I got seriously into bikes back in high school (Class of 1991, if you're wondering). Or maybe bikes found me - they were the perfect match of not mainstream, yet sort of tough athletically. There was lots of engineering stuff to think about, but also adrenaline and excitement.

I also was into photography in high school and ended up the photo editor of the school newspaper. I never got too into the artistic side of things, but they key thing is that I had access to two darkrooms at the school. But when I got to college I stopped taking photos.

Once a camera found its way into my pocket via an iPhone 4, I started taking photos again. Instagram gave me motivation to share good images that I picked up on rides. When I arrived in the desert and started doing more bikepacking in these dramatic landscapes, I started to want more options that what the little iPhone could do.

But the desert is hard on cameras, and I didn't want to put a lot of money into things, and then have that turn into getting things for the things. So I started taking pictures with a simple little Pentax S100 that fit in my pocket, but gave me more options with a real zoom lens and exposed more of the process I had used many years ago on my old Pentax 35mm camera.

Did my pictures get better? I did grab some good ones on the Pentax. But I still took some stunning stuff on trips when the iPhone ended up in my hand first.

The iPhone 11 and successors arrived and "computational photography" looked to be another example of "software eats the world". I kept hearing "you don't need a good camera anymore". This year my iPhone 8 (I'm always at the tail end of what's still supported) started to do funny stuff so it was time to bump up a couple models. I decided it was time to make the leap so I bought a used iPhone 11 Pro Max. My justification was mostly based on it being a camera that could make phone calls. I wanted to max out it's potential with the triple lens design of the Pro Max, and though now it barely fits in my pocket, I figured the bigger screen would be easier to use for framing shots and the bigger battery would be a win overall for bikepacking when the phone is usually in airplane mode anyway.

Are you expecting to hear my regrets? Well, it is a great camera. It does take great pictures and that it seamlessly switches between 3 lenses is amazing. Being the first generation of this camera platform, supposedly the software isn't as heavy-handed in making unrealistically "perfect" photos. That's all fine and dandy.

The problem is the experience. I'm always hitting the wrong thing on the touch screen. I'm prone to clicking the power button to shoot instead of the volume. Maybe there's a different camera app that handles the user interface differently. But there's one big problem: I can't see the damn thing.

First, my near vision is terrible, so I'm fighting bifocals most of the time. Then I mostly shoot in the bright sun which makes thing worse since when I try to look down to shade things from the sun I lose the magnification. This turns the screen into a mirror. It's frustrating to have all this photo power and not be able to have a clue what I'm pointing the camera at.

So what does this have to do with bikes? Hold on a little longer, we're almost there.

I went to go check on my mom recently, and in a closet there was an older Olympus digital camera. How old? 4 megapixels old. If you're into cameras, this is not going to be a "CCD sensors are like film" version of the "steel is real" bike nerd essay. I promise.

I was looking at the camera, and noticed it had a viewfinder. A viewfinder with a diopter adjustment so I can make it focus with my eyes. And it's an electronic viewfinder. An electronic viewfinder that displays what the camera will capture. Since I don't nerd hard on cameras in this century, it hadn't dawned on me that this was an option. I was excited that I could take pictures and actually see what I was doing. It's smallish to be easy to take on trips but still has a good zoom range. Could this be the solution I really want? It's not like I make big enlargements so the megapixels wasn't really a problem so everything else seemed really promising.

I took the camera to Filoli, a garden estate, and took pictures of flowers for a couple of hours. When I got home, I unloaded the camera, and there was only one image I liked, and only because it was abstract enough that its flaws in exposure ended up being a "lucky mistake". The rest were pretty meh.

So even though I once knew the fundamentals and had the "right" setup to do something with them, I did not know this camera.

If you look on YouTube about these cameras, you'll find multiple videos talking about how this camera has a great lens and can take still take great pictures today. One of the videos is from Ali O'Keefe, who runs an Instagram account called "One Month, Two Cameras". She tests random new and old cameras for two weeks to get used to them and understand them, and then posts her favorite photos to the 'gram without revealing the camera. Out of this she started popularizing the hashtag #nobadcameras with the idea that with experience any camera can take a great picture, and learning how to work with a camera's quirks was a big part of the fun of the artistic experience. This made me wonder about a #nobadbikes equivalent - could you have a great ride out of any bike if the two of your are in tune?

Digging into #nobadcameras led me to a video by Robin Wong called "Camera Truths" and this quote, which I have updated for bikes. He also writes the same thoughts on his blog but the video appears to now be "Members Only".

There have been a lot of complaints about how recent bike releases are not good enough and some even claimed a bike being “dead on arrival”. The chase for bike perfection is getting out of hand and honestly, quite pointless. The bike is just a tool, and seriously, the bikes we have today are so much more powerful and capable than any other bikes released more than 10 years ago. We should shift our focus away from demanding more and more and more and truly look into ourselves and ask ourselves – why are we not happy with our rides? Is the bike truly to be blamed?

As the video continued, it almost all seemed to map just as well to bikes and riding. I kept nodding in agreement with every sentence. It was all dead-on.

So I thought I'd expand off his "Harsh Truths" but swap the subject to bikes.

Truth 1: There is no perfect bike

We are always chasing elusive perfection. Often we hear or read about things and map them to our desires. If your bike could just fit a fit a 55mm tire everything would be so much better. If I had one more gear in the back, if these rims were 100g lighter. It never ends, unless you take the zen attitude and stop playing the game.

Maximize the potential of the bike you have, for the rides you do. Certain things require specialization and if you need a bike for snow then you probably don't want skinny tires. Do you ride enough snow to justify a fat bike? Then a fat bike might the perfect bike if you ride a lot of snow. But you can also not ride when there's snow. Let your bike be perfect for doing what it does best.

Truth 2: There are no bad bikes, only bad riders

Why is a bike in 2025 not good enough? You want to go faster? The bike doesn't make you faster. You go your speed. Some bikes may turn this into a slower velocity. A different bike might change that, but it doesn't change you.

Truth 3: Tires matter more than frames

This seems like the obvious comparison to lenses. Whether it's weight, rolling resistance, or traction, tires are where you, the rider, interact with the ground. Since rotating weight at the tires costs double, there are big gains to be had for this one part. A simple tire swap can totally change a bike.

Truth 4: Bikes are universally similar

A bike won't make up for missing fundamentals. The bike will not mask flawed technique. But skills will transfer from one bike to the other. Bunnyhopping logs is the same as bunnyhopping over broken glass.

Technique is honed by putting in the time. Reading about it doesn't count until you do things. As your skills grow what you can do with those skills increases exponentially.

Truth 5: The bike can't read your mind

You control your bike. It can not break the laws of physics.

Epilogue

This of course is not a perfect fit. You could certainly say that bikes that don't fit are not good bikes. But we're really talking about upgrading a "better" bike here, not a "better fitting" one.

If you're a camera dork and are wondering what I'm shooting with right now? Big digital: Lumix DMC-FZ50, tiny digital: Pentax S100, tinier digital: Fuji Finepix J-38.