Why no fenders, lights etcetera on bicycles from factory?

On Sunday, November 15, 2015 at 1:20:01 PM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 11/15/2015 1:37 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 11/15/2015 2:04 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sun, 15 Nov 2015 00:17:57 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

When American adults took to bikes in the early 1970s, it
was more a fad
with a heavy sporting component. And when American
cycling went through
one of its periodic surges, it was for sporting reasons -
to emulate
Greg LeMond or Lance Armstrong, or to tear up the woods
on a mountain
bike. It didn't much involve travel or even grocery
runs; because
"that's what cars are for."
(...)

Good analysis. I generally agree with your history but
I'm not sure
about the fender details. When I was presented with my
first bicycle
(that I can remember) it came with metal fenders. I left
them
attached because as a new young rider, I didn't know that
they were
not suppose to be cool or fashionable. They lasted maybe
a month or
two before I bent both front and rear fenders into
unrecognizable
scrap metal. Same with the metal chain guard, kickstand,
and tire
driven wheel dynamo. As a vaguely recall, they were all
crude junk
and rather flimsy.

Fast forward half a century, and the metal fenders are now
flexible
plastic, but still appear to be designed as an
afterthought. I can no
longer bend them into unrecognizable scrap metal, and
resign myself to
mangling the wire fender stays. Clip-on fenders are even
more
frustrating. All the current designs vary between
unsightly and ugly.
I don't have any great ideas to solve the fender problem.
However, I
suspect that if the mounting arrangements were designed
into the
frame, and the fender made somewhat stronger, it might be
more
acceptable and look like part of the bicycle.

As for lighting, the problem was the ugly wires running
along the
frame. The bicycle computer manufacturers found the
solution with
wireless sensors, but that's not going to work with
lighting. That
problem is that few buyers are going to buy a bicycle with
bolt-on
accessories, that look like bolt-on accessories. They may
add them
later, when nobody is looking, but not at the time of
sale. The
bicycle has to look like the buyers illusions of a perfect
bicycle,
not a practical machine full of bolt-on, hang-on,
screw-on, stick-on,
and clip-on contrivances. Perhaps an experienced cyclist
will
recognize and accept such things as external wiring, but
not a first
time buyer or casual cyclist.

There's another reason that bicycles lack fenders and
lights. Bear
with me here. Long ago, the cake mix and frozen food
industries
discovered an odd problem. When they included everything
pre-mixed
into the package, it wouldn't sell. The packages sold
only when they
left something out, such as adding butter or requiring
mixing. That's
because the average housewife did not consider "heat and
serve" to be
cooking and needed something extra to convince themselves
that they
are really cooking the meal.

It's much the same in bicycle sales. In an LBS, most
machines are
sold with some accessories along with the sale. Usually
it's high
margin bolt-on devices. The counters and displays are
full of such
accessories. Fenders, tool bags, lighting, helmets,
clothing, shoes,
air pumps, patch kits, etc. I once looked at several
months of sales
of an LBS and found that only small number of high end
machines were
NOT sold with some kind of bolt-on accessory. It's the
same as the
cake mix. Buyers want to "build" a bicycle and without
the bolt-on
accessories, it was as if they were buying an unacceptable
"ready to
ride" (heat and serve) instant bicycle.

I suppose there's benefit in being able to choose exactly
which accessory design one favors. My fenders are plastic,
but a friend of mine sprung for hammered aluminum ones.
Some people want only a "be seen" headlight for inner city
riding, others want one with optics that light the road as
evenly as a car headlight, and some want kilolumens of
glare. As Andrew would say, choice is good.

My beef is that most high end bikes now forbid decent
fenders (i.e. non-clip-on, full coverage). Many high end
bikes allow headlights only on handlebars, not at the fork
crown. Fitting a rack is problematic on many plastic bikes.
In a quest for negligible improvements in weight or
aerodynamics or whatever, practicality has been tossed out.

Jay will say there are plenty of choices, which is true; but
one has to be fairly expert to find them. In a typical
shop, the higher you go up the price range, the less
practical the bikes become. And if you ask for "the best,"
it's going to be useful only for racing or "training."


