Originally Posted by Frkl

@ US Consumer, "We, the cycling press, as dutiful mouthpieces of the marketing departments of bike makers, would like to tell you something that has absolutely nothing to do with our need to sell more bikes.

In the 1990s, we duped you into tossing out your bikes that could do everything, let's call it your bikes for all terrains. We played on your fantasy that despite being middle aged and over weight, that you were really a bike racer at heart (just keep the heart rate reasonable, please). You therefore need bike racing equipment, one bike only for pavement, another bike only for dirt (but it turns out that there are so many kinds of dirt, so so many kinds of bikes for dirt). We convinced you that the best place to shave weight from your set-up was in a plastic frame (not your body), and that it was ok to add that weight back with disc brakes...oh, you don't know they usually weigh more than cantis, ok, pretend I didn't say anything...

In fact, we would like you to believe that "most everywhere else" in the world people also ditched these bikes for mountain bikes. Please ignore the fact that this isn't true--in "most everwhere else," and not just in France, people recognized the need and desirability of a do it all bike, and this type of bike continued to be made. And no one in "everywhere else" would call an ATB (or whatever the local translation happens to be--we only bothered to look up the French term because, you know it's France) a mountain bike, or call a mountain bike an ATB.

In "most everywhere else," people resisted the kind of marketing talk that killed companies like Bridgestone in the US and has reliably gotten you, the US consumer, to buy our bikes at our say so.

But I digress. We would like to inform you how great it would be for us if you once more bought the kind of bike we convinced you to toss in the 1990s. And it is totally different than the gravel bike we already got you to buy because, um, that kind of bike is only good on gravel, not all terrain types.

And best of all, the French are doing it. And you know, the French and bikes are a really cool combination."