Originally Posted by
bikingshearer
Grant Petersen and Rivendell has never stated or hinted that "racers are the enemy." The entire point is that most cyclists are not racers, so bikes designed for racing may not make sense to most riders. Grant Petersen's ultimate message is to make informed decisions about your bike purchases based on the kind of riding you want to do. If you want to race, get a bike meant for racing. I am quite certain Grant will not begrudge you the purchase. If you don't race but like the feel and geometry of a racing bike, go get one. I am quite certain Grant will not begrudge you that purchase, either. But if you want something more upright and more all-day comfy, why buy what a Europro rides, with its emphasis on going faster than the vast majority of us will ever go at the expense of comfort? Yes, he makes a living selling non-racing bikes. But that doesn't make his position any less legit. And he must be on to something, because a fair number of things he's been saying and selling for years have caught on with other operations as well.
And no, I don't think Grant Petersen regrets what he started. Why should he?
In fairness to Grant, I believe that I've never read anything by him where he calls out racers or any other category of riders---and I've read a lot of his writing, having started collecting the print version of the Rivendell Reader when the first issue came out in the mid-'90s. He never gets personal---he talks only about the clothing and the gear, the "plastic outfits" and "plastic bikes" and "point-and-shoot" indexing and the like.
What I'd regret if I were Grant is that out in the world, the topic has morphed from being about the modern bikes and equipment to being about the people who like and use those bikes and that equipment, and has resulted in, e.g., all the consequent nastiness we see in winter C&V threads on Bike Forums.
Inevitably. To paraphrase Randy Newman speaking about Los Angeles residents after they embraced his ironic song
I Love LA, "Americans aren't big on nuance."