Choice is good. Choice is freedom.

For all its lack of perfection, capitalism's triumph in most of the world allows those of us in rich countries to have a vast array of options for every decision we make from washing powder to TV channels.

Anarchy in production as Marx called it turns out to be amazingly good at providing choice with all its excesses and peculiarities.

In cycling, choice leads to a bafflingly large number of options from the tiny to the significant.

The 3T Strada expands your options in new ways. Credit: Author
Road or mountain/aero, gravel, TT or endurance/carbon, aluminium, steel or titanium/disc or rim/ gears, single speed or fixie/mechanical or electronic/triple, double or 1x/standard, mid-compact or compact/10- or 11-speed/11-23, 11-25, 11-28 or 11-32/Campagnolo, Shimano or SRAM/aluminum or carbon wheels .... black, white or other bar tape -- you get the idea.

And that's just current options.

The Eroica crowd adore their old stuff and our very own Bucket Rider, John Woodson, takes on the hardest of challenges running "old-school Campagnolo 10-speed".

All of this can be baffling to the newcomer and lead to some very silly snobbery and tribalism among the established. It's a long, long way, however, from "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black," or waiting for five years for a Trabant in East Germany.

That's good.

At the Eurobike Media Days event this summer manufacturers showed off their new offerings ranging from the sublime (BMC Teammachine anyone?) to the ridiculous (e-MTBs were BIG).

There were more choices than ever.

My big takeaways were that the front derailleur is going to disappear from some (SOME not all) road bikes, that the e-bikes' time has come and that you need to keep an open mind as technology develops.

Front Derailleurs

By chance, I rode the Strada from 3T with its lonely front chainring on the same day as talking to Shimano about their "There Is No Single Truth" campaign, which is all about deciding whether you want one or two chainrings on your MTB.

Shimano have hung their hat on giving MTB riders the option depending on the riding they do and where their emphasis lies.

Subtract the red for improved airflow.
With the Strada and its superb SRAM Force 1 groupset fresh in the memory the parallels were spooky.

The irony is Shimano pushes choice for MTB gearing, but is firmly in the traditional camp as far as road chainrings. SRAM on the other hand offers both trad and 1x options for road, but is "ONE. AND ONLY." on the MTB side.

Personally, I like having the ability to spin up even the steepest slopes despite my bulk and don't think I would ever look at 1x for my gran fondo bike. If I had the luxury of having a "sprint" bike for the local fast group ride and similar outings where I could guarantee I would not need the climbing gears I'd definitely consider it.

In September, the single chainring concept was given quite an endorsement when pro team Aqua Blue Sport announced it will be using the Strada in the 2018 peloton. (I won't link to the reviewer who confidently asserted that he didn't know why on earth 3T had bothered to make the Strada meet UCI specifications as no pro team would ever use it.)

The 1x11 set up on the Strada 3T. Credit: Author
I think being single is a choice we'll start seeing more and more in the wild over the next year or so and it is going to be very interesting to track.

E-bikes

If you are in the "makes my blood boil, if it's not powered by my own twitch fibers then it's the devil's work" camp you can skip this section. Just a warning, your red stuff is going to be reaching boiling point more and more often.

E-bikes are not particularly new, but it does seem that their time has come.

They were everywhere we looked in Europe. At the Eurobike Media Days the ski lifts were often ignored as riders powered uphill on beasts looking more like a trials motorbike than a pedal cycle. They were having to brake in some corners while going UPHILL.

Away from the display stands and across the sections of Italy, Germany, France and Switzerland we traversed they were everywhere. Used to run errands, get to work and a multitude of other things without breaking a sweat. Riders are often advanced in years and presumably cycled under their own power in the past and are now enjoying all the advantages of cycling without it being as physically taxing.

The Project Y road bike from Focus with up to 400 watts of additional power. Credit: Focus
On the Stelvio Passthere were several groups of rouleurs accompanied by e-bike riders. The assisted riders would, presumably, have not been able to make the climb otherwise and were sharing the day with their friends. More power to them even if a couple were annoyingly chatty.

Technology

Mr Woodson sticks to his reliable Campy while others rush to upgrade to the latest thing as soon as possible. Everyone has their own position.

I like rim brakes and mechanical shifting.

The asymmetric frame of the BMC Teammachine SLR01 accommodates the disc brakes. Credit: Author
Once set in stone, that position is slightly less solid than it was after this summer's test rides. They exposed me to the latest of what SRAM and Shimano has to offer. It is amazingly good.

Previously, electronic shifting seemed a little clunky and the discs I had tried were a horrible combination of grabby and noisy. Of course, that reinforced my existing stance and short test rides are not the very best way of judging these things.

The cost issue, the added complexity and the look of disc brakes were not up for debate though -- for me.

After the latest set of test rides much of my previous dislike has evaporated. On ride after ride, the latest iterations of electronic shifting and disc brakes -- SRAM RED eTAP and Force 1, and Shimano Dura-Ace Di2, impressed me.

SRAM RED eTAP On a Pinarello F8. Credit: Author
I am still a fan of the old school approach, but the margin has diminished and I have to be even more upfront that it is a matter of personal taste for the most part.

Interestingly, BMC told me that the pre-orders from shops for the 2018 Teammachine were split right down the middle between disc and rim brakes.

More choice again and that's key.

If an advance is unambiguously better than what came before then before too long it will be the new standard. When that does not happen it is probably because different constituencies value different things and  

For the time being at least the list of options for the cyclist is growing rather than shrinking and that's all good.

Choice is good.

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