Obviously we here in C&V would collectively answer "no", because we're retro-grouches, tight-wads, lug-addicts, steel-admirers, or because we lust after the bikes we couldn't have then. Or, perhaps we don't like the fact that the modern bicycle industry is pretty one-note, over-globalized, obsessed with "progress", too race-oriented, or is becoming increasingly obsessed with planned obsolescence.

I fall into pretty much all of those camps, with the possible exception of lusting after bikes we couldn't have "then".

While I was at my LBS yesterday I decided to check out some of the high-zoot bikes. On one level I appreciate things about them that make them more "useable" - compact cranks, brifters, dual-pivot brakes - are a good example. But with these advances (I use this term loosely) comes the expense, and from what I've heard, lack of durability. I know that (at least to these eyes) modern Dura-Ace looks like crap and simply doesn't scream "timeless" like 7700 era stuff did, for example. I'm also so amazed that a Dura-Ace crank is now like $600. Perhaps the good stuff cost a similar amount then, relative to inflation, but it just seems like the cost of this stuff is pushing people out of the sport.

What I guess I'm getting at here is it seems to me that many of the great 80's-era bikes are/were plentiful and had reasonably bomb-proof equipment on them. I'm always amazed when I see a 600-equipped bike from the early 80's running as good now as it must've back then. Now, roadbikes are much more niche-oriented.

We already have to wade through a sea of crappy MTBs to find a classic roadbike. Now that an entry level roadbike is roughly $1k, and your average hybrid is like $300, what will the C&V of tomorrow look like? I just can't imagine a $5000 Trek ever showing up on a site like this 20 years from now.

Also from a sheer numbers standpoint...how many of these super-bikes actually get produced each year? Seems to me that part of why we had it so good over the last decade or so is the sheer volume of bikes produced around both bike booms. One thing I will not downplay is the tendency of people to buy really expensive bikes...and not ride them.

Thanks for reading this Friday pre-lunch post. I think about this stuff a lot, and hope that this wasn't too jumbled or too much like other "What will C&V be like in a decade?" threads. Moreover, this could also easily be the case of not having lived through the frustration of some of these advances. I have riding buddies who are decided anti-C&V, claiming they lived through this era and the stuff now is just so much better, so much so that I'm pining for a golden age that never existed.