The commoditisation of..... bikepacking... discuss

[ericrobo]

Surely not !

But be on guard !
Some great point in this article, reflecting our modern age...

"Some two decades on, where are we? Clearly our world is getting environmentally trashed at an alarming rate. In the social sphere, in areas such as education, standards have diminished beyond belief. Politics, certainly in the UK, have become laughable at best, tragic at worst. 40 years of neoliberalism have created toxic organisations and dreadful working conditions for most of the populace."

"For mass consumption, you package things. To package things, you reduce them to commodities. To reduce them to commodities, you dumb them down to the lowest common denominator. This is exactly what's happened in education. Qualitative experience becomes derided as 'intangible'; all that matters are quantitative measures. Sometimes the quantitative measures are of dubious relevance and sometimes they're heavily 'massaged', i.e. fiddled. You strip out history and culture because you don't give a damn about history and culture; all you care about is making as much money as possible, as fast as possible. With climbing, you define it as a sport, with role model climbers as athletes – who do exactly as they're told, observe their contracts to the letter. That's how they, in turn, manage their careers, i.e. make money."

"Once you get control of something, you regulate it remorselessly – because regulation, under the guise of engendering safety, gives you ever more control – and, well, because regulation spawns another array of compliance industries, thus bringing in even more money."

https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/fea ... bing-12637

[Bearbonesnorm]

I probably need to avoid this thread

[Bearlegged]

An interesting read.

I'm not quite sure what it adds to the debate, but I was reminded of this quote from Frank Herbet's Dune series:
“Most civilisation is based on cowardice. It's so easy to civilize by teaching cowardice. You water down the standards which would lead to bravery. You restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. You make a law for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breathe slowly. You tame.”

Long may you all remain wild...

[jameso]

Good article. Got me on the hook : )

you define it as a sport, with role model .....s as athletes

If there's one part of cycling that doesn't need any of this it's touring. Old bike, some bags, go see places and make do. All this 'ultra endurance athlete' and social media profile raising influencer stuff seems like it's another thing entirely. The S-S racing and ITT thing is sort of in the middle but there's always been useful 'prior art' parallels in the climbing world, on ethics and style over grades and numbers. More so since there's more risk in climbing and risk makes things real. ...I do struggle with the opportunity to test and the experience that racing offers vs not actually GAS about racing

Qualitative experience becomes derided as 'intangible'; all that matters are quantitative measures.

Well put. ie, the MTB and Road markets as 'sport' that are marketed via race results. Bikepacking as 'ultra racing'. The moment you make it about performance, people want to buy into faster and brands do easy marketing. Older stuff is never faster is it?

There was a really good comment in a bike documentary I saw last night that I enjoyed, about how his type of riding can't be bought into, no-one can go out and 'buy the look' (yet that's a scene or identity in itself of course).

'Tall bikes will save the world' - https://vimeo.com/groups/430351/videos/218705523
I'm sure someone could write them off as arty hipsters.. imho I thought it was great film about people enjoying the creative part more than the consumption part. Looks fun, nothing more.

Frank Herbet's Dune series

.. noted. More than just big worms then (edit, this thread may end up being an equally impressive can of them)

[Lazarus]

Overall I dont really get his point is just another one of those oh my god in the last 30 years the world has moved on and its not like when i started - all life is change and the older you get the more you dislike the change - when you were young it was exciting now as older folk we get nostalgic about the good old days and consider "progress" to be soemthign we have to put in inverted commas.
I assume my kids will do the same about the internet in 30 years time

I know folk who wont move to STI shifters , suspension or disc brakes, carbon etc as they want to keep it real - no matter what point you are in a sport you are not the first to do it and someone before you did it differently and thinks your way is "soft"

I think your age will tell me how much you like the article
PS i am nearly 50 and i have seen a lot of change. Some good[better bikes] and some bad[standards all over the place].

EDIT: Civilisation is not about cowardice its about a hostile an dindifferent nature not killing me and rules to stop men with guns not turning up and shooting me and stealing my things. The Viking raids were surley an exciting thing to behold but I am glad to be civilised enough i wont face them, the wild west etc. if you disagree many lawless" bad lands" still exist you can go to these regions and enjoy the bravery of life in a country with no laws, police or consequences., perhaps you can become a pirate ?

[Bearbonesnorm]

perhaps you can become a pirate

Ooh couldn't resist coming back for that

[jameso]

https://youtu.be/tHEOGrkhDp0

Marketing .. I love and hate it : )

[BigdummySteve]

Everything is a commodity, unless we revert to the Stone Age (even then they probably sold the spoils of hunting, either for sex, social standing of some other commodity)
Very few people on this planet exist without some sort of commodity trading, it could be ideas, time or material goods, were all in the game and very few will escape.

Bikepacking may only be another revenue stream for some corporate knober, but really what did we expect? There’s money to be made and who can blame them for taking advantage of a ready market?
Personally I don’t see how it affects ‘us’, other than we might like to think we’re special or an exclusive club, the more mainstream companies will manufacture and market a version of Bikepacking which most likely is a long way from most of our normal trips for good reason, the big players might sell kit off the back of this glossy version, if its decent stuff we all benefit from more choice.
We don’t have to buy into any of this, the hill and ditches don’t care.

Revelate, porcelain rocket etc will still be there for us when the next new thing comes along.

[Ian]

Bikepacking may only be another revenue stream for some corporate knober, but really what did we expect? There’s money to be made and who can blame them for taking advantage of a ready market?

As illustrated by 317 pages on the postman’s been thread (vs 118 pages of bargain alerts)