The Good.
Some things really made the world of cycling a better place.
Here are my picks (in alphabetical order)…
- The Aheadset. Goodbye and good riddance to headset spanners, quill stems and indexed steering!
- Camelbak bidons.
- Cassette freehubs (though the original notion of being able to build your own cassettes never really materialised)
- Clipless pedals
- Compact bars
- Double pivot brakes
- Flippable stems
- Front loading stems
- Gatorskin tyres
- Hollowtech 2
- Index shifting
- LED lights
- Noseless saddles (for bikes with aerobars)
- Sealed bottom brackets
- Spd. Even more world changing than Look pedals
- Standard seatpost sizes (almost, 27.2 fits nearly every frame…)
- Sti
- And these. I don’t know what they’re are called but they are, without doubt, the best gear adjustors. I don’t miss down-tube shifters but I do miss the bosses on the frame as, without them, there’s nowhere to put these.
The Bad.
The cycling world would be a better place without these. They add nothing but inconvenience, discomfort, weight, weakness, risk, obsolescence or expense.
- 1 1/4” steerers
- Anatomic handlebars. Was a name ever less appropriate?
- Brakes under the bottom bracket
- Direct fit bearings
- Drop-in handlebars. What was Greg Lemond thinking?
- Four bolt spiders
- Frame-specific seat posts
- Head tube cable stops
Compare these worse-than-useless adjustors with the beauties above.
- Integrated handlebars and stems
- Internal cables
- ISP
- ‘Lawyer’s lips’
- Mini pumps
- Non-adjustable aerobars
- Non-flippable stems
- Pedals without flats for a pedal spanner
- Raceblade 2 mudguards
- Seat post wedges
- Spinacci
- Star-fangled nuts. Fortunately not essential for Aheadsets!
- Torx bolts
The Superficial.
I can’t see the point of them, but if you don’t have anything better to do with your money…
- Carbon bottle cages
- Carbon cranks
- Carbon handlebars
- Carbon tubes in titanium frames
- Curved down tubes and top tubes
- Disc brakes on road bikes
- Electronic gears
- Oval chainrings
- Saddle cutouts
- White handlebar tape
There are seat posts and saddles that I could put into all three categories.
What does your list look like?