Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Single speeds may truly be dead!



Recently in order to fund my 2016 race campaign I decided I was going to sell off some stuff. First on the block is my 29er specialized carbon single speed frame. I started this auction on eBay with a very low price of $450. The frame is in great shape. It's got a few hours to go and has no bids. Carbon single speeds are truly rare anymore, due to the fact that the bike industry just wasn't selling enough of them. They couldn't continue to manufacture these frames just to have them sit on the warehouse shelf. Now if you want to single speed you only have a couple choices or custom. 
So it seems I have the 1982 Camaro of bikes in my possession. Not old enough to be cool but not cool enough to be current. Guess I maybe making custom mailbox posts out of old frames or just leave expensive frames in the basement to collect dust. I hate you bike industry. For changing something that is basically unchanged for a 120 years, every two years or so.  

The problem lies in nobody seems to be interested in anything but a fat bike recently. So a small niche of riders that were single speeders are now fat bikers. Leaving the small amount of single speeders that there originally were even more emaciated then we are. So in conclusion, the bike industry would have you believe that the 1x11 has killed the single speed (I've read) but in fact it's the fat bike that seems to be the single speeds demise. 
What's next? Boost 148 making everything else obsolete? You bet your sweet ass. And how are they going to get you to buy it? They're  going to tell you it's lighter and stiffer, like everything else they've sold us.  We're going to eat it up because we're a bunch of idiots looking to reinvent the wheel. On something as simple as a bicycle. 
-M

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