Originally posted by jollyroger1127
I'm really impressed by a person who is secure enough in themselves to post statements that inform us that they are sure they can ride better than or can beat almost anyone else in the forum. (Yeah, right.) Even the most seemingly secure have their weaknesses.
This is exactly what I mean about "snobbishness." The original poster, and everyone else who has complained about "snobbishness" -- partucularly about serious sport cyclists who appear to be snobs about having the "latest gear or lightest bike" -- is simply imputing motives that may not be there. How do you
know someone thinks he's better than you? How do you know, evehn if he does, that this is not a moral or value judgment, but a simple observation of relative strength? Maybe a serious rider doesn't want to ride -- on an organized ride -- with a guy on a 50 lb Wal-Mart bike because he knows that the speed is going to be be
waaaaaaaaay slow and that he's going to have to pull the guy on the Huffy the whole way.
Unless someon says "I'm better that you are," how could you possibly know what he's thinking? Talk about jumping to conclusions!
But jumping to conclusions is what this is all about, as jollyroger's post indicates. I went back and read every post in this thread. No one has written that he [or she] is "sure they can ride better than or can beat almost anyone else in the forum." The closest anyone came to that was me, when I wrote: "I'm sure Velo, RacerX and Lotek could smoke my ass in almost any competition [except maybe Trivial Pursuit]. Rich could kill me in cyclocross. They are better than me. [Probably... having never actually ridden with any of them, I can't say for sure.]"
This is quite a different thing. [And I would add nathank, Xavier and WoodyUpstate, and others to the list.] Jollyroger simply jumps to the conclusion -- utterly unsupported by anything anyone wrote -- that I think I could be anyone in this forum. If he can be so wronfg about something so explicit and painfully obvious, how can he, or anyone,
know what another cyclist is thinking well enough to call him a snob?
I'll be honest here. I do think that a guy on a 50 lb X-Mart bike wold hold me back on a ride. I don't know for sure, and I have seen some pretty strong people on pretty crummy bikes. On the other hand, I also know that he probably doesn't train like I do, and he probably doesn't have the same cycling goals that I have. I'm sorry if he's offended, but I simply would not want to ride with him for that reason. That's not being a snob; that's being realistic.