I was happy riding my old steel bike with downtube shifters . . . until I got behind a guy with brifters. I could keep up with him fine as long as the gradient didn't change. But if I had to shift, I'd drop behind a bit, partly because my gears were further apart than his were, partly because I had to take one hand off the bars. I'd ridden that bike a lot, in fact I'd done the one-day STP on it, but the difference in efficiency was quite noticeable. My next riding goal was RAMROD. I bought a new 9-speed carbon bike with a triple. RAMROD went just fine. That carbon bike is the only single I ride now. Our tandem is now a 10-speed, also with a triple. Nostalgia is cool, but it doesn't get me up the road nearly as well as technology does. I don't regard triples to be nostalgic - they're just a superior system largely abandoned because they're a tiny bit less profitable and yes, they're more finicky to adjust. I know a lot of riders who take their bikes to the shop for adjustments. My first modern bike, back in '63, a full Campy Legnano, I took completely apart, even the hubs, and put it all back together, all cleaned and lubed. Bikes are really simple compared with internal combustion engines. Yeah, I'm nuts, but it's been fun.

I haven't been tempted to get a new bike with electronic shifting. I like stuff which I can fix myself. Besides, I was once riding with a person on one of those bikes when her battery went dead. I left her to her own devices which included a cell phone. She called a taxi. Similar to that, I have broken a rear cable at least a couple times but I just jimmied it to keep it in an appropriate cog and still had a 3-speed bike, finished the ride with the group. Good grief, what a grump I am today. I shouldn't listen to the news on NPR.