Giant: Big and getting bigger!

Giant Bicycles has announced record revenues, citing a "perfect storm" of... well, I guess global warming, bumper-to-bumper gridlock, fuel prices, and a tanking global economy. Between Giant and Shimano, the two account for something like 90 percent of all bikes.

But I was surprised to learn that Giant is, on the whole, somewhat more expensive -- almost twice as expensive, in fact -- at the wholesale level than the industry average.

In China, by far its largest production center, its average price for an exported bike is 100 usd, against an industry average of 30-40 usd, said Sheu.

The average export price of its made-in-Taiwan bikes is 340 usd, compared with the industry average of 222 usd.

Then again, when you think about the 10 gazillion bike-shaped objects produced by Dynacrap and Kent each year, sold in great bike shops like Target and Kmart, you realize how the numbers could be skewed dramatically downward.

Ahhh. It's been a while since I vented my spleen re: Dynacrap.

The bicycle kick explained...

Speaking of football -- er, soccer-- folks watching yesterday's EuroCup final might have noticed that Spain's Fernando Torres normally plays for Liverpool, and he beat goaltender Jens Lehmann, the German goalkeep for Arsenal.

Both Liverpool and Arsenal, along with Manchester United, have the distinction of being the flagship cycles built by footballbikes.com. (Count on it: American dyncrappy manufacturers have already been busy building American football bikes. Wonder if there are bikes representing Canadian and Australian-rules football? How about a rugby bike?)



I don't want to diss little footballers worldwide, but from the looks of this ride, cycling is in no grave danger of overtaking football in the popularity department. Crappy bikes are crappy to ride, thus giving the kids more time to watch football on the telly and at the pitch. Think of it as footballer job security through widespread licensing.

I thought the Tony Hawk bike was taking things too far...

Dorel, the Canadian company that bought Cannondale last year and already owns Pacific Cycle, is really shoring up its position as the Dynacrap of the North. Today, the company announced the purchase of PTI Sports, yet another purveyor of crap bikes at big box department stores.

In a news story that just crossed my desk, I read the following:

Established in 1991, PTI Sports products are sold in key mass and sporting goods retailers throughout North America. Its brands include Schwinn, Mongoose, Disney, Nickelodeon, Mattel (Polly) Master Lock, Thomas the Train and The Discovery Channel.

Huh? PTI owns Nickelodeon, Disney, and Master Lock? That'll certainly be news to Sumner Redstone, Bob Iger, and James Larrimore.

Oh, I think I get it now: PTI has bought the licensing rights to put words like Schwinn, Mongoose, Disney, Nickelodeon, Mattel (Polly) Master Lock, Thomas the Train and The Discovery Channel onto bicycle-shaped objects, and then sell them to unwitting Target and Wal-Mart shoppers across the land.


Geeze. I'm beginning to see Dorel's purchase of Cannondale as not so much a sign of Dorel's strength as of Cannondale's weakness. I never did like the Lefty, but who knew it could kill an entire company? Guilty by mere association, watch for Cannondale to become the Huffy or the Magna of tomorrow.

Bike of Doom goes on a children's crusade

Our Canadian friend Steve at the Bike of Doom has spent years trying to persuade the world that Dynacrap bikes need love too. Our feelings on the matter are well documented, of course, and we accept that, yes, we are snobs on this particular subject. But we try to keep our snobbishness to ourselves. We wish BOD would do the same with his unsolicited populism, and here I will explain why.

Today, Bike of Doomer lists the 7 deadly sins of Local Bike Shops relative to owners of "Department Store Bikes." And while I have to agree that self-righteous indignation is ALWAYS an ugly thing in any cyclist at any time, I think it' way beyond reasonable to expect LBS's to service department store bikes with a smile and a handshake and an explicit attempt to forge a longterm relationship.

You don't go into a Hell's Angels bar asking them to turn the music down. You don't demand conventional food from your organic co-op. No serious business owner tries to be all things to all people. It's a fool's errand. Perhaps more to the point, the labor costs and opportunity lost is not "building your business," as BOD would have it. It is not free or even cheap to have "some intern or apprentice" do this maddening, low margin work on substandard equipment that will not mate nicely with even the cheapest real bike part.

