the critics

080726

I'm finally a good way through aforementioned blog (I had no time to read between my last out of town trip last week and the one I just started now). It's getting me interested in the Tour de France more generally. I really didn't know much of anything about it. There's a pretty good wikipedia entry on the Tour that gives (what seems like) a decent overview of it. Rob's blog is pretty fun to read too. Makes me want to go on some much longer than normal city commute rides. It also makes one aware (if you venture into the "comments" portion of it) how much pretty extreme bike snobbery there is out there. There are lots of people chiding him for "buying his way into cycling" or some such sentiments though he makes it abundantly clear that he is simply running up an illogical amount of debt on this quixotic adventure. I think people just read what they want to read, particularly on the internet. Everyone's an expert and a smaller plurality are just plain assholes! I myself am an unrepentant cheapskate (at least where my own expenses are concerned) and yet somehow I am able to enjoy this tale without having to get into the self-righteous postures that every 10th commenter (and there are a lot of them) seems unable to resist. Maybe I'm just missing something?! It's one guy's blog, maybe all these quick-witted people could use their verbal kung-fu for good instead of shooting this voluntary fish in a barrel. Can we perhaps concentrate on obscene consumption of some bona fide multi-millionaires and leave the dude who put a $3500 bike on his credit card alone? Geezus!