There’s an old cliché that “racing improves the breed,” and it’s been said about bikes for as long as I can remember, and was old the first time I heard it. It makes non-racers seem subservient, passively waiting for godlike racers to give thumbs-ups to new bike technologies, as though nobody else is qualified to evaluate it; and that’s why I don’t like it. That, and it’s not true anymore.

Racing may have been responsible for some improvements up through about the 1950s, maybe even the ’60s, but soon after the practical improvements stopped, the impractical refinements kicked in, and now the modern race bike has become too specialized, a one-trick pony, a disposable, fragile flyweight that isn’t suitable for anybody who doesn’t race. Yet it has become the standard road bike of the day, even for non-racers who buy them because they assume if it’s good enough for pros, it’s good enough for anybody. I’ll state the obvious: Pros ride them bec