As plague restrictions loosen their grip in some jurisdictions, some of us may be eagerly anticipating the rubbing of elbows with kindred spirits at bike festivals.
But if any of these Gatherings of the Tribes actually occur, they’re liable to be strictly BYOB (Bring Your Own Bike). Because there aren’t any demo models to be had.
As Niner Bikes’ Zach Vestal told Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, demos are designed to drive consumer demand, which is already off the charts. Why hang a giant pair of carbon-fiber tits on a bull market?
“It hasn’t made any sense for us to maintain a fleet of bikes for people to ride when people are buying bikes at a pace we’ve never seen before,” Vestal said.
Added Yeti’s Kyle Rajaniemi: “We’re really focused on making sure our dealers can maintain their sales momentum and deliver bikes to customers.”
The good news is, with the Ever Clear finally pried free of its impromptu anchorage, container ships won’t have to sail round the Horn to your friendly neighborhood IBD.
Mad Blog Media 
Ever Clear. That and the cartoon are too cool for school!
I bet her skipper has some ’splainin’ to do. “So, tell us, Captain Blithe, just how did you manage to give the entire maritime transport industry a wedgie?”
I think everything going through the Suez Canal is driven by a Suez Authority pilot working with the ship captain, so they share the blame on this one. Yeah, this one really screwed the pooch but 40 mph crosswinds on that pile of containers musta been tough to manage. Heck, I’ve had to fight high crosswinds with deep dish aero wheels and that’s on a 20 lb bike, not a 200,000 ton pile of cheap shit from China.
Shows how dependent we are on fate being kind to us.
Also reminds us how dependent we are on cheap shit from China. The last time I drove to Vegas for Interbike I was taking notice of the eastbound railcars piled high with containers and thinking, “God damn, somebody’s buying a whole lot of cheap Chinese shit.” Our widgets log more miles than we do.
Word. Why don’t they make this stuff in Mexico? Solve two problems at one time? Faster delivery, less carbon, and give jobs to our neighbor. Guess donnie and his ilk don’t make enough green that way. Plus the walton brats wouldn’t like it much either.
April Fools gag: Peloton and Apple are working together on a project where you can visualize racing in a pack by using your own bike and wearing their AR glasses.
This new store opened up in the DeVargas Mall near us. I think it is called Homegoods. Its a lot of low cost crap and tchotchke, much of it from You Know Where. Kinda of a cross between a Walmart and Hobby Lobby. We walked through out of curiosity and left thinking peee-yeew.
I think there’s one of those next to the Wholeazon Amafoods on Academy. Haven’t been in there. Sounds like the old Pier One, or World Market, both of which I have been in. You gotta feel for the poor people cranking out all that crap for us.
“No, I don’t know why the Americans want this shit. Freedom, I guess. Uh oh, quick, back to work, here comes the overseer.”
There is a World Market up this way. We occasionally shop there, usually around Christmas time, as they have a lot of decent dried, tinned, or boxed food, tea, and coffee goodies that I can put in a box to Buffalo. I would say the Homedreck store is a couple or three tiers below that and had virtually nothing I would plunk down my dead presidents to buy.
Just more meaningless crap that kicks that Keeling curve up another notch.
Not just cheap shit, but twice as much as we actually need. This thing reminded me of numerous logistics convos over the years. Stationed in Germany in the ’80s, I don’t know how many times “fell off the boat” came up, not just in discussing military shipments, but even with AAFES/PX auto sales. Maybe they were lying to us, but pretty sure there’s a container with an ’88 Dodge Daytona Shelby in it on the bottom of The Atlantic.* We got that all of the time with TransCom missing deliveries … “Sorry, sir, looks like your forty footer must have been on the outer row. She’s down there Luca Brasi now. We’ll order you a new widget tomorrow.”
* Not my car, but a car everyone from the 237th Engineer Battalion still talks about because absolutely everything that could go wrong, did go wrong with that beast. A story for another time.
The captain of her sister ship, the White Lightning, could not be reached for comment.
Crazy that it’s the same boat from the German ferry accident. At a minimum I’d get a few buckets of paint and put a new name on the side.
I’m not the sharpest sandwich at the picnic (wait, wot?) but I keep re-reading that comic and laughing at something different. This 5th time it was the “full-suspension” part.
HAA! I have lately seen a guy on a unicycle and several guys on motorized single wheel skateboard type things on the trails. The unicycle blows my mind. Seems like it would take a lot more skill. I’m assuming the “skateboards” are probably being ridden by skater types that already know how to ride.
There was a unicyclist who used to ride the Palmer Park trails back in Bibleburg. Dude was good. I always wondered what he’d do if he rounded a blind corner on some technical stretch and saw some body-armored dude on a double boinger barreling toward him. Step off, I imagine.
Saw a dude on a uni going up the road to Horsetooth the other day. It’s not crazy long or super steep, but for comparison, the other 50 or so people climbing it were all 3% body fat types in team kits on 17 lb bikes.
There was a guy on a unicycle at a charity ride hereabouts a few years ago. I think he took the 50k version, and we did the 100. He looked spent at 20k. No brakes on the downhill means just you and your legs to prevent careening out of control. That’s some serious work.
There were a couple of unicyclists doing a century I rode 3 or 4 years ago. AFAIK they made it all the way.
The last of those wide tire moto skateboards I saw even had built-in head & tail lights. I’m not interested, though. I already have enough expensive inconvenient ways to bust my a$$.
Heard a reporter asked, so have there ever been any other crises here at the Suez before this one?
Hee, and also haw. “Way to do the research there, Cletus. Ed Murrow is doing 1,827,367 rpm in his grave right about now.”
“I’m here interviewing the designer of Grant’s Tomb. Sir, who is planned to be buried here?”
“That Brooklyn Bridge you mentioned … where is it again?”
How about the joke about the shopkeeper selling the skull of Pancho Villa. The tourist decides to pass on it but the shopkeeper takes him over to a smaller one. The tourist asks who’s it is, and the shopkeeper says “Senior, dis is the skull of Pancho Villa when he was a little boy”.
I hope SAO, that the reporter was younger than that other large Suez crisis.
Clarification: “younger” as in born after that other large Suez crisis occurred.
Alas, Poor Pancho, I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest!
A reporter? Wow…just…wow. Walter Cronkite or Edward Murrow these folks are not.
Geesh Khal … it’s a v-e-r-y compressed news cycle nowadays that requires “feeding the tiger” almost perpetually. Why do any research when you can cut-and-paste literally and intellectually?
Which reminds me of a research kinda quote: “If you steal one person’s ideas that’s called plagiarism. If you steal a lot of peoples’ ideas, that’s called research.” 🙂
I wonder if Shakespeare and Hemingway et al had editors and/or deadlines? 🙂
good artists copy; great artists steal …
When J.J. Cale was interviewed at the 2004 Clapton guitar festival in Texas, he said, “I come down to to listen to all these guitar players and steal some licks.”
Except there is no evidence these folks have stolen any ideas, or that anyone else has ideas to steal. I wonder if it is possible for old Ed Murrow to be spinning relativistically in his grave.
In a world where “Godzilla vs. Kong” is a thing that can get a review from A.O. Scott at the NYT, one wonders if we are out of ideas altogether.
Follow the $$$$$$! 🙂
I understand some Egyptian investors pulled their money out of a project to build a better, faster 6 billion dollar container ship. But they pulled out when they heard the name of the ship was going to be Godzilla.