Does that mean you can be gracious and kind about turning away Department Store Bike owners? Of course. Should you fire your greaseball teenage shopkeep who belittles or berates any potential customer for any reason? It's the least you should do.

One other point I just have to make, and I promise to do it without one word about the baseline dynacrappiness of Dynacrap bikes.

In one especially galling recommendation to all LBS's everywhere, BOD sez:

If you have to, buy the low-end bikes from the Department Store itself, strip the decals, make a couple of judicious upgrades, and sell the thing yourself. Why is it that Department Stores chains have realized there’s a huge market for an inexpensive errand bike, but you haven’t?

Leaving aside the highly dubious rubric of "errand bike" for the moment, let me reply with just one word: Volume. Here's another word, fresh-fallen from the vine of marketing which BOD so lovingly waters: Margins.

The reason department stores can offer those Dynacrap bikes at such attractive savings is due first and foremost to the volume of sales they manage, against relatively low margins. To suggest that the labor, parts, and inventory dedicated to converting even a wholesale Dyncrap into something slightly less dynacrappy -- to suggest that it could actually work on the spreadsheet for your typical LBS -- well, that's patently ridiculous on the face of it.

Bike of Doom, we love you and all you stand for. (Well, the populist Canadian part, anyway.) But now that you've turned to evangelizing, and you expect to convert the whole world to Bike Shaped Objects, we have to take a stand and pronounce the One True Faith: Your bike is a blight on the land. By all means, ride it in good cheer and good health, but for God's sake don't demand that the world turn on its Eternal Blue Light Special for you.


P.S.

Let me just add one more thought to this somewhat addled post.

I think it would be a capitol idea to start a shop specifically for Dyncrap service. In fact, I can think of the perfect location for that sort of operation: Inside a Wal-Mart or a Target store. The fact that they DON'T provide this service tells you about all you need to know about the profitability of that as a business concept.

But seriously, there IS another alternative, and I've done quite a lot of time volunteering in one of them: A community bike co-op, replete with a junkyard and a full set of community-owned tools.

Yes, Bike of Doom -- I actually Danced with the Devil, and fixed countless Dyncraps and donated them to needy kids.

In spite of everything, yes, any bike is better than no bike at all. But not much better, in some cases.

How Dave Mirra tests a $300 bike

Longtime readers of Pinch Flat News -- idle persons with longterm bike problems -- know how much we love to hate Dynacrap bikes and all the "Bike Shaped Objects" foisted on kids by the Wal-Marts and Targets of the world. (Which end up as permanent installations on lamp posts and cyclone fences throughout the city.)

Today we ran across what has to be the early front-runner for bike video of the year: It's Dave Mirra stress-testing a Dynacrappy bike.

Take special note that the world's greatest BMXer does not actually swing a leg over this piece of junk. "We're testing, not riding," he avers at the end.

Smart man. Gamble with other people's money -- and bodies. (In DM's case, one and the same.)

One for the Gipper

This is not a particularly interesting mashup -- nor even really a very interesting post -- but I thought I should note the release of this new "official NFL BMX bike," which smells suspiciously like a Dynacrap product.

Kids, you'll be glad to have a bike to ride during the first, second, third, and fourth quarters of the Superbowl, which is commonly known as the best half-hour in television advertising, but is otherwise about as interesting as watching wax-lube dry on your chain.

And if this gets the youngsters training early for SuperSunday's true big event, the Stupor-Bowl, I'm all for it.

Please note: It is not necessary -- nor even desirable -- to ride an NFL-endorsed bike. But it would be awesome to see one in Minneapolis in February.

Total Recall: Crap bikes on their way back to the turd factory

There are two bike-related recalls you should know about today.

Formula Oro disk brakes are being recalled due to a defective lever which can break.

Also, about 22,000 Huffy bikes have been recalled -- not for just being butt ugly, surprisingly enough-- but due to a dynacrappy crank that can detach itself from the bike.

The fact that there are 22,000 "Howler" and "Highland" models in the USA is certainly cause for great concern. It's a wonder all models created by Huffy aren't recalled on general principle for being complete garbage.

Taken out of context! Taken out of context! Wait, what context?

The bike we love to hate, the Tony Hawk HuckJam, was showcased at Interbike. You'll recall that, being a bike designed by a skateboarder, built by Dynacraft, for sale at Target and KMart, we've referred to it as a non-bike by a non-biker to be sold by a non-bike shop. We've also referred to it as a shameless cash-grab. Or at least we think we have. Now we have, definitely.

