Bikes, Gears, Action!

I own a mountain bike that I'm rather proud of. Well I'm happy with it, at least. I won it in a competition about eight years ago. I didn't use it all that much until I sold my car a year and more ago. It still looks new and works like new, too.

It's got 15 gears in all. That's enough for me. You can probably buy bikes with, oh, 4000 gears by now. Bikes with automatic gears that change constantly in relation to the speed you go at and the type of terrain you are cycling on. Well technology moves so faassst now, it wouldn't surprise me.

I'm no fan of technology. I don't see it as any kind of progress. I do use it though, although minimally compared to many/most people. But I'd appreciate a bike with automatic gears.

You see although it's quite simple to operate the gears on my bike, I can't seem to get it right. The gears are operated from the handlebars: left-hand down to operate the front three cogs and go faster (like revving up a motorbike), right-hand up to operate the back five cogs and go faster. The opposite process applies for slowing down and stopping, so the gears are in position to make it easy to start and speed up again.

Simple. Not for me. I keep losing momentum at crucial moments, and falling over from a standing position because I'm in 15th gear instead 1st! What an admission.

Come on the technologist who is working on automatic bikes: faster, faster!