Gravel–or as we now realize it, GRVL:
The “taxonomy to categorize the phenotype of bicycles whose look is altered by demand or terrain” is among the biggest mental challenges of our time, however one factor’s for sure, and it’s that you just want a $600 cassette as a way to trip it:
Yeah, that’s proper, the SRAM RED ASSPLR cassette is $600:
SRAM RED ASSPLR is nothing lower than the final word gravel drivetrain, and it’ll put all of your power into the trip:
In fact for those who’re not an expert gravel influencer it should additionally take away all of your cash out of your checking account, however you possibly can’t put a value on “Full Mount Resilience:”
That sounds extremely soiled, and never within the “gravel mud accumulating in your embrocated legs” manner.
I ought to reiterate that I’ve no downside with bicycle and part corporations designing envelope-pushing gear for racing and charging a number of cash for it. No one’s making you purchase SRAM RED ASSPLR ASS. I suppose there’s a hazard that because the ASS-PLSV know-how trickles down and turns into cheaper and extra ubiquitous you received’t have the ability to get a motorcycle that doesn’t require batteries and firmware updates, however given the very fact I’m having no points retaining a motorcycle from 1982 on the highway I select to stay optimistic that you just’ll have the ability to function metallic bikes with cables and rim brakes for years to return.
Nonetheless, $600 is loopy, and little question far exceeds the full value of my very own custom-curated DRTBG GRVL DRVTRN:
The brains of the operation is (are?) the Silver shifters:
With no firmware updates they’ll shift throughout as few or as many cogs as you need, and whereas they don’t include “blips” you possibly can mount them in quite a lot of places on the bicycle.
At present I’m utilizing them with an 8-speed cassette:
Why 8-speed? As a result of the identical firm that may promote you a $600 cassette additionally presents an 8-speed cassette which you’ll be able to typically get on the road for like $15:
Granted, it doesn’t go as little as the ASSPLR, however due to Superior Friction Shifting Know-how™ for those who want these winch gears you should utilize them to function the brand new cutting-edge triple cranks, which strikes the bottom gears from the rear of the bike to the entrance at a a lot decrease complete value to the buyer (and that features the seat tube-mounted chain-moving machine):
It’s straightforward to freak out over the state of the biking trade, however when you think about that with an 11-speed Hyperglide hub and a pair of friction shifters you select from amongst an extremely broad number of cassettes, chains, cranks, and derailleurs pretty indiscriminately, and if promoting $600 cassettes to gravelistas is permitting SRAM to proceed promoting $15 cassettes to dirtbags then I’m okay with it.
In different information, 10 years in the past Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. left a bear and a motorcycle in Central Park:
He mentions the information tales about individuals getting killed on the time, so I suppose he was riffing on the hilarity of Jill Tarlov’s demise, which occurred that very same yr:
So mainly a bunch of wealthy drunk assholes from Westchester who’d simply stuffed themselves at Peter Luger dumped a useless bear and a motorcycle in Central Park to riff on the demise of a girl who acquired killed by a bike owner.
Stylish.
In fact the true query is, “What about that bike?” I suppose this should have been a giant native story on the time, however I’ve no recollection of it, and it looks as if the information tales on the time make no point out of a motorcycle:
So what sort of bike was it? Was it a pleasant bike? Did somebody discover a bike on a bear carcass and trip off on it? And the place is that bike right now?
Alas, we might by no means know.
