Tower of Babble

Once upon a time. There were bicycles. That was the only name for them. But pretty soon people began tinkering around with them, adapting them to different needs, and they felt the need to come up with new names to identify their new styles of bike. "No, Gilles, I tell you, this bicycle I've built for Paris-Brest-Paris is entirely different than the one you used in Paris-Roubaix. It shall be called the "randonneur." And so off we went down a path that at the time probably seemed simple enough to comprehend.