So I hopped on over to the place on the interwebs where all things Rumored about the Bike World are archived. The first thing to assault my vision was the above image. If you’re anything like me, when your brain processed the above image, your balls sucked right up into your stomach. Not because of the obviously disgustingly ugly frame, but because of that saddle.
I could be wrong, I’ve only been doing this for about 18 years, but that saddle angle has been found to cause prostate cancer, at least in the state of California. And this may be the spot where, if you aren’t a complete Bike Douchenerd© you stop reading, but seriously. You’re going to display your $10,000 bike without consulting the small details? Do you expect me to think you have a fucking clue about what you are doing when the saddle couldn’t coddle my backside unless I could kiss my own ass and getting to the hoods might cause some wrist pain? Seriously?
But that’s not what I wanted to point out.
After my balls dropped back out of my chest because they realized I wouldn’t be mounting this stead, I couldn’t think that maybe this fiddle’s already been played and it should have been left quiet.
For those of you still reading who aren’t Bike Douchenerds©, this frame was designed several years ago and touted at Interbike for a few years. Granted the engineering involved is pretty awesome, but sometimes engineers lack one big thing, and that’s the ability to apply real world scenarios. Above you have the second generation of a frame and there aren’t any water bottle bosses. So you expect a roadie to drop $3500 on your DNA inspired frame and then wear a camel back? Yea, I don’t see that happening.
After my disgust subsided, I began scrolling.
And I came across the above photo. If you are a Bike Douchenerd© you will notice that the pivot placement and design are oddly familiar to some other big company’s design, namely Trek. I’m not sure if Trek wasn’t able to patent their design or if Orbea just doesn’t plan on selling this bike in the US, but for all intents and purposes, that is an ABS pivot. This shouldn’t surprise me, the majority of Orbea’s past full suspension design’s were nothing more than copies of Cdale’s bikes.
Case in point.
Hmm? Don’t get me started on their cable routing on their recent hardtails and road bikes.
Point is, this isn’t a rumor, it’s not even new. These are just bikes that have already been done. Just because they are dressed differently does mean they are new. A new color is not innovation.
As you can tell some angst was building up inside me, plus I hadn’t had a drink in four days so things were getting a bit shaky. But I thought hell, it can’t continue like this can it. There has to be something that isn’t a complete waste of my time here.
Then this happened.
Oh good, because the keyed version was just so successful we now have a combo version of a bolt-on QR. I think Sphyke has successfully made the slowest quick release device in all cycling history. I applaud you. You took a simple, functional design that was tool free and made it so you have to remember the combo, enter combo, remove combo device and then use an Allen key to remove the skewer. Bravo! If I’m that fucking worried about someone stealing my wheels, I won’t leave them locked up where someone can take them. Or even better, I will have a simple bike with bolt-on wheels and a shitty frame that won’t draw attention to itself so I don’t have to worry if someone decides my wheels should be theirs.
At this point, I got out of bed. Turned off every electric device I owned because I didn’t want to get any more angry and sobbed in the corner of the room. The one thing that is awesome in the world, the bicycle had been bastardized. My morning ritual had done nothing for my confidence in the human race. Instead it had made me realize that the bicycle cannot be improved upon.
Once I regained my composure, I went outside to go for a bike ride and realized all my bikes are similar. They all have flats…
P. L. and R.