Frank, there are a huge number of indisputably high end
fully equipped touring audax and expedition models for those
who prefer them. When you decry models lacking one feature
or another you may as well go on to lament nice 650B tourers
with the 'wrong' size wheels or the 'wrong' chainring format
or a lack of hydraulic disc brakes:

http://www.yellowjersey.org/wfd13sr4.jpg

It doesn't matter in the larger sense if the owner actually
rides it. That's a standard I can promote above all others.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

GACK lookit that awful thIng bicycle all the clutter fenders pump
GACK GACK

749 ? get back.....

On Sun, 15 Nov 2015 12:11:58 -0800, sms
wrote:

On 11/15/2015 11:04 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

It's much the same in bicycle sales. In an LBS, most machines are
sold with some accessories along with the sale. Usually it's high
margin bolt-on devices. The counters and displays are full of such
accessories. Fenders, tool bags, lighting, helmets, clothing, shoes,
air pumps, patch kits, etc. I once looked at several months of sales
of an LBS and found that only small number of high end machines were
NOT sold with some kind of bolt-on accessory. It's the same as the
cake mix. Buyers want to "build" a bicycle and without the bolt-on
accessories, it was as if they were buying an unacceptable "ready to
ride" (heat and serve) instant bicycle.

It's not that at all. It's the same reason that car makers decide to
leave off fog lights, alarms, mud flaps, hitches, etc.. Few buyers want
them, and they can't increase their manufacturing costs to the point
where they have to raise the retail cost because the retail cost is
based on what the competition is charging, not on the cost of manufacturing.

Sigh. In the bad old days of 1972, I bought an International
Harvester 1210 3/4 ton 4wd service truck. For the honor of buying a
fully customized vehicle, I spent a week slogging through what I would
guess was 500 assorted options, many of which were mutually exclusive.
I then had the factory go through my selection (for a small fee) as a
sanity check. It was quite an ordeal and involved considerable
research on my part.

Today, things are different. Instead of a menu of 500 items, the
manufacturers offer "packages" of compatible items. The same truck
purchased today would come with a "service/utility" package which
might include everything a mobile repair shop might need. There are
also hauling, camping, towing, Levi Jeans, low rider, racing, etc
packages.

There's not much of that in the bicycling biz. The closest
approximations are "touring package", "triathlon package", "fitness
package" or "bad ass assault bicycle package". The problem is that
there aren't 500 choices to be made. Maybe about 30 with about half
of them mutually exclusive. Since it is amazingly easy to build a
machine that is uncomfortable, unrideable, or unsafe, the manufactures
take care of the important stuff that has to be done at the factory,
and leave the bolt-on options decisions to the LBS and customer.

Few bicycle buyers in the U.S. want fenders, kick stands, lights, racks,
mirrors, chain guards, etc. so no manufacturer is going to make them
standard.

Oddly, I've found that many buyers do want the fog lights, alarms, mud
flaps, hitches(?), etc. The aftermarket bolt-on business would be
dead without such buyers. The problem is that they don't want them
when they purchase the bicycle. They want them later. My best guess
is that they are trying to cut costs on the initial purchase of the
bicycle, and are delaying the purchase of accessories until they can
accumulate more cash. There's also some psychology, but I don't want
to bore you with that.

That might be a bit hard to swallow, so I'll offer an anecdote closer
to home. HP sold test equipment for many years that had an IEEE-488
HPIB option, that allowed connections to other HPIB equipment to
produce a computah controlled automatic test system. HP noticed that
very few buyers purchased the HPIB option, so the removed it from a
few models to cut costs. Sales were abysmal. After interrogating few
customers, HP discovered that they didn't consider it to be a proper
piece of test equipment unless it had an HPIB interface, even if they
didn't use that interface.

The moral here is that you don't have to supply fenders, mud flaps,
lights, chain guard, panniers, and towing kits with the bicycle. You
do have to supply the hardware to mount these and a not so subtle hint
to the buyer where and how these bolt-ons are attached.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Sun, 15 Nov 2015 14:37:07 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 11/15/2015 2:04 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sun, 15 Nov 2015 00:17:57 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

When American adults took to bikes in the early 1970s, it was more a fad
with a heavy sporting component. And when American cycling went through
one of its periodic surges, it was for sporting reasons - to emulate
Greg LeMond or Lance Armstrong, or to tear up the woods on a mountain
bike. It didn't much involve travel or even grocery runs; because
"that's what cars are for."
(...)

