Things That Make You Go Hmmmm…. – Bike Snob NYC

How To Be A Successful Cycling YouTuber

Step 1:

Put your finger on your lips and look perplexed:

“Bizarre stuff at Canyon! Weird things happening in vans! LeBron James is standing behind me! Is he wearing any pants? Click and watch to find out!”

To be honest I didn’t watch either of them, but for some reason I did watch his “14 Bizarre Facts About Giant” video not too long ago. Not only were zero of the 14 facts bizarre in any way, but I also noticed that he used a Classic Cycle photo without giving them credit:

[Not Cade, Classic Cycle!]

Anyway, back to how to become a successful cycling YouTuber. If the finger-on-the-lips thing is too difficult or unsanitary for you, then chin-stroking is also acceptable:

But maybe the facial contortions YouTube requires of you are too difficult due to your frequent Botox injections. If so, don’t despair, because you can also review bikes for the legacy cycling media. However, you’ll need to be a princess-and-the-pea type and exist in a state of constant dissatisfaction:

To wit:

I mean seriously, are these people ever satisfied!?!

I’ve always found it frustrating that if you want a road bike that fits big tires, you also must accept a taller or shorter stack riding position, mellower handling, and the comfort-optimized ride feel of an endurance bike. I know comfort is essential, but so are liveliness and feedback.

Wait a minute, I thought there was a whole sub-genre of aggressive race-oriented gravel bikes. Am I wrong?!? Maybe so. And if I am, I don’t care anyway. It’s about time the cycling industry stopped giving people absolutely everything they want. The customer isn’t always right. Actually, they’re usually wrong. If you want to ride an aggressive road bike then you should be forced–FORCED–to take the skinny tires that go with it, and I long for the days when race bikes worked like this:

“I want a road bike but with fatter tires.”

“Fine, here’s a cyclocross bike.”

“Okay, but I want to be able to put water bottles on it.”

“IT DOESN’T CARRY WATER IT’S A CYCLOCROSS BIKE.”

The end. And if you still weren’t happy you rode a mountain bike. A MOUNTAIN BIKE. Not a gravel bike, which is a road bike pretending to be a mountain bike (or maybe that should be a mountain bike pretending to be a road bike, I don’t even know anymore, I’m so goddamn sick of all this already).

And for everyone else JBARA.*

But now you’ve got fifty kinds of road bikes and fifty kinds of gravel bikes and fifty kinds of mountain bikes (do they still even sell cyclocross bikes?) and they’ve all got battery-powered push-button shifting because apparently pushing something with enough force to initiate a click is too hard and it’s STILL NOT ENOUGH FOR THESE PEOPLE. Can we please stop pandering already? Please? Please??? If I see another review for another hair-splitting plastic bike I’m going to cry.

Or, maybe I’ll sue the bike industry for my emotional distress, though some of these companies are already busy fending off e-bike lawsuits:

Here’s what happened:

According to the lawsuit filed Oct. 21 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, Steve Ruggiero of Bainbridge Island was riding his Turbo Levo in June on the Alpine Trail in Oakridge, Oregon. While in Eco mode, Ruggiero descended a steep section of trail and decelerated over a long flat section of loose shale. Beyond the shale, he encountered a loam surface when the rear wheel “spun out, due to the manufacturing flaw” called overrun, according to the complaint. That occurs when an e-bike accelerates beyond the mode set by the rider and can result in the wheel receiving excessive and unexpected power.

So basically he lost control of his electric motorcycle and broke his ribs:

Ruggiero lost control, crashed, and heard the sound of ribs cracking. “When he opened his eyes and looked back, he saw the Turbo Levo on its side with a long ‘J’ shaped rut spun into the dirt where the rear wheel had suddenly accelerated and spun while driving him into the hillside,” according to the lawsuit.

And on top of that a clinic failed to properly diagnose him:

A couple days later he went to an urgent care clinic for x-rays that were negative. Later that night after awakening in more pain and fearing internal injuries, paramedics were called and he was taken to St. Michael’s Hospital in Silverdale, where he was diagnosed with seven broken ribs on his left side but no other internal injuries. He remained in the hospital for three days.

So maybe he should sue the urgent care…? I watched about 30 seconds of Specialized’s Turbo Levo promotional video and the assholery was immediate and intense, just like the motor:

The video literally says it “transforms you into a cycling cyborg” whilst touting the power of the motor and depicting all sorts of potentially rib-cracking antics.

Sometimes you get what you pay for.

Maybe Specialized should send him one of those e-bike-to-regular-bike conversion kits.

Finally, in more deadly product news, Knog is recalling its Blinder light:

Well sure, I expected to be blinded, not immolated.

Sometimes you get what you pay for, and sometimes you get even more.

*[Just Buy A Rivendell Already]