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I observed the opposite day that Surly has a brand new bike referred to as the “Preamble:”
They name it a “metal commuter and gravel bike:”
And this being Surly it’s marketed each paradoxically:
And irreverently:
Nevertheless, when you actually need to “maintain shit easy,” the Surly Preamble is a hybrid:
I don’t imply to make use of the time period “hybrid” as a pejorative–marrying the attributes of mountain bikes and street bikes makes good sense for many causes and plenty of folks. On the similar time, hybrids are in all probability the bestselling unridden bicycles of all time. Do you know that there are 2.3 1994 Trek MultiTracks for each single American, and that every one in all them has been ridden for a median whole of 6.2 miles?
Hybrid bikes, cracked plastic kiddie swimming pools, basketball hoops that haven’t seen a ball since 1986…these are the forgotten objects that hang-out our nation’s garages, unhappy reminders of erstwhile dalliances, abortive health kicks, amusements outgrown, and fruitless makes an attempt at self-improvement.
So ought to they ship the Preamble with the cobwebs pre-applied? Maybe. This isn’t to say that the Preamble appears dangerous; certainly, because the title implies, it looks as if an ideal platform for a rider trying to discover and determine precisely what they need out of a motorcycle. I even have appreciable respect for the shape, as it was a hybrid that carried me throughout the chasm between childhood and maturity, and from BMX to street bikes.
Nonetheless, this may occasionally very effectively be the least fascinating bike Surly has ever produced. Over time they’ve all the time been among the many first to supply heretofore hard-to-come-by frames in cheap, manufacturing, ferrous type earlier than the mainstream firms jumped in: observe frames, cyclocross frames, singlespeed mountain bike frames, 29er frames, fats bike frames, and even a metal street body at a time when everybody had gone over to crabon and aluminum and curiosity in the rest was at an all-time low. However a hybrid…? I imply, sure, it is available in a drop bar configuration:
But even in that guise it seems pretty indistinguishable from the three zillion different gravel bikes already on the market. Furthermore, the hybrid type has doubled over itself and doubled over itself once more. First the bike trade reinvented the hybrid because the “flat bar gravel bike,” and now they may as effectively simply name all these boring-ass gravel bikes “drop-bar hybrids” as a result of that’s what they’re:
[The new Whatever by Who Cares.]
Once more, that’s not a dangerous factor, however you’ll be able to solely make a hybrid so thrilling. Simply ask Trek, as a result of they positive as shit tried:
That’s one badass crabon flat-bar gravel bike.
However, the reborn Motion Hybrid is clearly having fun with a second–Surly’s metrosexual sibling All-Metropolis additionally gives one:
And even Jamis, that painfully earnest child who all the time sits alone at lunch, is reinvigorating them, or a minimum of making an attempt:
Positive, they’re taking part in up the “city” angle as an alternative of the “gravel” angle, however virtually talking each are simply bywords for tire clearance and rack mounts and there’s no distinction between the 2:
This similar off-road/city inversion additionally occurred on the peak of the mountain bike increase again within the ’90s, as you’ll be able to see from the opening credit of “Double Rush:”
So now that city bikes and gravel bikes have additionally reached singularity it’s honest to say that the bicycle trade has come full circle as soon as once more, and that the Second Coming of the Hybrid Manifestation represents the form of profoundly boring Nice Bicycle Averaging that occurs as soon as each 30 years.
See?
Because it was, so shall or not it’s.
And sure, I do know what you’re pondering. “Isn’t the entire ‘hybrid’ factor arbitrary? Isn’t any reasonably sporty body doubtlessly a hybrid?” This may very well be an indication that you just’re taking this submit manner too significantly, however both manner, it’s not that easy. See, there’s a sure intangible lack of ambition that makes a motorcycle a real hybrid. Positive, you’ll be able to stick a flat bar that’s solely comfy for 20 miles on just about any non-mountain bike, however that doesn’t essentially make it a hybrid. Conversely, you’ll be able to gown a motorcycle up with an au courant single-ring drivetrain and disc brakes and name it a flat-bar gravel bike or a bikepacking rig or an all-road bike or no matter else you need, however that doesn’t disguise its elementary hybridness:
Additionally, merely mixing two kinds of motorcycle collectively doesn’t robotically make a motorcycle a hybrid both. For instance, the RockCombo is a mountain bike with drop bars and even used “hybrid” within the advertising:
However I’d argue it’s something however a hybrid:
Or perhaps I simply must consider that.
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