Good analysis. I generally agree with your history but I'm not sure
about the fender details. When I was presented with my first bicycle
(that I can remember) it came with metal fenders. I left them
attached because as a new young rider, I didn't know that they were
not suppose to be cool or fashionable. They lasted maybe a month or
two before I bent both front and rear fenders into unrecognizable
scrap metal. Same with the metal chain guard, kickstand, and tire
driven wheel dynamo. As a vaguely recall, they were all crude junk
and rather flimsy.

Fast forward half a century, and the metal fenders are now flexible
plastic, but still appear to be designed as an afterthought. I can no
longer bend them into unrecognizable scrap metal, and resign myself to
mangling the wire fender stays. Clip-on fenders are even more
frustrating. All the current designs vary between unsightly and ugly.
I don't have any great ideas to solve the fender problem. However, I
suspect that if the mounting arrangements were designed into the
frame, and the fender made somewhat stronger, it might be more
acceptable and look like part of the bicycle.

As for lighting, the problem was the ugly wires running along the
frame. The bicycle computer manufacturers found the solution with
wireless sensors, but that's not going to work with lighting. That
problem is that few buyers are going to buy a bicycle with bolt-on
accessories, that look like bolt-on accessories. They may add them
later, when nobody is looking, but not at the time of sale. The
bicycle has to look like the buyers illusions of a perfect bicycle,
not a practical machine full of bolt-on, hang-on, screw-on, stick-on,
and clip-on contrivances. Perhaps an experienced cyclist will
recognize and accept such things as external wiring, but not a first
time buyer or casual cyclist.

There's another reason that bicycles lack fenders and lights. Bear
with me here. Long ago, the cake mix and frozen food industries
discovered an odd problem. When they included everything pre-mixed
into the package, it wouldn't sell. The packages sold only when they
left something out, such as adding butter or requiring mixing. That's
because the average housewife did not consider "heat and serve" to be
cooking and needed something extra to convince themselves that they
are really cooking the meal.

It's much the same in bicycle sales. In an LBS, most machines are
sold with some accessories along with the sale. Usually it's high
margin bolt-on devices. The counters and displays are full of such
accessories. Fenders, tool bags, lighting, helmets, clothing, shoes,
air pumps, patch kits, etc. I once looked at several months of sales
of an LBS and found that only small number of high end machines were
NOT sold with some kind of bolt-on accessory. It's the same as the
cake mix. Buyers want to "build" a bicycle and without the bolt-on
accessories, it was as if they were buying an unacceptable "ready to
ride" (heat and serve) instant bicycle.

I suppose there's benefit in being able to choose exactly which
accessory design one favors. My fenders are plastic, but a friend of
mine sprung for hammered aluminum ones. Some people want only a "be
seen" headlight for inner city riding, others want one with optics that
light the road as evenly as a car headlight, and some want kilolumens of
glare. As Andrew would say, choice is good.

My beef is that most high end bikes now forbid decent fenders (i.e.
non-clip-on, full coverage). Many high end bikes allow headlights only
on handlebars, not at the fork crown. Fitting a rack is problematic on
many plastic bikes. In a quest for negligible improvements in weight or
aerodynamics or whatever, practicality has been tossed out.

Jay will say there are plenty of choices, which is true; but one has to
be fairly expert to find them. In a typical shop, the higher you go up
the price range, the less practical the bikes become. And if you ask
for "the best," it's going to be useful only for racing or "training."

I'd guess that Frank is an "old fellow" like me and remembers "like it
used to be". But it ain't that a way no more. Now a days people don't
use bicycles for every day transportation - that's the "car" and the
bike is relegated to sports and fitness.

As an example: I had a bloke from New Castle worked for me in the late
1960's who was a time served machinist and immigrated to the U.S. he
told me that after he had been in the U.S. for about a year he took a
vacation back to England to see his mother and, of course, was down
tha pub in the evenings. When he told the chaps that he had a second
hand car, in America, they called him a liar - "maybe a second hand
motor bike, but not an automobile. Don't be telling porkies".

I was amazed, as I had my own car when I was 16 years old and couldn't
imagine a country where a young fellow didn't have a car.... how could
you find a girl?

But those days are long gone and really, there isn't any reason to
have a bicycle for basic transportation and if you only ride for
recreation and sport why do you need the full fenders, front and rear
carrier and all the fittings?

This is not to say that one can't carry a case of beer home "on the
bike" but it isn't a necessity any more and I suspect that it is
raining torrents or the midst of a hurricane even the "beer bikers"
take the car :-)

And who wouldn't rather be the Hurtling Hero, nose down and arse up,
in the lead of the (virtual) World's Cup, rather than Irvine the Iron
Worker wearily pedaling home after a long day in the Mill?
--

Cheers,

John B.

