WORDS DAZ HALL PHOTOGRAPHY CHIPPS
On a recent holiday to California, I was brutally reminded of a side of human nature that I’ve never been very comfortable with. The ostentatious displays of material wealth and the traits that drive it were everywhere to be seen, from the size of the SUVs and trucks, the thousands of multi-million dollar beachfront properties, to the yachts in the marinas. The primal urge to have the best, biggest, fastest, or most technically advanced possessions from cars, laptops, phones and even everyday appliances such as kettles seems to be ingrained in us and almost impossible to resist. This is especially true when it comes to the choice of which bikes we ride. In the relatively short history of our sport, bikes have advanced at an exponential pace, and invariably these advances have focused on making bikes bigger and, as a result, faster. Forks and suspension have more travel, wheels are larger, handlebars wider, tyres fatter and frames longer, lower and slacker. And these trends are the result of the demands of riders wanting to go bigger, faster or further. They’re also a result of the same basic urge that makes us buy cars that can do double the limit at which we’re allowed to drive on public roads.