Originally Posted by
lhbernhardt
Seriously, rather than conservative/liberal (which hardly ever comes up), the biggest dichotomy amongst those who post in this section can be encapsulated in Robert Pirsig's Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: classicists vs romanticists. Classicists do all their own mechanical work and think it's simple enough on bikes that anyone should be able to. Romanticists have no idea how the bike works and take it to the shop to have everything done, and they get annoyed at the attitude of classicists. So just stay away from that conversation & everything will be civil!
Luis
I've actually pondered this dichotomy many a time. I use Sheldon Brown vs. Evie Stevens as the extremes of the spectrum.
Brown represented someone who knew everything about everything bicycle-wise but was not athletic, especially in his later years.
Stevens represents the pure athlete who is incredibly gifted but pretty clueless about the machinery. Someone asked her if she favored 650c vs. 700c and she had no idea what they were talking about.
Some of us are both nonathletic and clueless.
However, we all have access to the Internets
