Allow Me to Endorse Something

Readers of this blog know I'm not in the habit of praising very many products. I have endorsed a chili sauce once and have likely professed my love of an ice cold Coca-Cola now and again.

So here's a little nine-dollar thing that makes life easier. It's an iPhone bike cradle. Fits the 3 or the 4. If you're doing rough, mountain riding, some reviews say it might slip out, fall and break, thus pissing you off to the point that you will write a scathing one-star review on Amazon. I have not taken it off-road yet, but so far, it stays in nicely. So when you're riding and that song comes up that you can't stand anymore, it's an easy job to skip ahead to the next tune. Or just keep your iPhone on Maps and watch your progress as you navigate through town.

So far, Casa de Jeptpacks has ordered two of these from this place.

No, I am not compensated in any way for mentioning this. Just a friendly tip for my fellow bicyclists.

I Don't Work for Trek Bicycles

I refuse to allow car dealers to make me advertise for them on the back of my car with a nameplate or license plate frame, and last night, I'm looking at my bicycle in the garage and I see branding every few inches.

There's the giant Trek logo on the down tube, the model number on the top tube, some sort of bragging about special aluminum on the seat tube and then the Trek emblem on the head tube. Besides the emblem on the front, which popped off with little effort, the rest of the markings are decals which are fairly impossible to remove, buried under a few millimeters of ClearKote. But Trek is not alone in advertising on my bike. Bontrager decides they need no less than seven logos on the seat and seat post, five per hand grip and multiple placements on the tires. Shimano naturally will not be left out and brands the shifters and the front and back derailleurs in multiple places. The local Trek dealer also placed a couple of super-adhesive, nearly impossible to remove stickers on the frame. After looking at this a while it started to piss me off.

I love my bike and have blogged about it fondly in the past. It's a low-end hard-tail but it's durable and has served me well over the few years I've owned it. But damnit, I'm not Lance Armstrong and these manufacturers aren't sponsoring me. I'm not a paid shill for Trek or any of the components Trek uses in the manufacture of their bikes. So I went about blackening-out or painting over every single logo today.

One family member has already dubbed it "the junkyard bike." I prefer to think of it as some sort of post-apocalyptic Road Warrior.

Now I guess I need to remove the swoosh from the shirt I wear when I ride.

Super Saturated Street Scenes - Volume II, No. 2

Renda l'immagine più grande!

Still in Italy on the European leg of our Google Street Views Tour, we find ourselves on Via Valassina, just south of Bellagio, on the shores of Lago di Como, where a cyclist is about to be passed by a Porsche. The Porsche has been following the Google car for miles. I might have to string a bunch of stills of this together and create a Porsche spec spot.

Previously on the Tour.

Adidas Spec Ad

I bought them because they were on the clearance rack and they were affordable. They're running shoes, but I use them for cycling. They work. I like 'em.

We aren't all super-athletes. Some of us just need some freakin' shoes. Based on a true story, as I'm a fan of true testimonials. Photographed in my front yard this evening as the salmon was waiting to be turned on the grill in the backyard.

Click for viewage

And I don't claim to be an AD or a designer, so don't jump my shit about the layout. It's a concept. (UPDATE: For the sake of the challenge, I went ahead and tried to lay it out better. Go ahead, designers, tell me where I screwed up.)

Elitist

Click image to read fine print of fake ad

Trek Bikes proudly touts their “Made in America” status. I love my Trek, but it’s one of the lower-end models that doesn’t enjoy that American-made distinction. It gets used every day these days as I seek to be less unhealthy. I even outfitted it with a geeky halogen light after I almost ran over two ladies walking their golden retrievers (on the wrong side of the street with giant 50-foot leashes) pre-dawn, one of whom yelled at me, “You need a light!” I grunted back, “Yeah. Sorry,” and then went to Wal-Mart that afternoon on my lunch break to find one. The light was from Schwinn, a proud American company if ever there was one. The light was also made in China, like most things at Wal-Mart, but it casts a nice, wide beam in the wee hours and I can see the things and creatures I’m about to hit on my Chinese-made bicycle. I expect the light to last maybe a year, like most things made in China.

The bike is wearing, like most things made in China, but in our disposable economy, I’ll probably be better off to just get another lower-end Trek before I can pay for one of the “better ones” made in America by angry, bitter rural folks clinging to their overpaid manufacturing jobs.

Eventually, the market for “higher-end” Treks will take a downturn. Then the folks in Waterloo, Wisconsin who make those Treks will watch their factory close. Then they can cling to their guns or religion as they continue to vote for the candidates who have no problem allowing American jobs to be shipped overseas, but who share their faith and will defend their rights to own guns as they visit during campaign season to knock back a beer and regale the locals with tales of hunting in their youth.