On Sun, 15 Nov 2015 18:08:39 -0800, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

On Sun, 15 Nov 2015 12:11:58 -0800, sms
wrote:

On 11/15/2015 11:04 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

It's much the same in bicycle sales. In an LBS, most machines are
sold with some accessories along with the sale. Usually it's high
margin bolt-on devices. The counters and displays are full of such
accessories. Fenders, tool bags, lighting, helmets, clothing, shoes,
air pumps, patch kits, etc. I once looked at several months of sales
of an LBS and found that only small number of high end machines were
NOT sold with some kind of bolt-on accessory. It's the same as the
cake mix. Buyers want to "build" a bicycle and without the bolt-on
accessories, it was as if they were buying an unacceptable "ready to
ride" (heat and serve) instant bicycle.

It's not that at all. It's the same reason that car makers decide to
leave off fog lights, alarms, mud flaps, hitches, etc.. Few buyers want
them, and they can't increase their manufacturing costs to the point
where they have to raise the retail cost because the retail cost is
based on what the competition is charging, not on the cost of manufacturing.

Sigh. In the bad old days of 1972, I bought an International
Harvester 1210 3/4 ton 4wd service truck. For the honor of buying a
fully customized vehicle, I spent a week slogging through what I would
guess was 500 assorted options, many of which were mutually exclusive.
I then had the factory go through my selection (for a small fee) as a
sanity check. It was quite an ordeal and involved considerable
research on my part.

Today, things are different. Instead of a menu of 500 items, the
manufacturers offer "packages" of compatible items. The same truck
purchased today would come with a "service/utility" package which
might include everything a mobile repair shop might need. There are
also hauling, camping, towing, Levi Jeans, low rider, racing, etc
packages.


I suggest that is largely due to the maker not wanting the hassle, and
it would be hassle, of fitting out pickup trucks to match the desires
of a guy, in East Overshoe, Texas, who plans on shoeing work horses
and another guy in Bangor, Maine, who is repairing fishing boat
winches, and a third guy in Boston, Mass., who's business is
maintaining and repairing Cathedral Organs.

Better to just offer a "Service Vehicle Package".

There's not much of that in the bicycling biz. The closest
approximations are "touring package", "triathlon package", "fitness
package" or "bad ass assault bicycle package". The problem is that
there aren't 500 choices to be made. Maybe about 30 with about half
of them mutually exclusive. Since it is amazingly easy to build a
machine that is uncomfortable, unrideable, or unsafe, the manufactures
take care of the important stuff that has to be done at the factory,
and leave the bolt-on options decisions to the LBS and customer.

Few bicycle buyers in the U.S. want fenders, kick stands, lights, racks,
mirrors, chain guards, etc. so no manufacturer is going to make them
standard.

Oddly, I've found that many buyers do want the fog lights, alarms, mud
flaps, hitches(?), etc. The aftermarket bolt-on business would be
dead without such buyers. The problem is that they don't want them
when they purchase the bicycle. They want them later. My best guess
is that they are trying to cut costs on the initial purchase of the
bicycle, and are delaying the purchase of accessories until they can
accumulate more cash. There's also some psychology, but I don't want
to bore you with that.

That might be a bit hard to swallow, so I'll offer an anecdote closer
to home. HP sold test equipment for many years that had an IEEE-488
HPIB option, that allowed connections to other HPIB equipment to
produce a computah controlled automatic test system. HP noticed that
very few buyers purchased the HPIB option, so the removed it from a
few models to cut costs. Sales were abysmal. After interrogating few
customers, HP discovered that they didn't consider it to be a proper
piece of test equipment unless it had an HPIB interface, even if they
didn't use that interface.

The moral here is that you don't have to supply fenders, mud flaps,
lights, chain guard, panniers, and towing kits with the bicycle. You
do have to supply the hardware to mount these and a not so subtle hint
to the buyer where and how these bolt-ons are attached.
--

Cheers,

John B.

