Originally Posted by
roadandmountain
What must have happened in the past 20-25 years is that the cycling demographic must have shifted dramatically: the average rider is older, heavier, less fit, and more affluent.
As I said before, riders were far more fit 25 years ago, probably at least 15 and maybe 20 lbs lighter on average, and probably a lot more active on average as well.
Also, cyclists didn't have to be as wealthy, since the most expensive bikes tended to top out around $2500, the equivalent of under $5K today. Now, the most expensive bikes are $12K, even $13K. $6K to $8K bikes are no longer considered to be the highest end bikes.
The cycling market must have shifted dramatically. I don't have firm evidence of this yet, although it would probably not be very difficult to prove.
Actually, it's probably because of the technology to provide more speeds (11 vs 5) AND the ability to manufacture a better cassette in pie plate sizes.
I mean, how would you lay out an 11-32 in a 5 speed? 11-16-22-27-32? If I recall, a when SRAM first came out with their big chain cassette cogs in their mtb cassettes, there was a lot of discussion about how they had figured out how to do this in such a large size and there was a flex issue (or something).