New Isn't the Same as Better: When Bicycle Innovation Stops Helping the Rider

I spend a lot of time thinking about millimeters. And recently Shimano shit the bed by “innovating” their proven pedal design into something with no performance benefit, and several techincal drawbacks. Which led me to think a lot about the bicycle industry, and it’s seemingly endless capacity to follow the itself right off a cliff.

Thinking about millimeters is unavoidable when you fit people to bicycles for a living. Saddle height, saddle fore-aft, cleat position, reach, stack—small changes can matter.

But "can matter" and "always matter" aren't the same thing.

Years ago, while working for one of the major bicycle brands in a fit, biomechanics and product dev role, I led a small internal project looking at how much we had to change a rider's position before they could actually perceive the difference.

It wasn't peer-reviewed research, and I don't present it as such. We deliberately kept the project manageable, primarily looking at saddle height and fore-aft rather than trying to investigate every possible fitting variable.

What interested me was the threshold. Our most sensitive riders would often recognize a change of about 4 mm. Below that, things became pretty meaningless. That's also reasonably consistent with what I've continued to observe over decades of fitting riders.

Which brings me to Shimano's latest road pedals. Shimano recently introduced a lower-stack version of its road pedal system, reducing stack height by approximately 15 percent—or 2.3mm to be precise.

From an engineering perspective, that's an accomplishment.

My question is different: Is that a meaningful pursuit?

The Difference Between Measurable and Meaningful

This distinction gets lost constantly in cycling.

Modern engineering allows us to measure extraordinarily small differences. Wind tunnels can identify tiny changes in drag (sort of). Motion-capture systems can report joint angles to tenths of a degree (or so they report). Pressure mapping systems can show minute movements in center of pressure (well, that’s a post for another time). Manufacturers can shave millimeters from components and grams from frames.

The ability to measure a difference, however, doesn't establish that the difference is meaningful. That's especially important in bike fitting. A 2 mm change is real. I can measure it. I can document it. I can probably show it to you on a computer screen. But if the rider can't perceive it, movement doesn't meaningfully change, comfort doesn't improve, and performance doesn't improve, what exactly have we accomplished?

That's not an argument that small changes never matter. Sometimes they absolutely do. A small change at one interface can alter pressure or resolve a very specific mechanical conflict. An in-shoe wedge is maybe 1mm thick yet it often creates significant upstream outcomes.

The problem is assuming that because something is measurable, it must therefore be important.

A 15 Percent Improvement in What?

Percentages are wonderful marketing tools. A 15 percent reduction sounds substantial. A reduction of 2.3 mm sounds considerably less exciting. Both statements can describe exactly the same thing and in the case of Shimano, they do.

But there's an even more important question: a 15 percent improvement in a technical specification isn't necessarily a 15 percent improvement in the experience of riding a bicycle.

Reducing pedal stack theoretically has consequences. It changes the relationship between the foot and pedal spindle and can influence the total distance between the saddle and pedal. There are aerodynamic or cornering arguments being made, which are honestly ridiculous. Same goes for shorter cranks..another time. At the margins of elite performance, margins matter, but most of the purported marginal gains are isolated, at best.

But for the overwhelming majority of riders, we should be willing to ask whether those theoretical advantages survive contact with an actual human being. News flash…they don’t.

If the change is smaller than what many riders can reliably perceive, its practical significance deserves scrutiny.

And if achieving the advertised advantage requires a particular cleat configuration—or some riders ultimately need an adjustable cleat that gives back part of the reduction—the headline number becomes even less interesting.

That's the difference between designing around a specification and designing around a rider.

Every Innovation Has a Cost

This is the part of bicycle innovation I think we discuss far too little. New technology doesn't arrive for free. I'm not talking about the purchase price. I'm talking about complexity.

A new standard requires compatible parts. A proprietary component requires future availability. Internal routing changes service procedures. Integrated cockpits affect fit adjustment. Unique bearing dimensions change what the mechanic needs to stock. New electronic ecosystems create additional compatibility questions. Each individual decision may be perfectly defensible. Collectively, they have made bicycles considerably more complicated to own and service.

I've had plenty of modern bikes in the workshop where a relatively ordinary task becomes an archaeological expedition through proprietary hardware, technical documents, special tools, and parts availability.

The rider pays for that complexity, literally. But also through downtime, limited adjustability, reduced compatibility, and fewer people capable of servicing the bicycle. So whenever we're presented with an innovation, I think there should be another question alongside "What did we improve?"

What did we make worse to get it?

Integration Is a Perfect Example

Integrated cockpits are beautiful.

They're aerodynamic (apparently). They're clean. They photograph wonderfully. They allow product designers to create bicycles that look extraordinarily finished.

