Originally Posted by UniChris

Maybe try treading it a bit more carefully - it's quite clear





You'd be surprised what I carry on a distance ride. And in terms of grocery shopping, adding 10-15% of ones body weight to the rolling load doesn't make that big a difference in utility cycling. Most economically disadvantaged folks in first-world countries are (unfortunately) grocery shopping in small quantities anyway, because they don't have the cash on hand to buy the larger quantities that have cheaper unit price - the "expensive to be poor" trap is quite comprehensive.



Not only - never having to resort to "two foot gear" is a privilege, not a right. But given that a $129 bike can have a flimsy 21 speed drivetrain, its clear that a solid but simpler 1-x-something is possible at twice that price.



Sounds like people in your area had better options than durable but heavy share bikes - which is a very good thing! But that's not true everywhere. If there were plenty of used good bikes available everywhere people needed them, that article wouldn't have been written.



You keep not reading what I actually wrote, and imagining something I didn't. The reason for avoiding something precision like index shifting, is that in avoiding it, you remove something that needs maintenance and adjustment to keep working right. "My bike doesn't shift right becomes" "I move the lever until it's happy". Maybe you can get a BSO's derailleur properly adjusted - the coop mechanic who posted in response to the article couldn't. More than a few bike touring folks opt out of index shifting for the same reason of having less to worry about in the field. But it's only one example of the whole theme of keeping things simple to keep them affordably functional.