randonneur

On Sunday, June 3, 2018 at 2:13:19 PM UTC-5, Emanuel Berg wrote:
wrote:

The early 1980s were a very few years after
1976. 1976 was when Adventure Cycling (they
were called something else at first)
organized the first cross country USA bike
ride. It was not the first time anyone had
ever ridden across the USA. But it was the
first nationally publicized cross country
ride with a "big" organization sponsoring,
organizing, it. They organized groups of
riders and had ride leaders for each group.
So bike companies were merely trying to
capitalize on this new market for touring
bikes. Riding a touring bike across the
country was a new thing. And you needed a new
bike to do this.

OK, so all it takes is one organization to do
something by all means cool and then the whole
industry will start producing equipment for
others to do (versions of) the same thing?


I don't recall exactly when skateboards were invented, but some kid, youngster had the bright idea to attach some roller skate wheels to a board. And the skateboard was born. Lots of companies make skateboards now. And many cities have skate parks with various concrete things in them so kids can use their skateboards. AND think about snowboards. Some genius fairly recently had the idea to use a surfboard on snow. And now snowboarding is in the Olympics.

Touring by bicycle has been around for a long time. If you look it up you will find people who toured via bicycle back at the turn of the century. Maybe even with those old high wheeler bicycles. But touring by bicycle never got too popular in the USA or world. Some of us outliers do it. But like backpacking over a long distance, the Appalachia Trail, it requires a lot of effort to haul lots of gear and camp or stay away from home for a long time. Most bicyclists want to be back home and sleep in their own bed every night. So bicycle touring is not too popular. Randonneuring, where you ride 200, 300, 400, 600, 1000, 1200 kilometers in a limited amount of time, is not too popular either. But some of us have done it. Why? Who knows..





Thus companies made the bikes people wanted
to buy. Its called capitalism. Companies sell
what people want to buy.

Is this what you do on Usenet as well?
Write posts that people want to read?

--
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573