive, non student-athletes prowling the campuses. Having played a non-revenue DI sport on a scholarship, men’s bball and football fucking disgust me. Absolutely NO BUSINESS being “amateur” sports housed on uni campuses. But, they are a business and make folks $.

Great point. Slavery isn't just confined to animals, and the divide in race seems to be getting larger again rather than smaller. The Muslim hate being perpetrated by the Australian government is disgusting, and the bigots are taking their chance with gusto, white supremacist rallies are flourishing and everyday mum and dad racists are feeling vindicated that they can spew forth their hate without reprise.

Anyway, I’ve sadly just decided to accept it. I try to tune out the outside world as much as possible and just go about my life and try to ignore all the alarming bullshit going on.

While accepting that we're fucked, I'm still not going to contribute to it and become one of those people I despise.