On Monday, November 16, 2015 at 4:42:07 AM UTC-8, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 15 Nov 2015 14:37:07 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 11/15/2015 2:04 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sun, 15 Nov 2015 00:17:57 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

When American adults took to bikes in the early 1970s, it was more a fad
with a heavy sporting component. And when American cycling went through
one of its periodic surges, it was for sporting reasons - to emulate
Greg LeMond or Lance Armstrong, or to tear up the woods on a mountain
bike. It didn't much involve travel or even grocery runs; because
"that's what cars are for."
(...)

Good analysis. I generally agree with your history but I'm not sure
about the fender details. When I was presented with my first bicycle
(that I can remember) it came with metal fenders. I left them
attached because as a new young rider, I didn't know that they were
not suppose to be cool or fashionable. They lasted maybe a month or
two before I bent both front and rear fenders into unrecognizable
scrap metal. Same with the metal chain guard, kickstand, and tire
driven wheel dynamo. As a vaguely recall, they were all crude junk
and rather flimsy.

Fast forward half a century, and the metal fenders are now flexible
plastic, but still appear to be designed as an afterthought. I can no
longer bend them into unrecognizable scrap metal, and resign myself to
mangling the wire fender stays. Clip-on fenders are even more
frustrating. All the current designs vary between unsightly and ugly.
I don't have any great ideas to solve the fender problem. However, I
suspect that if the mounting arrangements were designed into the
frame, and the fender made somewhat stronger, it might be more
acceptable and look like part of the bicycle.

As for lighting, the problem was the ugly wires running along the
frame. The bicycle computer manufacturers found the solution with
wireless sensors, but that's not going to work with lighting. That
problem is that few buyers are going to buy a bicycle with bolt-on
accessories, that look like bolt-on accessories. They may add them
later, when nobody is looking, but not at the time of sale. The
bicycle has to look like the buyers illusions of a perfect bicycle,
not a practical machine full of bolt-on, hang-on, screw-on, stick-on,
and clip-on contrivances. Perhaps an experienced cyclist will
recognize and accept such things as external wiring, but not a first
time buyer or casual cyclist.

There's another reason that bicycles lack fenders and lights. Bear
with me here. Long ago, the cake mix and frozen food industries
discovered an odd problem. When they included everything pre-mixed
into the package, it wouldn't sell. The packages sold only when they
left something out, such as adding butter or requiring mixing. That's
because the average housewife did not consider "heat and serve" to be
cooking and needed something extra to convince themselves that they
are really cooking the meal.

It's much the same in bicycle sales. In an LBS, most machines are
sold with some accessories along with the sale. Usually it's high
margin bolt-on devices. The counters and displays are full of such
accessories. Fenders, tool bags, lighting, helmets, clothing, shoes,
air pumps, patch kits, etc. I once looked at several months of sales
of an LBS and found that only small number of high end machines were
NOT sold with some kind of bolt-on accessory. It's the same as the
cake mix. Buyers want to "build" a bicycle and without the bolt-on
accessories, it was as if they were buying an unacceptable "ready to
ride" (heat and serve) instant bicycle.

I suppose there's benefit in being able to choose exactly which
accessory design one favors. My fenders are plastic, but a friend of
mine sprung for hammered aluminum ones. Some people want only a "be
seen" headlight for inner city riding, others want one with optics that
light the road as evenly as a car headlight, and some want kilolumens of
glare. As Andrew would say, choice is good.

My beef is that most high end bikes now forbid decent fenders (i.e.
non-clip-on, full coverage). Many high end bikes allow headlights only
on handlebars, not at the fork crown. Fitting a rack is problematic on
many plastic bikes. In a quest for negligible improvements in weight or
aerodynamics or whatever, practicality has been tossed out.

Jay will say there are plenty of choices, which is true; but one has to
be fairly expert to find them. In a typical shop, the higher you go up
the price range, the less practical the bikes become. And if you ask
for "the best," it's going to be useful only for racing or "training."

I'd guess that Frank is an "old fellow" like me and remembers "like it
used to be". But it ain't that a way no more. Now a days people don't
use bicycles for every day transportation - that's the "car" and the
bike is relegated to sports and fitness.

Right, because in the 1950s, we were all riding bikes -- with ash trays. If an American adult rode a bike to work back then, he or (particularly) she would be considered a Bohemian or communist. Neither Don Draper nor Ward Cleaver rode a bike to work. The only adult I knew in the '60s that rode a bike was my fifth grade teacher, but he was national road champion, and somewhat of an outlier.

