Trek, Yet To Invent Chainguards, Invents Chainless Bikes Instead
I have a dream that one day…I will walk into a bike shop and see a bike with a chainguard.
Actually, I did - at Mellow Johnny’s in Austin, Texas. That was a surreal experience, but it was just totally awesome. And that’s a slammin’ bike shop - if you ever decide to head to Austin, TX, that place should be first on your list of places to visit. We need a signature bike shop like that here in San Francisco.
I’d just like to have that experience become more commonplace for more people - the ability to walk into a bike shop and see a bike that is actually ridable for everyday purposes, and that means it has to have a chainguard (or use some wacky internal hub or gearing or something).
And people shouldn’t have to go to a ‘commuter bike store’ like Mellow Johnny’s to find a bike with a chainguard, and people shouldn’t even have to know that they need a chainguard, and in my experience, bike store people will not even point out that people need a chainguard — it’s up to the person buying the bike to ride it a few times, destroy some pants, then try to figure out how to put on a chainguard (which is often not easy, or is near-impossible), or roll up their pant leg, or strap themselves in like they’re about to be launched into the stratosphere, or some other nonsense.
So you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t jump up and down when some bicycle manufacturer decides to invent some new trinket instead of taking care of what they should be doing - building bikes that people can actually use. And note that even this ‘no lubricant’ chainless chain is equipped with a chainguard - or half of a chainguard (on top) - which means it will still catch and ruin expensive pants:
[p.s. The Forums are open for participation.]
