Just a brief announcement, I’m starting a new bike related blog called Bicycle Industry Complex .

It’s going to be a bit more adult in terms of theme, subject matter and language.

I’ll still be doing some blogging for BTCEB because I believe in what BTCEB does but probably not as much as I used to.

Thanks so much for your support

Adam H

Now, however, I think I’ve found some fellow travelers in the form of Dave Moulton http://davesbikeblog.squarespace.com/ and the second is Cycling IQ http://cyclingiq.com/ . For those of you who don’t know Dave Moulton he probably has more industry experience than practically any one else and had stopped making frames long before many of the new hot shots had even picked up a torch.

I must also give a partial thumbs up to VeloNews  for breaking out of their usual sleepy mode and actually do an interesting piece for a change. I agree in part that every bike made requires human hands but every major company has made a choice between making a boat full of money or focusing on smaller quantities and higher quality.

It is from one of David’s blog entries that I was turned onto Cycling IQ. Cycling IQ writes about subjects usually not covered in your usual off the shelf cycling publications such as the interplay between both the corporate and cycling world, fist hand reporting and, again, reporting on some of the cycling industry’s less savory aspects, a man after my own heart.

It’s obvious both writers love bikes and biking but I think too that there’s a tinge of heartbreak that is evident in both of their blogs and it’s the same kind of hint of regret you get if you read memoirs from former C.I.A. agents who write about their time in “The Company” because the story arch is somewhat similar. A young starry-eyed recruit is brought into the fold due to a variety of reasons but after a while they began to see and know too much and become disillusioned with the whole dog and pony show.

Back before I had a word published anywhere my teachers warned in great depth about not having a too cozy relationship either the subject you are writing about and publishers and editors should avoid having a buddy-buddy relationship with advertisers because of the erosion of objectivity due to the purchase of access with the use of advertising dollars.

Personally I cringe every time I hear about (insert big name company here) when they set up some big media product launch party. A couple of years ago Big-Well-Known Bike Company had a large product launch party near one of the birthplaces of modern, mountain biking. Big-Well-Known Bike Company invited members of the cycling press from all over the world to ride one of the best-known trails in Northern California and have them ride recreations of thirty-year-old mountain bikes.  Looks great on paper but no one could have predicted what happened next, at least three of the members of the press had to be carted away by ambulance because they didn’t know how to ride rigid bikes equipped with cantilever brakes. Uh, oops.

In general the event was given resounding thumbs up despite the casualties but it does remind of something I was reading in W. Hodding Carter’s “A Viking Voyage” and that was Americans never did anything without alerting the press.

So the question is is the cycling press just a mouthpiece for companies pushing product or like other news outlets does serve as a watchdog to curb excess and wrong doings? I’m afraid it’s more the former rather than the latter.

Bikes are going to be a big part of urban planning and the emerging “green” economy so doesn’t it make sense to buy bikes from companies who implement, safe and sustainable manufacturing practices?

If the cycling press turns a blind eye to environmental and labor abuses then they simply aren’t doing their jobs.

Sid and Johnny

I had been thinking about the relative health of the bike industry and more specifically the relevance of the cycling press. Personally I think there are a couple of good online outlets and I’m beginning to see print cycling journalism as irrelevant. I know I’m committing professional suicide by say that but it’s true.

Recently I had re-watched one of my favorite films “The Filth and the Fury”, the second in the series of Sex Pistols films by Julien Temple. In the mid seventies, about time some aging hippies in northern California were cobbling together some of the fist modern mountain bikes a group of unemployed music fans and never do wells were thrown together by fashion designer and music impresario Malcolm McLaren.

Far from sunny and carefree California England was wreck after the Second World War unemployed, and disillusioned, youth had nothing to do and nothing to look forward to. Some music fans found kinship in the early American proto-punk bands such as the MC5, The Stooges and Ramones and decided to put their own spin on it.

British punk looked different and by large sounded different and were a direct challenge to bloated and self-indulgent arena rock acts of the time.

In the mean time board baby boomers were still basking in the fading light of the Summer of Love began to find that the bikes they were scavenging from dumps and scrap yards were no longer adequate for the demands of the nascent sport and eventually started making frames and components from scratch.

About the first real mountain bike companies first started, Mountain Bike, WTB, and IRD, some of the first mountain bike specific magazines started, Fat Tire Flyer being one.

In the mid-seventies, however, no one would guess that computers would change the world the way the Internet would.

Punk rock kicked the music industry right in the nether regions and mountain bikes pulled the cycling industry out of the sleepy doldrums too but the dominant form of communicating these changes itself has been stuck in the previous century. Now, however, any one can be a media outlet, any one can change their content on a daily if not hourly basis. Print, however, has no such luxury.

Don’t get me wrong, I like reading, I like the physical weight of a book or magazine in my hands, and I also hate reading extended content on line but I’m also aware even broader changes are still over the horizon and print, isn’t one of them.

While I can see high quality, specialty market, high priced publications soldiering on eventually their days too may be numbered.

I also think the large bike companies are the arena rock acts of the cycling industry. They are like the late seventies Rolling Stones releasing disco songs thinking they can ride the coattails of punk and the Grateful Dead were doing funk numbers. What? I know that both Keith Richards and Jerry Garcia were doing a lot of drugs at the time but that’s a screwy statement even for a couple of junkies.

I will say this that’s in the favor of the larger cycling companies is that due largely to cheap offshore labor and economy of scale the average consumer has access high quality, high tech bikes at fairly reasonable price. The con side is you deal with a lot of mark up due to over-head, middlemen, advertising, race teams, research and development, and not to mention the environmental impact that offshore production generates due to lax regulations and the fuel expenditure of shipping cargo containers worth of bikes all over the world.

Let’s face it, domestically made bikes cost a lot of money and even a moderately priced frame will set you back over a grand. If you want to so such silly things as ride the bike that will obviously cost you more.

Today you can still slap together a bike that uses mostly American made mountain bike parts. Obviously there are certain things that aren’t made domestically any more such, as derailleurs, tires, or shifters but you can get pretty darn close.  Mind you, however, it will cost you a pretty penny but you can do it.

At least you can be reasonably sure that the people who are putting together the domestically made frames and components are making a better wage than their counterparts in the Far East and there is at least some pretence of adherence to environmental regulations and worker’s health and safety laws. You can’t say that about some other places.

Like a lot of people, I’m not made out of money and like a lot of bike nuts I have more than one bike so to have them all decked out with new American made parts would cost a substantial amount of money but I’ve found a formula that’s helped me assuage some of my guilt and that is 1) I tend to keep my bikes for quite a few years, 2) I try to buy domestic if I can but if not then I’ll buy or trade for used 3) I don’t use any hydraulic or electronic systems on my bikes because disposal issues surrounding brake and suspension fluids and discharged batteries.

Really, I can’t make up your mind for you and I’m purely speaking only for myself but ultimately you are going to have to decide what works for you.

Adam H