The Fall of Schwinn (1993)

That said, my friends all had Schwinns. I don't remember any of them failing. We would "ghost ride" the bikes--basically just rolling them down hills and watching them crash. We would retrieve the bike, and sometimes adjust the goose neck, and we were off. Those rims were military steel?

When I was around 10 years old, my friend Peter Stewart and I, did a Centurian for a local bike shop. We completed 100 miles. It was kind of a big deal for us back then. My mom's main concern was wearing a helmet. I wore the Bell skateboard helmet for about a mile--then just tied it to the handlebars. My mom would have gone biserk, if I didn't come home with that helmet.

What I think about to this day is Peter Stewart's determination to finish that race. We came in last, but we both finished. It wasen't that much of a feat for myself, as I was one year older than Peter. I was on my father's Raleigh. I didn't know it at the time, but the lighter weight bike really helped me.

Back to the race. About 5 miles into the race on a huge hill Peter just stopped. He got very emotional. I really didn't think we would finish the race. Back then buddies didn't leave the other behind for any reason. He was on a Schwinn with all the trimmings. He had the rack, and other stuff on his Schwinn. Don't remember all the details.

I talked him into getting rid of the rack. We hid it in the bushes. Peter drank out of his official Scout canteen. He was still emotional. Peter was smaller than myself, but he was much brighter. (I look back, and Peter was the only true genius I have known. That's another story, but he was smart.)

When Peter composed himself, we got back to finishing 95 miles.

Peter couldn't have been more than 60 lbs. All I remember is we both couldn't strattle the bikes comfortably. The bikes were too big for our frames. We would seesaw when riding. We ran out of water within a few hrs., and then it was garden hoses. When we told the homeowners our story--they were more than accommodating. One lady even gave us two Cokes. It was still the best Coke I have ever had.

Long story short-- we finished. The Owner of the bike store (who sponcered the race) made sure we crossed the line before he and his buddies went home. We didn't put him out because they had a barbecue ending, and they were just finishing their beers when we crossed the finish line at dusk. They even clapped.

(I lost track of Peter out of middle school. I heard he was living with two women in the Sierras. I knew he would live life to the fullest. Peter if you happen to read this I have an inactive contractors licence in CA. Get in touch with me--if you want? I wouldn't be suprised if you are one of these big wig Silicon Valley types now, and maybe you remember this event?)

http://www.thecyclingexperts.co.uk/get-cycling/buying-a-bike...

There are really two kinds of cyclists; enthusiasts who ride regularly and dilettantes who ride two or three times a year. The latter choose a bicycle almost entirely on price, because they don't know any other criteria on which to judge bicycles. These customers don't care that the bike will start disintegrating after a couple of hundred miles, because they'll never use it that much.

The bike boom of the 1970s meant that lousy bicycles almost completely dominated the market, but the more recent bike boom has created a generation of much more savvy customers. The market has split into lousy department-store bikes and real bikes sold through specialist retailers.

Second: the quality bikes that were appearing during at least subsequent bike booms were often very heavy on hand-fabrication. Ritchy, Fischer, and other Marin Country mountain bike manufacturers were hand-building frames in small lots, and often used components from manufacturers with a heavy hand-made element to their manufacture (though not exclusively). The improvements came for giving a shit, riding what you built, and rapid innovation cycles (something heavily automated manufacture didn't offer). The punishing environment of trail-riding also meant that bikes built virtually entirely for styling and aesthetic appeal (the Sting Ray, beach cruisers, etc.) simply didn't stand up to use. Put in evolutionary terms, the selection process was quite exacting.

As mountain biking evolved to more general street use, mountain bikes also became highly subject to the same dynamic which had affected earlier classes of bikes.

Because they weren't knowledgeable, that's the whole point. They were "bad" customers, not the "good customers who make for good products". Pretty sure you misread what is some admittedly hard-to-parse writing.

It was ultimately self-destructive, because the poor quality of those products harmed the reputation of the whole industry. A generation of people came to believe that bicycles were inherently heavy, dangerous and unreliable.

Companies like Oculus and Tesla have wisely chosen the opposite strategy, producing a premium product that gives the best possible experience. They understand that you don't get a second chance at a first impression. They know that it's easier to start with a prestigious product and move downmarket than vice-versa.

In the bicycle industry, the most successful companies have doggedly stuck to producing high-quality products and refused to compete solely on price - the likes of Trek, Specialized and Cannondale. They refuse to tarnish their brand with cheap crap. They have built strong relationships with good retailers who can educate customers on the merits of a quality product.

One possible scenario: suppose retail display space for bikes could not expand proportionally to fad-driven demand, and stores started featuring cheap bikes more prominently in that limited space to meet the changing customer demographics. As a result, high-quality, expensive bikes would have a smaller total number of eyeballs looking at them, bringing about an absolute decrease in sales (not just in market share).

There are hallmarks of bike appeal (say, fat tires, or suspension), which will attract buyers. If those features are poorly engineered and manufactured, they lower the overall value of the bike. It's a worse bike for having them.

It's much as embellishment of virtually any product occurs with time, but most especially functional systems, which negate the actual useful appeal. The functional parts are reduced to minimum viable cost (and quality).

Put another way, the situation is of a high-reward environment (lots of dumb money flowing), rewarding variation, but with a really bad selection criterion. It's essentially disevolution at work -- the goal is to suck up as much money as possible, regardless of technical quality, and it works because technical quality is hard to assess for.

Simply labeling this as "market for lemons", a case in which different parties of a transaction have differential knowledge, a/k/a, an information asymmetry, misses a larger and more general dynamic at play.

I've commented on longer length here: "Is Gresham's Law a special instance of a more general phenomenon?"

https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2h63fp/is_gres...

The thing that Moen's Law, Gresham's Law, the Market for Lemons, and other elements hings on is the inherent frictions and costs of information. Not only in acquiring information, but in assimilating it.

Actually, the Dunning-Kruger effect also counts. There are people who are so bad at recognising the truth (or quality) that they don't even know they're bad at it.

There are a tremendous number of other factors baked in as well. Why signalling works and/or is used (it is more effective at communicating than the quality being signalled), why false signalling is used (because a cheap signal substitutes for expensive quality).

A more pernicious case falls under the law of unintended consequences. Here the issue is implications of use or manufacture of a good or service which aren't available to anyone when initially transacted or provided. The use of fossil fuels (global warming, acid rain, particulates) comes to mind. Thomas Midgley, the most dangerous inventor in history, is another example. Two of his creations, freon (chlorofluorocarbons) and leaded gasoline both threatened or harmed more people than any other single person in history.

I've been exploring the question of extractive materials pricing, and in particular oil and gas, in light of information that's come to light since their first large-scale appropriation. How doctrines such as the Rule of Capture came to be accepted and commonplace (less so now, but still the foundation of much mineral law, and still extant in Texas), or understanding just how long it takes for fossil fuel reserves to be restored, and how true economic cost might be reconsidered, come to mind. The information is present, but it's not being assimilated.

"Why?" is a question that intrigues me greatly.