h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Supportive to this theory is the fact that, although other modes of transport have evolved to high tech standards, bicycles remain pure 19th century. An example of this is the fact that simple maintenance tasks such as replacing a tyre can take up to two hours. The act of putting a new tyre around an isolated wheel takes only a few minutes. It is the dismounting (and mounting) of brake-levers, gear cables and chains that really discourages you. They are all fixed with nuts and bolts of essentially varying sizes (so that you need a wide range of tools and always find yourself holding the wrong one) positioned in the most inecffective and inaccessable of places. The smaller nuts also have the tendency to fall while at the same time failing to reach the floor. Later, when you have been rummaging around your shed for a replacement for half an hour, they invariably re-appear clinging to your left sock.
All this is to discourage the public to repair bicycles and make them leave the contraptions, half dismounted, in the cycle-shed and take the car instead.