They can also turn changing reach or stack into a considerably larger undertaking than it needs to be. Or impossible.

That's particularly interesting from a bike-fitting perspective because stem length and handlebar position aren't decorative decisions. They're variables we use to accommodate the person riding the bicycle. When adjustability is sacrificed for integration, we're effectively making a bet that the bicycle's predetermined geometry will suit the rider.

Sometimes it does.

Sometimes a rider discovers that changing reach by 10 mm requires replacing an expensive proprietary cockpit and potentially rerouting hydraulic hoses through half the bicycle.

We've made the bicycle cleaner. Have we made the rider's experience better?

Those aren't necessarily the same question.

The Industry Has Been Having This Conversation With Itself

What's interesting is that none of this criticism is particularly new.

For years, cycling publications, mechanics, retailers, and riders have complained about proliferating standards, proprietary components, increasingly complicated service procedures, and the cost of maintaining modern bicycles.

And then we keep doing it. Part of the reason is understandable. Bicycle companies need to sell bicycles. Component companies need to sell components. A mature product category creates an enormous commercial incentive to identify the next improvement.

"Still works perfectly well" isn't much of a product launch. "New" is. And I’m quite grateful that during my time in Product Marketing for bike companies, the material and construction methods, and design iterations were in and of themselves, meaningful. I was never asked or forced to create any of the bullshit that pervades modern industry marketing today.

The danger comes when engineering begins solving problems primarily because they're technically solvable rather than because riders meaningfully benefit from the solution. Or when they’re influencing a meaningul standard to skirt an obstacle that’s a matter of perspective within one company.

That isn't innovation. It's just product development.

The Rider Has to Live With the Engineering

This is where my perspective has changed after spending years on both the manufacturing side of the bicycle industry and now working directly with riders in a service course. Manufacturers experience a bicycle primarily during development and sale. Riders experience it for years afterward. Mechanics experience it every time something wears out. Bike fitters experience it every time the human being doesn't happen to match the dimensions the product designer anticipated.

Those perspectives don't always reward the same decisions. Is that the case in other industries???

A proprietary solution may allow an engineer to achieve an impressive design target. But if it makes the bicycle harder to adjust, harder to repair, more expensive to maintain, or dependent upon a component that may not exist seven years from now, that's part of the product too.

Serviceability is a feature. Compatibility is a feature. Adjustability is a feature. And simplicity can be extraordinarily sophisticated engineering.

Meanwhile, We Still Can't Make Shoes Shaped Like Feet

Back to Shimano shitting the bed.

This may be my favorite example because the problem is so wonderfully obvious. We can redesign pedal interfaces to remove 2.3 millimeters of stack height. But look at the shape of many cycling shoes. Then look at a human foot.

For decades, much of cycling footwear has tapered toward the toes in a way that owes more to conventional shoe design than human anatomy. When riders complain about forefoot pressure or inadequate room, the solution is often to add volume. But volume and shape aren't the same thing. I wrote a piece for Cyclingnews in 2017 saying the same, and the comments went abosultey bonkers….100’s of comments reinforcing my commentary. That was a decade ago.

A shoe can have more internal volume and still constrain the foot in the wrong places. Human feet generally broaden through the forefoot. Toes occupy space. The first and fifth metatarsals don't naturally converge toward a fashionable point. This becomes especially important in cycling because we're asking the foot to transmit substantial force while confined inside a relatively rigid structure. And I genuinely believe people’s feet are changing RAPIDLY, at the moment. With brands like Topo, Altra, etc, and offices emptying post covid (no more dress shoes) I am literally seeing people’s feet relax into their true anatomical shape. Look at a baby’s foot and consider where it’s gone wrong.

If we're going to spend engineering resources redesigning the interface between the shoe and pedal, perhaps we should also reconsider the interface between the shoe and the foot.

Good Engineering Should Make the Bicycle Disappear

I don't want bicycles to stop evolving. Quite the opposite.

I've spent much of my career around bicycle development, biomechanics, aerodynamics, and performance. Some of the improvements we've made over the past several decades are extraordinary. Electronic shifting works incredibly well. Modern hydraulic brakes are remarkable. Tires and wheels have transformed what bicycles can do. Suspension is almost unrecognizable compared with what we rode decades ago.

The point isn't that old is better. It's that new and better are different claims.

A meaningful innovation should solve a problem riders actually experience or create a benefit significant enough to justify whatever compromises accompany it. Or, if it’s just a new color way, or a new fabric, let it be that…

Sometimes that means more technology. Sometimes it means less. And sometimes the most sophisticated engineering decision available is recognizing that the existing solution already works remarkably well. Because ultimately, the best bicycle technology doesn't constantly remind you how technologically advanced it is. It lets you ride your bicycle.