Gear snobs, they're everyhere

          Most often seen at Trek dealers,charity rides and special club rides, true gear snobs are not the weekly spandex hamsters who are obsessed with wattage, calories and times. They don't wear team kit,at least not their own.  They wear what matches their bikes and rarely have sweat stains on themselves. The real gear snobs are always up on the the latest and greatest.  I swear some have conversion tables locked into their DNA.  They can explain on a moments notice how to save 1/2 pound on the bike, right down to the 10th of a gram.  They wait impatiently for their LBS to get the newest design of carbon fiber unobtainium bottle cage in stock so they can (and this is important)be first to have one matching the GPS/Cyclometer/afterburner control on their handlebars.

                                            But beware, there are worse out there.
           Those of us who love old steel and sacrifice the weight for articulate lug work

while self righteously contending the "power to weight ratio of the engine must be conquered first" can sometimes (I said sometimes) reach an unrealistic smug level.  Don't think so?   Watch the bike forums carefully.  Find a seeming docile conversation about the photographic demands of classic bikes.  Hold on to your leather hairnet and and try to remember that Thursday is still French Toast day.  OCD reigns supreme as people argue the proper angles of cranksets to downtube shifter employment.

The relationship between tire labels, valve stems and quick release levers (always on the drive side, that is one universally accepted and undisputed truth from the scrolls themselves), the appropriate angle of said QR lever is under endless debate.  There seems to be an unwritten regulation concerning the relationship between the seat and handlebars, the height of either can be argued, depending on the wheelbase and trail of the bike of course, but one thing is for certain, if more than a handful of seat post is exposed, you have the wrong bike!   And don't bother taking a photo of anything made after 1990.  It just ain't worth it's weight in pixels.
   Commuters are a different level.  They really get smug about the whole, "I'm saving money and the whole damn planet by myself" program.  I love to talk to them and what they paid for this, that; what was found, donated and bartered on the Internet.  It's like an obsession to drive the cost of commuting into the negative category.
    I like nice things, but what happened to those days after Christmas when we rode down the hill on our first "two wheeler."  Falling over and over again in the snow, having fun, until we could make the turn and pedal all the way back up?

I dunno,

but I'm thinking my son can pay for his own college.