It's all Wrong

http://ridingagainstthegrain.com/2014/08/06/ridley-noah-for-sale/

The first two lines of that blog post describe to me exactly everything that is wrong with cycling, society, and America at large - when taken together with the rest of the post.

Explain to me exactly why someone who wants to get into a sport needs a bike with a drivetrain worth 2K? 550 dollar wheels? Who knows how much all the rest of it cost. To ride thirty miles? That's such a piss-poor ROI that I don't even know what to say.

No, wait, I do: What. The. Fuck?

Just because you can doesn't mean you should. The attitude that you have to have the best possible gear, the lightest, carbonest, whateverest when you are just beginning to get a feel for the sport is what, I think, keeps a lot of people from giving cycling a fair shake as anything other than the new millenium version of showing just how small your knards are by how much you spend on your bike rather than the last millennium's version which was a sports car that you'd never think of driving any faster than the speed limit. It's an inverse proportion. The more you spend on a bike you'll never actually ride the smaller said knards are. My knard is 26X3.8. (See what I did there...)

Listen, I get the desire to have the best and brightest of everything, particularly when one has worked hard for the money. But when you're just starting? That's like giving a 14 year old the keys to a brand new Bugatti Veyron Super-Sport as soon as they get their permit. (I'm pretty sure in Iowa you can get a permit at 14. A farm license much earlier, but I've not verified this.) It just doesn't make sense. I've heard, and cannot verify this either, that riding a road bike is a bit different than riding other bikes. They're a bit twitchy. A bit wobbly until they get up to speed. So, as with a supercar, it takes some skill building to get to the point that you can operate such a machine to its potential. 
And as Eddie Merckx famously said: "Don't buy upgrades, ride up grades."

Whatever. What do I know. I only own one bike and I paid less for it that this guy paid for the drivetrain on this bike.

I should probably not read his blog because it always just pisses me off. Then again, I think I'm sliding into retro-grouch land lately.