There are many, many more cyclists in my city today than ever. Typical bicycle commuter traffic: http://tinyurl.com/o5ee4cg It's incredible. Nobody drivers a car, and we all have low cholesterol. We're living the dream, and you could have it, too, if only you wish hard enough.

-- Jay Beattie.

On Monday, November 16, 2015 at 10:05:32 AM UTC-5, jbeattie wrote:
Snipped lots:
There are many, many more cyclists in my city today than ever. Typical bicycle commuter traffic: http://tinyurl.com/o5ee4cg It's incredible. Nobody drivers a car, and we all have low cholesterol. We're living the dream, and you could have it, too, if only you wish hard enough.

-- Jay Beattie.

Check out the guy pedestrian in the blue shirt in the foreground. He's wearing a helmet!

Cheers

On 16/11/2015 10:05 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, November 16, 2015 at 4:42:07 AM UTC-8, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 15 Nov 2015 14:37:07 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 11/15/2015 2:04 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sun, 15 Nov 2015 00:17:57 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

When American adults took to bikes in the early 1970s, it was more a fad
with a heavy sporting component. And when American cycling went through
one of its periodic surges, it was for sporting reasons - to emulate
Greg LeMond or Lance Armstrong, or to tear up the woods on a mountain
bike. It didn't much involve travel or even grocery runs; because
"that's what cars are for."
(...)

Good analysis. I generally agree with your history but I'm not sure
about the fender details. When I was presented with my first bicycle
(that I can remember) it came with metal fenders. I left them
attached because as a new young rider, I didn't know that they were
not suppose to be cool or fashionable. They lasted maybe a month or
two before I bent both front and rear fenders into unrecognizable
scrap metal. Same with the metal chain guard, kickstand, and tire
driven wheel dynamo. As a vaguely recall, they were all crude junk
and rather flimsy.

Fast forward half a century, and the metal fenders are now flexible
plastic, but still appear to be designed as an afterthought. I can no
longer bend them into unrecognizable scrap metal, and resign myself to
mangling the wire fender stays. Clip-on fenders are even more
frustrating. All the current designs vary between unsightly and ugly.
I don't have any great ideas to solve the fender problem. However, I
suspect that if the mounting arrangements were designed into the
frame, and the fender made somewhat stronger, it might be more
acceptable and look like part of the bicycle.

As for lighting, the problem was the ugly wires running along the
frame. The bicycle computer manufacturers found the solution with
wireless sensors, but that's not going to work with lighting. That
problem is that few buyers are going to buy a bicycle with bolt-on
accessories, that look like bolt-on accessories. They may add them
later, when nobody is looking, but not at the time of sale. The
bicycle has to look like the buyers illusions of a perfect bicycle,
not a practical machine full of bolt-on, hang-on, screw-on, stick-on,
and clip-on contrivances. Perhaps an experienced cyclist will
recognize and accept such things as external wiring, but not a first
time buyer or casual cyclist.

There's another reason that bicycles lack fenders and lights. Bear
with me here. Long ago, the cake mix and frozen food industries
discovered an odd problem. When they included everything pre-mixed
into the package, it wouldn't sell. The packages sold only when they
left something out, such as adding butter or requiring mixing. That's
because the average housewife did not consider "heat and serve" to be
cooking and needed something extra to convince themselves that they
are really cooking the meal.

It's much the same in bicycle sales. In an LBS, most machines are
sold with some accessories along with the sale. Usually it's high
margin bolt-on devices. The counters and displays are full of such
accessories. Fenders, tool bags, lighting, helmets, clothing, shoes,
air pumps, patch kits, etc. I once looked at several months of sales
of an LBS and found that only small number of high end machines were
NOT sold with some kind of bolt-on accessory. It's the same as the
cake mix. Buyers want to "build" a bicycle and without the bolt-on
accessories, it was as if they were buying an unacceptable "ready to
ride" (heat and serve) instant bicycle.

I suppose there's benefit in being able to choose exactly which
accessory design one favors. My fenders are plastic, but a friend of
mine sprung for hammered aluminum ones. Some people want only a "be
seen" headlight for inner city riding, others want one with optics that
light the road as evenly as a car headlight, and some want kilolumens of
glare. As Andrew would say, choice is good.

My beef is that most high end bikes now forbid decent fenders (i.e.
non-clip-on, full coverage). Many high end bikes allow headlights only
on handlebars, not at the fork crown. Fitting a rack is problematic on
many plastic bikes. In a quest for negligible improvements in weight or
aerodynamics or whatever, practicality has been tossed out.

