>>1133002>market that's been conditioned for decades to desire racing technologyi think you're right about that, the mid to high end bicycle market has been built around racing for so long that selling anything else becomes tricky
i think the rise of stuff like gravel has partly come from a desire to sell slightly more practical, larger tire less aggressive geo road bikes
they couldn't just say, "hey this would make a good commuter and is fairly practical" because that doesn't help justify full carbon and ultegra
instead they came up with and promoted a new category of racing where bikes targeted at that racing would be what they wanted to sell in the first place
i think advertising in the form of "grassroots" movements is going to become more prevalent as we go forward, traditional picture + text ads are dead
i see a future where people who can make themselves seem cool are inserted with stealth into any sort of hobby's most influential subgroups
these people will go beyond just being coolhunters, they will be coolmakers, capable of reshaping a market from the inside out
they might not even know that this is their job, maybe they are just following what looks like a trend made by another coolmaker
or maybe they will be reprogrammed using a splinter personality crafted by subliminal messaging and enhanced by psychiatric medicine
