Patrick from PAUL's SE Lager via The Radavist
Over the past 25 years there have been a few brief shining moments when I saw myself as a participant observer in some small corner of the bike world. Delusional. This weekend with more free time than usual on my hands I’ve been looking at some bike stuff I normally wouldn’t look at. Wheel Fanatyk Ric was at the MADE show in PDX in August. He compiled a few links to other people’s coverage of the show. On a fast-forward scroll through it I saw some amazing bikes, beautiful integrated stem & bar, 3-D printed this & that and some good looking stuff.
But I don’t really care about most of it. Almost all of it. Scrolling through this stuff makes me realize I’m an outsider, a crusty commuter riding used bikes that don’t register on any consumer metrics. I’m not even an observer of all that stuff but I am aware of futile attempts to build a better mousetrap and the constant reinventing of the wheel. I smiled when the bike shop dude spoke of hybrid bikes when all his customers asked for gravel bikes. And the square taper bottom bracket continues to hang on.
When I got to the Radavist coverage of this bike, not a show bike, a PAUL employee’s bike. I smiled and took another look. A closer look. This bike is where it’s at for me. Not made of shiny new unobtainium. Whatever works, works. Especially when your scrappy cobbled-together components are PAUL.
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