Jay will say there are plenty of choices, which is true; but one has to
be fairly expert to find them. In a typical shop, the higher you go up
the price range, the less practical the bikes become. And if you ask
for "the best," it's going to be useful only for racing or "training."

I'd guess that Frank is an "old fellow" like me and remembers "like it
used to be". But it ain't that a way no more. Now a days people don't
use bicycles for every day transportation - that's the "car" and the
bike is relegated to sports and fitness.

Right, because in the 1950s, we were all riding bikes -- with ash trays. If an American adult rode a bike to work back then, he or (particularly) she would be considered a Bohemian or communist. Neither Don Draper nor Ward Cleaver rode a bike to work. The only adult I knew in the '60s that rode a bike was my fifth grade teacher, but he was national road champion, and somewhat of an outlier.


Really. If there aren't people riding bikes for transportation today
what are all these things clogging up my ride every morning?

Screw mandatory helmet laws. Maybe we should implement mandatory fender
laws and get those numbers back down to what they were in the 50s.

There are many, many more cyclists in my city today than ever. Typical bicycle commuter traffic: http://tinyurl.com/o5ee4cg It's incredible. Nobody drivers a car, and we all have low cholesterol. We're living the dream, and you could have it, too, if only you wish hard enough.


-- Jay Beattie.

On 16/11/2015 10:17 AM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Monday, November 16, 2015 at 10:05:32 AM UTC-5, jbeattie wrote:
Snipped lots:
There are many, many more cyclists in my city today than ever. Typical bicycle commuter traffic: http://tinyurl.com/o5ee4cg It's incredible. Nobody drivers a car, and we all have low cholesterol. We're living the dream, and you could have it, too, if only you wish hard enough.

-- Jay Beattie.

Check out the guy pedestrian in the blue shirt in the foreground. He's wearing a helmet!

Cheers



Lol. Yeah but he looks sort of dazed. Maybe that's his bike leaning up
against the concrete on the right and he's just arrived from the 50s and
is terrified wondering where all the fenders are.

On 11/16/2015 9:05 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, November 16, 2015 at 4:42:07 AM UTC-8, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 15 Nov 2015 14:37:07 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 11/15/2015 2:04 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sun, 15 Nov 2015 00:17:57 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

When American adults took to bikes in the early 1970s, it was more a fad
with a heavy sporting component. And when American cycling went through
one of its periodic surges, it was for sporting reasons - to emulate
Greg LeMond or Lance Armstrong, or to tear up the woods on a mountain
bike. It didn't much involve travel or even grocery runs; because
"that's what cars are for."
(...)

Good analysis. I generally agree with your history but I'm not sure
about the fender details. When I was presented with my first bicycle
(that I can remember) it came with metal fenders. I left them
attached because as a new young rider, I didn't know that they were
not suppose to be cool or fashionable. They lasted maybe a month or
two before I bent both front and rear fenders into unrecognizable
scrap metal. Same with the metal chain guard, kickstand, and tire
driven wheel dynamo. As a vaguely recall, they were all crude junk
and rather flimsy.

Fast forward half a century, and the metal fenders are now flexible
plastic, but still appear to be designed as an afterthought. I can no
longer bend them into unrecognizable scrap metal, and resign myself to
mangling the wire fender stays. Clip-on fenders are even more
frustrating. All the current designs vary between unsightly and ugly.
I don't have any great ideas to solve the fender problem. However, I
suspect that if the mounting arrangements were designed into the
frame, and the fender made somewhat stronger, it might be more
acceptable and look like part of the bicycle.

As for lighting, the problem was the ugly wires running along the
frame. The bicycle computer manufacturers found the solution with
wireless sensors, but that's not going to work with lighting. That
problem is that few buyers are going to buy a bicycle with bolt-on
accessories, that look like bolt-on accessories. They may add them
later, when nobody is looking, but not at the time of sale. The
bicycle has to look like the buyers illusions of a perfect bicycle,
not a practical machine full of bolt-on, hang-on, screw-on, stick-on,
and clip-on contrivances. Perhaps an experienced cyclist will
recognize and accept such things as external wiring, but not a first
time buyer or casual cyclist.

