Originally Posted by Bob Ross

Wow. Where do I begin?

- While I don't (yet) wear a helmet mirror, I cannot fathom why wearing one would be considered detrimental to the betterment of cycling. Why *wouldn't* you want to know where your ride partners are, or whether that Toyota is gaining on you at an alarming rate, or whether the cute cyclist you just passed is impressed with your move or pissed off about it...and why *wouldn't* you want to glean all that info without having to turn around? Refusing to wear a mirror strikes me as solipcistic, selfish, & conceited.

- You wouldn't believe how long it took me to find a helmet that *did* have a visor! Whatever happened to the good old days when you could buy a 3rd party visor as an add-on accessory? Oh, I guess all the bike shops decided such a gagdet was too "Fred" for their customers. I (and, presumably at least some other riders) need a visor because otherwise too much sun gets in at the top of my glasses. Yeah, sure, I could just buy different glasses with less of a gap at the top...but then I'd be OCP, right?

- in New York City we wear mountain bike shoes on our road bikes because A) at least 50% of the really cool long distance rides in the greater metropolitan area are one-way: you ride 80 or 100 miles through the gorgeous rolling hills (or painfull vertical climbs) of Harriman State Park, and then grab the train back home. You simply cannnot walk across the lobby of Grand Central Station in road bike shoes. Plenty of empirical evidence supports this; it's just an embarassing accident waiting to happen. B) likewise, nearly 100% of the really cool long distance rides in the greater metropolitan area (especially club rides) embark from the Central Park Boathouse. You simply cannnot walk into the rest rooms at the Central Park Boathouse in road bike shoes. Plenty of empirical evidence supports this; it's just an embarassing accident waiting to happen. Moreover, *because* we are New Yorkers, we don't take kindly to folks telling us our biking shoes make us look like a "Fred", and so we need a shoe that will inflict the most damage when impaled in the offender's butthole. Mountain bike shoes are way more effective for kicking the living crap out of anyone who insults us.

- I'm with you on camelbacks; those things are just stupid.