A Case for Friction

I have been working on this essay for over a year now. I think it was inspired by Bike Snob’s article on the future-proof bike. What originally started out as a case for cable-actuated gears and brakes, has now grown into a more existential argument.

Much of the innovation in the bike industry has its roots in racing, a lot like how our innovations in tech have to do with war and military technology. And then the tech trickles down the capitalist river into our little pockets.

Downtube friction shifters won the Tour de France, but riders were always looking for ways to remove any form of thinking that could slow them down - they just wanted something that worked so that they could concentrate on the winning, not what gear they were in.

So this is how we’ve ended up with electronic shifting.

Designed to remove not just thinking but also the biomechanical twist of the wrist, it introduces bikes into the world of e-waste, exploitation, and copycat subpar products.

While I will agree there are circumstances where electronic shifting helps (mobility problems), here’s my slippery slope argument: what’s next, shifting that’s done by the bike? (spoiler: it’s already happened.) We obviously see this with automobiles - cars have become moving couches now, complete with home entertainment systems. (I once saw a man watching porn while he was driving.) Vehicles are getting higher, wider, and more likely to kill anyone or anything outside of it. Meanwhile the driver...isn’t even driving anymore.

I would also argue that the use of ChatGPT removes a critical part of what it means to be a human. Writing is the expression of thought. Art is the expression of feeling. What does it say about us if we start to outsource some of the most beautiful expressions of our emotions to a bulimic machine that just regurgitates slop? What does it say about us when we deny artists and writers the opportunities to create in favour of vomit word salad that sounds like everyone else using it?

Art shouldn’t be a profit-making enterprise - in fact, “art should lose money” as was argued by Blindboy in a recent podcast. (Sorry I can’t remember which one, so here’s a great one about bikes and the housing crisis.)

Tech bros are forever trying to streamline and optimise - they want a system as smooth as Elon Musk’s brain. Of course there is the frustration of a “sub-optimal” product, but that can usually be chalked up to planned obsolescence. Light bulbs can be designed to last for decades. I guarantee you we could have more efficient cars. But the problem is that these items don’t make money for the right people.

Capitalism strikes again.

I can understand the desire to outsource something you find difficult to a robot. That on its own isn’t bad. I love dishwashers and washing machines. But the motives of the industry behind Large Language Models are not good. I want you to remember this when you type in a prompt.

This will come back to haunt us.

“Give me more ideas to reject.” - Don Draper, Mad Men

When it comes to creativity, this is probably my most favourite quote in the entire world. Don wants stimulation. He’s not simply seeking more ideas.

AI has it wrong, obvs:

NO NO NO. I want to SCREAM this at Gemini. More ideas is like fuel, it’s putting gasoline on a fire. It turns the gears of my brain. I am the ideas machine - I have an incredible amount of ideas, for books, for slogans, for events, but the only reason I have these ideas is that I am usually prompted by something else. By something completely unrelated, by frenemies, by geopolitics, by friction. AI seems to think that out of its barrage of word barf will come a great idea? That’s monkeys at a typewriter.

I am only good at writing because I write. I used to be SHIT, I used to hate writing, I thought I wasn’t any good at it. But then I had a boss who was smart, kind, and patient. She wanted me to take on the charity’s newsletter, which consisted of a lot of short instructive but entertaining paragraphs. She became my tutor, explaining how word choice was essential, brevity outweighed pride, and clarity was king. She was a wordsmith. Every month for 3 years I had to birth a newsletter that people would actually read. And then in 2011 I started writing the London Bike Kitchen newsletter, just once a month. But all of this was enough for me to develop my own voice and writing style. (I know many of you have been here since that time, and I salute you.)

You know what the rest of that Don Draper quote is?

“Give me more ideas to reject. I can’t do this all by myself.”

I can’t do this all by myself.

AI is acting as a stand in for community. People are using it as a personal therapist, advisor, friend. When you surround yourself with Yes Men, you will go mad - just look at Elon or Donald.

Real community comes from real people. Community doesn’t equal big, it can be just one other person. Start small and make a connection. I called the local pizza parlour and ordered for collection. I’m planning a potluck dinner party for friends that ends promptly at 9pm (boundaries are important.) I gave my watch to a homeless man that I said hello to every time I was at the station.

All these things add up, and the tech broligarchy hates it.

So is ChatGPT your voice? Or does your voice belong to you?

I now use Duck Duck Go as it gives me more control over what AI is visible. There’s still ads but I scroll past it. Reminds me of the ol’ search engine called ‘dogpile’ 😹 (showing my age there).

Reconnect - this one is a personal commitment from me, as I am very prone to going into hermit mode. I enjoyed this writeup from Our Great Communal Mess:

Set Your Phone to Black & White

I now have my phone sounds and vibrations permanently off. I’m in permanent do not disturb mode. And now it’s in greyscale most of the time. Your phone’s colours and alerts are designed to be a magnet, stealing your attention and throwing you off track. Make it less attractive, here’s how to put it into greyscale.

I can triple click the power button to switch it back to colour in case I need it (colour helps with map reading, for example.)

Without friction we would be sliding around the earth’s crust like Mario on a banana peel.

Just look at what teflon has done to our bodies and our environment.

We demand a faster and faster internet, faster and faster cars, a fast track at the airport check in. But is faster “progress”? And is it better? Is progress actually linear? What if we peaked already, and now we are sliding downhill into a pile of e-waste?

Whether we like it or not, friction is a necessary part of life.

Mother nature doesn’t speed up (although it certainly feels that way as I get older.)

Several years ago I was invited to speak at the Clonakilty Bike Festival in Ireland. It’s a small town with a super keen cycling scene. The town’s only bike shop had a 3 month wait list. Maybe that sounds long to you, but to me it sounds pretty human.

I leave you with Ronnie Chieng’s troubling vision of Amazon.

Broad Bikez give me hope, and I wish them all the best in their DIY bike workshop journey 🫶 I don’t think I’ve fully reflected on closing LBK down yet (in fact I know I haven’t.) Probs got a few newsletters (or a book?) to write about that…

Ride on,

Jenni x