• Editor’s note: From now until New Year’s Day I’ll be popping up selected “Shop Talk” strips from this year’s run of Bicycle Retailer and Industry News.
Two words you don’t hear much anymore: “instant gratification.”
Tags: Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, BRAIN Farts, Shop Talk
Mad Blog Media 
December 30, 2021 at 5:30 am |
Andy ordered a new bike in December that’s supposed to get to the shop next month. Are things still that bad with new bikes?
Also, please sir, if I may return to the subject of free markets for a minute. We bought a kalimba from this guy, and he is a class act. Used to be an astronomer, but turned his passion into a business. Then Amazon came along, and he has been assimilated. Free market? Yea, right. If you can’t afford the big lawyers, this happens.
https://www.kalimbamagic.com/blog/item/why-i-am-publishing-my-books-on-amazon-piracy
December 30, 2021 at 8:12 am |
I haven’t checked the local shops lately, but earlier this year one manager showed me a list of bikes he had ordered but was unlikely to get until 2022. He had a solid relationship with one supplier that was helping keep product in stock, but some of the others were off the back.
Like anything else I suppose it depends in part on available supply and where your shop sits in the food chain. As usual the little guy who isn’t committed to one of the Big Three brands is most likely to find himself dazed and confused with his pants puddled around his ankles and his wallet gone. Herb can probably give us chapter and verse on this.
Re: publishing. Piracy has been a part of that racket since long before I got started. When I was at the Gazette the local TV nitwits would do what we called “rip ’n’ reads” of our stories instead of doing their own reporting. They’d occasionally turn up to public meetings if there was something sexy to shoot and pad it out with our legwork.
Now and then some talking head and a camera stooge would turn up to a school-board meeting, and since I was ordinarily scribbling notes the camera stooge would give me a few seconds of airtime. I put a stop to that shit by flipping a surreptitious bird (scratching one cheek with the middle finger) or faking a grotesque nose-picking (bend the index finger to the palm and place knuckle against nostril).
In the digital age the guys at BRAIN were always howling about competitors stealing their shit. My blog posts and podcasts used to get lifted all the time by buccaneer bots spidering the interwebs for salable bits.
“Information wants to be free,” they say. Uh huh. I notice this doesn’t apply to groceries, utilities, mortgages, car payments, etc.
December 30, 2021 at 9:03 am |
It’s a Trek hybrid for a large Seattle dealer. Oh well, we’ll see.
Concerning copyright piracy, it seems Amazon not only condones it, but might even reward it with sales. Got to fuel up those dick missiles, don’t you know.
December 30, 2021 at 9:58 am |
Give a dude a choice between a good and honest living or a great but crooked one, and I think the vast majority pick the latter. But it doesn’t stop there. We seem to actively cheer on the highly successful crooks. Somehow it got baked into our DNA.
December 30, 2021 at 9:20 pm |
Not sure about the supply chain of bikes, as there were a shitload of them hanging from the rafters at the Broken Spoke in Fanta Se. But the gentleman I spoke with told me that some brands are not delivering much in the way of bikes. He said a new Surly was one of the hardest to score these days. I briefly thought of selling mine for twice what it is worth, but my Long Haul Trucker is such a nice city bike, even if I never tour on it.
I needed some work done on the Subaru yesterday and took it to Subaru Santa Fe. I observed that there was nary a new car on the lot. I shot the shit with one of the salespersons, who told me everything is backed up and you have to order a car a few months in advance. I told him it reminded me of the old Soviet Union joke about ordering cars and getting them in time for your funeral.
December 31, 2021 at 6:00 am |
The Subarus are hot down here for some reason, or so it seems to me. I’m seeing a lot more of them lately, anyway. And not just in the Wholeazon Amafoods Bezos Space Center parking lot, either.
December 31, 2021 at 8:56 am |
I see lots of Subies down here too. Seems strange, because the closest dealer is in Tucson.