Within the automobile media they do a factor the place they maintain observe of which fashions are nonetheless out there with handbook transmissions. For instance:

Whereas the handbook transmission automobile is clearly moribund, buoyed solely by individuals who want you to know they’re driving one, the rim brake street bike is already lifeless. The arduous work of burying it lastly over, the bike trade is now leaning on its spade and respiration a sigh of aid.

Sure, there’s the uncommon exception for the “fanatic.” For instance, simply as you possibly can nonetheless order a Porsche with a stick shift, so can also you purchase a Colnago with rim brakes…

…a minimum of you possibly can in concept, although I’d take this to imply that Colnago have made a complete of 5 of those and bought perhaps three to this point:

In any other case, of the Huge 4 bike corporations (that’s Specialised, Trek, Cannondale, and Large), so far as I can inform solely two nonetheless supply a street bike with rim brakes. Cannondale will promote you certainly one of these:

Or, if that doesn’t seize you, how about this equivalent bike from Large?

And sure, after all there are smaller corporations that also make bicycles with rim brakes, to say nothing of the customized builders. However so far as bikes the common schmuck goes to come across while searching for his first street bike, that is just about it.

As a lot as I wish to complain about this state of affairs, it’s largely simply feigned outrage, for the reason that industrywide shift to disc brakes actually doesn’t have an effect on me in any respect. If something, it solely makes my life simpler, since not solely do I’ve loads of bikes and tools, however the used market is awash in bargains since fewer and fewer individuals even need these things anymore, and we’re in no hazard of exhausting the world’s rim brake sources anytime quickly. I imply it’s 2025 and Kool Cease nonetheless makes alternative pads for Campagnolo Delta brakes:

If something, the one motive I’m so fixated on the disappearance of the rim brake is as a result of it’s an enchanting instance of how unaware one might be of 1’s personal growing older, one thing I by no means appreciated till began getting outdated. Rim brakes nonetheless appear completely regular to me, and but once I’m out on a journey I notice they’ve all however vanished, and I start to know how somebody can stroll round within the polyester leisure swimsuit he’s had for the reason that Seventies and nonetheless assume he’s on the top of trend, regardless of all of the individuals laughing at him.

Much more profoundly, unbeknownst to the traditional wearer, that leisure swimsuit has gone out and in of trend a number of occasions for the reason that Seventies, and amongst sure riders (such because the “alt” set) the rim brake nonetheless has some cachet. However alas, even when it’s again in trend the traditional wearer isn’t cool, as a result of he’s not conscious of it himself. He’s not making a intelligent assertion; as a substitute, he’s merely caught prior to now, and thus his sartorial alternative carries no social forex. It’s much like how everybody will fawn throughout some retro-inspired customized rim brake bike at MADE, however write off the individuals who have at all times been dedicated to rim brakes as cranky outdated fusspots.

However that’s fantastic. In truth I’d argue there’s nothing extra liberating. Now not am I in thrall to new bikes; certainly, they maintain no attraction for me in anyway. As a substitute, because of Traditional Cycle, I can return in time and play with the bikes over which I as soon as lusted. By the way in which, does it make me a nasty person who I type of need this?

The Vengeance Bike will at all times have a spot in my coronary heart because the bike upon which I conquered dragged my ass over the Swiss Alps:

I feel this one is perhaps a bit small, however it’s powerful to inform when the vendor makes use of the “I don’t know in anyway how bike sizing works” technique of measuring:

Having simply gone by way of it myself, I now admire what number of “classic” bikes being bought are in all probability a part of somebody’s property. That’s the opposite factor about getting outdated, I suppose–the unique homeowners of all of the bikes you continue to covet are in all probability lifeless.