Because… you could move a lot closer and not take much of a hit on renting prices. Lynnwood/snohomish county and Everett are much cheaper than Seattle/King county.
If you own though, I get it. House prices even in Lynnwood, are sky high. If you were to sell your current house (if you own it) and try moving and buying another-----you may as well look at moving to a completely different city where you actually really want to be. and enjoy the lower costs of another state.
That’s the trick with Washington. Most of the state is very reasonable to afford. But getting a job in those areas which allows you to really enjoy that, can be a trick for many professions.
Specialized unveiled the redesigned Enduro. It used to be a real big deal when they did that.
Nowadays, the industry is cracked wide open with tons of smaller brands doing somewhat unique things and its harder than ever to buy a truly bad bike. (but bikes like this also cost a friggin ton, even for the “low” spec).
But, I still feel like when Specialized redesigns the Enduro, its like a Barometer on which to base the industry as a whole. And indeed, some brands do still make changes which are a reaction to Specialized.
The new one has a fairly utilitarian look, overall. It looks like a bike, more than previous designs. Which were more like spaceships.
But I think its to draw attention to the super slack geometry, super long wheelbase, and the all new rear suspension which is a pretty big departure from what Specialized has been doing forever.
In comparison, here is the 2007 Enduro SL which was a major redesign and the start of their spaceship bikes. That bike had a real long wheelbase and still kinda does. You can’t put these sideways in a truck bed. You have to go diagonal or lenghwise. But the new one is even longer.
Also of note: The new one has 29 inch wheels Vs. 26 inch.
I’d imagine that the geometry being more slack is a reaction to the new hotness gravel bikes hitting the scene yeah? now if you want a more aggressive hard tail-ish thing but you’re not actually doing straight up mountain biking you’d go for a gravel bike
I’m not actually aware of “gravel” bikes until this moment.
But they…kind of look like a mainstream marketing appraoch to a cross bike (cycle cross. Which is the most torturous of competitive biking categories).
Anyway, the extra slackness is just the way things have been going. For years the bike industry has been refining and iterating on designs which get slacker and sometimes longer: but can still be pedaled and have reasonable agility. In my opinion, Specialized and Santa Cruz were the ones really pushing this, early on.
That new Enduro is basically like a downhill bike from 2007. But pedals well and is also 10lbs lighter than a DH bike.
The stumpjumper, which used to be very much a trail bike with XC roots----is now like what those 2007 Enduros were like. But 5-7lbs lighter and actually probably slacker (I haven’t compared the numbers.). But somehow more agile.
Which makes the newer Enduros kind of niche products for guys who really like to hang it out there, nearly as far as a downhiller, but still need to pedal their bike and maybe not wear full gear even though they really should. I’ve seen several riders try out new Stumpjumpers and realize they should be on a stumpy now. Because newer stumpjumpers do everything which used to be thought of as “Enduro” territory for the older Enduros. but are lighter and more agile. So…better bikes for those riders. If I had money for a new bike, I would be buying a Stumpjumper.
Newer Enduros really are specialty items. A new class of bike for people who were over-riding the older Enduros.
Current XC bikes are weird because even though they can be specced out as hardcore race machines: Technology designs have caught up so that they are actually nice as trail and singletrack bikes. I think that’s part of why the current XC pro courses are so much more fun.
There almost doesn’t exist anymore a true “trail bike”, which truly fits between XC race machine and the more hardcore stuff. You can still certainly ride a Stumpjumper like that. But those bikes now, are engineered to be pushed, too.
New downhill bikes are monsters. I mean, DH bikes have always been monsters. But considering that Enduros can do a lot of what older DH bikes did: new DH bikes are extra monster. And the level at which pro-riders ride them, shows us why.
NJ drivers are really good, all the bad driving in jersey is consistently from out of staters who say things like “it’s new jersey, it doesn’t matter if I cut across 3 high way lanes without signalling”
so hey, there’s this japanese documentary about driving in america, and since they’re japanese, they animated that thing… it’s called redline? or so, y’all should watch it!
We don’t own a house. We live in an apartment. It just some extra (fully livable) space in a small business that the owner is subleasing to us at half of market rate because he’s either really generous or because his notions of what things cost for plebians are decades out of date (idk). Either way, we’re never going to get this good of a deal on rent ever again, unless rent control ever happens.
In other words, I can tolerate my current situation, even though it is imperfect. Neither my wife nor I make enough money to feel comfortable moving elsewhere at the moment, although if I could get a job that pays 2x what I currently make that would change things considerably.
I think the metro in St. Louis allows bikes? Maybe it was because nobody used the metro, or maybe I’m misremembering, but wow I wish that were widespread. I feel like it would make them at least twice as effective.
I am extremely late on the flight shame talk but still want to echo the previous post’ss
Airplanes use the most amount of fuel when taking off and landing so long distance flights are actually very efficient!
and systemic change is absolutely the way to think and influence those things. the notion that individual consumption choices make a meaningful difference is driving me insane because around here people do not want to get past that
it’s like, i KNOW this but my brain is fucking killer at not doing things so when i hear ‘doing x is bad’ just once i’m like ‘ok time to never do that ever!!’
but it’s ok i’m gonna be flying now
hey what’s the deal with nerve damage from bike seats, was that actually a thing? are there fancy dick-preserving bike seats now? i always preferred to pedal standing up anyway but maybe that’s less efficient
I appreciate you framing it this way because imo making an ideology out of Not Doing Things is a big dumb psychological trap and it’s probably the single biggest factor in when I chafe against a lot of populist left discourse. If you are not super high functioning or don’t have a lot of fungible resources it’s like “yeah, obviously, don’t do stuff, heaven knows I don’t, doing stuff is the biggest contributor to climate change!” but rationalizing ways to not exist in the world is no way to live. We all do less of some stuff than others, and that’s the best we can do.
