Yeah it’s a Bianchi Europa. I guess the downtube shifters are bearable for me if I’m not racing. Especially since if it gets stolen I only lose $200. And I guess the $200 of work I put into it for funsies lol.

I’m an avid cyclist and I would never spend 10k on a bike. For my nice favorite bike it was $2500. I commute on a vintage road bike and it works great, it was $200 on fb marketplace.

This is exactly the problem that urban planning is meant to solve. Our specific US problem may not have been solved YET but that doesn’t mean it can’t be. As an engineer, one of our sayings is “anything can be engineered, it just depends on how much money you have”. So for this problem, it’s more about our communal values: if we decide as a community to value public transit and pedestrian friendly urban planning, we put our community funds in those areas instead of centering cars.

Yeah I see this problem too. I wonder if it might be a zoning issue. I think right now in the US in these areas we have suburban “centers” with Costco’s, Lowe’s, etc. and strip malls. All which require huge large parking areas. How would it look to provide people what they need, without the detrimental effects of car centered land use?