In the world of back patting cycling industry there is rarely Bad word spoken about companies, products, or the general direction the industry goes. Actually they spend most time going ‘hey, look what so and so company made! Cool right?!’
Part of this ignorance is centralized around the idea that cycling companies can charge whatever they want and you’re to assume it must be the better product, a theory no more evident than in our USA made products.
A few weeks ago two Portland custom frame builders combined powers to offer something cheaper to the consumer with no wait time but still the glamour of a handbuilt frame. Now a custom frame usually costs about 2500 and has a wait time of a year so surely we all thought this would put the made in USA spirit of cycling under the workaday man.
Starting price of these “cheaper” frames? 1800 dollars. We are drawn to the sarcastic television joke where the wealthy oblivious family recounts the hardships of ‘cutting back’ by selling one if their horses and firing a cook. 1800 dollars puts that steel frame frame roughly a grand more expensive then it’s foreign made competitors.
Now, before I go any further I want you to know brands like breadwinner and cielo make incredible frames. That’s not what’s in question. The question is the goals of these companies. Who’s their market? Impatient doctors? The companies give the image that the USA has given up on building reliable Honda like machines for the middle class and is designated to building land rovers for dentists. It’s too soon.
We need to burn the boutique image and put some steel under the working man at a price he can ride so we 40 hour a week slobs aren’t shamefully peeling off the ‘made in Taiwan’ sticker from our steeds. Look at models like the millwuakee disc cross made by Waterford. The frame is USA made from USA steel and costs under 800. Or the FBM sword, tig welded in Brooklyn track bike for the simple man, again, under 800.
These companies are doing it and others should be following. Supporting the country we love shouldn’t be designated to only the richest who live in it. Custom bikes are wonderful work of art and the artists deserve only the highest praise, but it’s not in everyone’s budget. Please, be the American surly, be the all city, show them Detroit isn’t the only one building our movement in this country.
A new set of @retroshift cxVs on the old #crosscheck works great with the avid single digit ultimates and the stock drivetrain. #bike #commuter
What if I told you the catholic church had been raising dragons in a deep underground cavern miles beneath the crust of Spain in preparation for an apocalyptic war. Crazy?
Well what if I told you Mitt Romney had voted legislation that would double the maximum donation limit to presidential campaigns? Not as crazy?
The truth is I pulled both these stories out of the deepest part of ass and both are as equally founded on facts. Welcome to the news of the internet.
Since the internet first became available to the public we quickly realized two things about it: information can be spread like the noro virus with virtually no effort and the truth is optional.
Despite the belief that the internet was born by a beautiful making of love between technology and information that’s as pure as the wind driven snow to create the baby that is the internet that only shits truth, the internet information is comprised of input from the same flawed featherless creature that supply the information to everything else. And this is where the internet goes wrong.
You see, people have ideas. Some are sane and progressive, some are revolutionary, and some are dressing like a clown to lure children into a van in hopes making a beer batter chili out of them. The problem is these ideas all seem fairly sane to those that birth them. Sometimes all you need is someone who thinks like you, maybe someone who’s already evolved the idea you just hatched. That’s where the internet steps in.
You see from the reality of bigfoot, election and celebrity dirt, to the poisoning of public minds by secret goverment messages in our children’s television, there is a website to give you the inside scoop to support all of it. You can make a website almost as easy as you can setup a coffee maker these days and what you put on is regulated by nearly no one.
People believe what they want to, and what they want to believe has a website source, a forum, and social network page to support it. Making the distinction between truth and lies is hard enough on a regular basis but on the internet its actually pretty much impossible. There really isn’t a watchdog group of any sort and even the sites that are actually illegal can only be closed so many times. How many times has the goverment supposedly squashed pirates bay?
My point isn’t that we should all give up on the internet, or that everything on the internet is bullshit. In fact its done great things. The Arab spring was networked mostly through Twitter and Facebook, countless times YouTube has been the first to break news to the world made aware by countless views and the act of going viral.
And my point isn’t that one should exclusively switch to reading the news paper or watching CNN. These type of corporations ride a thin line of truth held together mostly by their vicious fight for survival against other networks. Some of the biggest news from a network is discovering another networked lied. Remember the hayday the media had with the news of the world phone hacking scandal?
My point is to expand. To often we get too comfortable with one form of media. It takes compilation of the source available to us. Don’t just look it up on the internet, if you’re curious read a book on it(thats right, those still exist). When you’re following stories read about it, watch the television networks compete for tips and bits, google it. The truth needs to be taken to a vote by the jury of media, not just decided by your favorite lawyer.
Long rides after a short taste of uncomfortable unfamiliar sleep after pouring beer down my throat for several straight hours feels like some sort of instinctive balance of the destruction. When you are hot you sweat, when you are cold you shake, and when you are Hung over you ride.
