Daily annoyances: Bicycle imbecility

A disturbingly consistent number of the most useless technical solutions that mankind's mind is capable of conjuring, is assembled in a utensil known as bicycle. It is quite obvious that a vehicle that only has two wheels, no engine and a neglectable number of electronic parts, should basically work properly without any trouble from the instant it leaves the production plant onto the day on which it is hit by a bus or burnt in a house that is destroyed by fire.

How tragically distinguished reality is from this assumption that is based on sheer logic. The only conclusion to be drawn from this peculiarity of life is that the actual construction of bicycles is void of any form of logic. I will not go into detail at this point, since the emotional scarring that resulted from changing a rear tire is still too painful to allow elaboration. Changing a wheel on a 25 ton truck is less of a hassle than changing the tire of a bicycle. And the list of unnecessarily annoying bicycle repair jobs is endless. Mind you, several years of my working life I have spent as an aircraft mechanic, which makes me quite qualified to assess the drama of bicycle repair.

Since 1885 repairing bicycles has given mankind headaches and other discomforts. It often has made me wonder what qualifications are required to become a bicycle designer. Does such a person need to have a positive IQ? Is personal experience with driving a bicycle a requirement? Should (s)he have experience of any sort in repairing such a vehicle? Is some knowledge of human anatomy necessary? Is basic engineering skill a condition to be allowed to design a bicycle? Although I'm not a spiteful person, I am inclined to answer all these questions negatively.

But there is also an other side to this: Why in the world do consumers accept the imbecile construction of bicycles? Why do they not protest against the crappy material of which bicycle parts are made? The tire mafia has made huge profits by producing and selling tires that run flat all the time, while not even hesitating to call them 'Puncture Resistant'. Did anyone complain? No Sir, we prefer to just buy ten sets of tires per year and spend ten hours repairing or replacing them, without ever filing a complaint. We accept brakes that do not brake, get our hands dirty and ruin our clothes while remounting chains that continuously run off the cranks, we drive around in the dark at night because the lights or wiring broke, we simply buy new bells that stop ringing after using them three times. All mishaps that we insist on having repaired by the dealer at no cost if it concerns our cars, we obediently accept if they occur on our bicycles.

There is probably as much wrong with us as with the bicycles.