Originally Posted by
fly:yes/land:no
hmmm...
that was the question to begin with. didn't seem that confusing to me. bikes come stock from the manufacturer with an assortment of parts. those parts are "original" to the bike. when you replace the parts, they become "non-original".
The point is the answer is trivial. Everyone replaces parts on their bike. The bike is designed for that. This is the point I was making.
My car, on the other hand, is completely stock 7 years after I bought it, because that was how
it was designed. A serious rider who changed nothing on their bike for seven years yet rode it every day is a fair rarity in the world of cycling. In the world of cars, stock cars that stay stock over their lifetime are the norm and customization is the rarity. When something wears out on a bike, you go to the bike shop and they give you an array of options of brands to replace said part. When something wears out in a car, you take it to the shop and you get an OEM part straight from the manufacturer, identical to the part that came stock with the car.
Most of these questions (and they pop up a lot on this forum) are asked for reasons along the lines of answering the question: "...is it okay to customize my bike?" The answer is a trivial "yes" because the bike is designed with change and customization in mind. Because this question pops up so much, I thought I might as well answer it with something other than a "me too" type answer, otherwise this forum would be a very boring place indeed.
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Cat 2 Track, Cat 3 Road.
"If you’re new enough [to racing] that you would ask such question, then i would hazard a guess that if you just made up a workout that sounded hard to do, and did it, you’d probably get faster." --
the tiniest sprinter