@futurebird Putting powerful disc brakes on a 26er MTB might be playing bicycle on "easy mode." But the first green bike is easily my favourite personal bike of this century. It's about 20.5 lbs with shocks, 17 lbs (not pictured) in "cruiser" mode with carbon rigid forks.

Single speeding really does develop a LOT of skills. Single speed off road forces you to embrace flow or give up the sport.

p.s. Third bike is for trials. Hydraulic rim brakes, a rarity. Oh, the places we go with one speed!

But most of us? We use the shoe! Kids talking about "new shoes for their bike" and they are buying pads for their breaks.

It's all gone too far.

I haven't seen a good red light trackstand in YEARS.

Kids these days always on the ebike with the disc breaks. In my day we had but ONE gear. And we LIKED it. We felt lucky.

Sometimes if you were going to get really fancy you could install a brake

@futurebird hey, with only one gear, you don’t even need a chain to weigh you down

Back in my day if you could get down to work without letting your pretty little toes touch the dirty street once you could feel good about that. 34th st was impossible, but if you found the flow it was possible.

There was a legend about a biker with white soles on his shoes because he never touched the street. Saw him do a track stand for 80 seconds while a whole bus full of tourists unloaded. Didn't even flinch. Those were the days.

@futurebird This grumpy old man from Vancouver agrees! And I have a bike with eighteen gears (18!) and hydraulic disc breaks & gear shifters! What in blazes‽ WHO NEEDS THAT‽

…well, okay, me apparently…

@IanAMartin @futurebird As a Dutch person, when I went to canada, Canadian friends asked me "what wheel size do you use?", "what frame size?", and more. I just answered "I don't know... it looks like shit, cycles comfortably, and gets me to work and back every day.

I do find it fascinating how north Americans can make an identity out of almost anything...

@ainmosni @IanAMartin

I know Americans can be uniquely annoying but I kind of think ALL people do this. It's like the defining trait of people in a way.

@futurebird This grumpy old man from Vancouver agrees! And I have a bike with eighteen gears (18!) and hydraulic disc breaks & gear shifters! What in blazes‽ WHO NEEDS THAT‽

…well, okay, me apparently…

@futurebird @IanAMartin oooh this has given me the start of a limerick…
A grumpy old man from Vancouver
Decided he needed to Hoover
The whizz-bang machine
Had its own magazine
But proved dauntingly hard to manoeuvre.