There's another reason that bicycles lack fenders and lights. Bear
with me here. Long ago, the cake mix and frozen food industries
discovered an odd problem. When they included everything pre-mixed
into the package, it wouldn't sell. The packages sold only when they
left something out, such as adding butter or requiring mixing. That's
because the average housewife did not consider "heat and serve" to be
cooking and needed something extra to convince themselves that they
are really cooking the meal.

It's much the same in bicycle sales. In an LBS, most machines are
sold with some accessories along with the sale. Usually it's high
margin bolt-on devices. The counters and displays are full of such
accessories. Fenders, tool bags, lighting, helmets, clothing, shoes,
air pumps, patch kits, etc. I once looked at several months of sales
of an LBS and found that only small number of high end machines were
NOT sold with some kind of bolt-on accessory. It's the same as the
cake mix. Buyers want to "build" a bicycle and without the bolt-on
accessories, it was as if they were buying an unacceptable "ready to
ride" (heat and serve) instant bicycle.

I suppose there's benefit in being able to choose exactly which
accessory design one favors. My fenders are plastic, but a friend of
mine sprung for hammered aluminum ones. Some people want only a "be
seen" headlight for inner city riding, others want one with optics that
light the road as evenly as a car headlight, and some want kilolumens of
glare. As Andrew would say, choice is good.

My beef is that most high end bikes now forbid decent fenders (i.e.
non-clip-on, full coverage). Many high end bikes allow headlights only
on handlebars, not at the fork crown. Fitting a rack is problematic on
many plastic bikes. In a quest for negligible improvements in weight or
aerodynamics or whatever, practicality has been tossed out.

Jay will say there are plenty of choices, which is true; but one has to
be fairly expert to find them. In a typical shop, the higher you go up
the price range, the less practical the bikes become. And if you ask
for "the best," it's going to be useful only for racing or "training."

I'd guess that Frank is an "old fellow" like me and remembers "like it
used to be". But it ain't that a way no more. Now a days people don't
use bicycles for every day transportation - that's the "car" and the
bike is relegated to sports and fitness.

Right, because in the 1950s, we were all riding bikes -- with ash trays. If an American adult rode a bike to work back then, he or (particularly) she would be considered a Bohemian or communist. Neither Don Draper nor Ward Cleaver rode a bike to work. The only adult I knew in the '60s that rode a bike was my fifth grade teacher, but he was national road champion, and somewhat of an outlier.

There are many, many more cyclists in my city today than ever. Typical bicycle commuter traffic: http://tinyurl.com/o5ee4cg It's incredible. Nobody drivers a car, and we all have low cholesterol. We're living the dream, and you could have it, too, if only you wish hard enough.

-- Jay Beattie.


http://www.yellowjersey.org/photosfromthepast/bogey.jpg


--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On 11/16/2015 7:41 AM, John B. wrote:
... those days are long gone and really, there isn't any reason to
have a bicycle for basic transportation and if you only ride for
recreation and sport why do you need the full fenders, front and rear
carrier and all the fittings?

This is not to say that one can't carry a case of beer home "on the
bike" but it isn't a necessity any more and I suspect that it is
raining torrents or the midst of a hurricane even the "beer bikers"
take the car :-)

And who wouldn't rather be the Hurtling Hero, nose down and arse up,
in the lead of the (virtual) World's Cup, rather than Irvine the Iron
Worker wearily pedaling home after a long day in the Mill?

I don't know anyone who's proposing we go back to the days when a
middle-class person couldn't afford a car. But ISTM there are people
saying we shouldn't need to use a car for every trip. And I agree with
them.

If someone said "I don't want to carry a case of beer by bike," I'd say
that's fine. But I think most Americans really do fire up the car if
they want to go two blocks to buy a magazine or a bottle of vitamins.
To me, that's weird! Especially when many of them are also driving to
the health club to "spin" or jog on treadmills.

And it's not that I think bikes with fenders (or fender clearance) will
fix that. The main reasons for the weird behavior are probably laziness
plus "Danger! Danger!" fears. Oh, and simple fashion, as in "People
don't do that because people don't do that."

But I think if bike manufacturers did allow for a little more
versatility in their "go fast" bikes, their customers might actually use
them for something other than garage ornaments on more occasions.
Meanwhile the threaded holes in dropouts and an extra half inch of
clearance won't prevent Walter Mitty from hurtling, arse up, past his
imaginary competitors.

And if the inscrutable world of fashion changes - if people actually do
start using bikes more - those with the versatile bikes will do it more
happily.

--
- Frank Krygowski