Therefore, we sorta take exception to Dynacrap head John Bisges today telling the Press-- that is, us --

"Reaction to the bikes has been extremely positive."

We have clearly been misread, and were somehow interpreted as being highly ironic in our criticism of this bike.

Though as we read the press release, we did feel as if we've scored a touch somewhere a long the way. Dyncrap seems a little defensive when they describe themselves thusly:

Dynacraft BSC, Inc. is a leading U.S. bicycle distributor. With eleven different brands and over 150 models, the company distributes bikes each year to customers that include Academy Sports, Amazon.com, Costco.com, KB Toys, Target, Toys R Us and Wal-Mart, to name a few. Dynacraft employs a vertically integrated business approach designed to ensure quality control at every step of the process. [Our emphasis added.]

What, you mean there have been questions of breakdowns in quality control at the company that makes and distributes Magnas? No way!

The thankless world of non-profit bicycle advocacy

We were sort of cynical about Bikes Belong, the Boulder-based bike advocacy that is funded by all the bigshots of the industry. Mostly, we were just bummed that they were willing to take so much dough off of Dynacrap, the source of Magnas, Verticals, Nexts, and clutch of other terrible brands that are more a part of the problem than the solution.

(OK, cue the broken record and sing along: Dynacrap bikes break down fast, they're heavy, and they're cheap; they are abandoned all over most American cities; they are an eyesore and resource-sink and they ultimately lead to disillusioned bike riders who assume that all bikes must suck like Dynacrap bikes suck, many of them inner city kids who would benefit most from a lifelong love of biking.)

Anyway, aside from our issues with Dynacrap, Bikes Belong has done one hell of a job raising money. Last week, REI announced that they've written a $100,000 check and sent it to Boulder. Let's hope that Bikes Belong can begin not only to spend all their money wisely, but to drop us a line and let us know when and where they do it. We can help advertise their good works, and we've quite a lot of personal experience with non-profit -- though we've never generated nearly as much non-profit as they have.

By the way, we were also recently dissing Novara bikes -- well, damning them with faint praise, maybe -- when it was brought to our attention that their commuter bike, the Fusion, won all kinds of accolades this year from authoritative sources like Dirt Rag and Bicycling. Our ignorance is truly appalling at times, and when it's not our ignorance, it's certainly our personal hygiene. But the truth of the matter is that Jerry is dying to sing the praises of the Fusion, and he'll be unleashed later today or tomorrow to do just that.

Save the world — with just a blowtorch, a bike, and a video camera!

It's no secret that we're big fans of Specialized, but the company has been noticeably absent from the current corporate chic of throwing down for bicycle advocacy. Now that even Dynacrap has written a big fat check to Bikes Belong, it's about time for the Big Ess to do something more than just design the world's best cycling gear.

And so they are: Today, we learn that Specialized is sponsoring "Innovate or Die," a YouTube-enabled design competition to build a "pedal-powered machine" that will save the world. Or at least that's the conceit. (Warning: That link may be the most earnestly histrionic thing you're likely to see today. Listen to the wind of the spinning globe! Or is it the sound of 3 billion ghosts on a burnt-out planet wishing they'd ridden bikes? It's the Al Gore of cycling advocacy websites! Not that that's a bad thing, mind.)

It's not a terrible idea, but the stakes are kind of low: $5000 to the winner, along with a new Specialized commuter bike. And while we don't want to be cynical about this -- hey, the bicycle drive train is one of the most powerful simple machines ever devised, why shouldn't it be able to save the world? -- we feel like maybe the killer app already exists (it's the bike itself, d'oh!), and it would be a more noble thing to promote the use of an existing technology all over the world -- sorta like Kona's Biketown initiative or SRAM-Trek's World Bicycle Relief, rather than throwing a little Black Label Bike Club party.

Bully for your pedal-powered blenders and washing machines, but it's the automobile that needs replacing, and its natural replacement -- the bicycle -- doesn't much need to be reinvented.

How much more money can Tony Hawk make selling bikes?

A few months back we mentioned that skateboarder Tony Hawk is developing a line of BMX bikes with Dynacraft. Dynacraft, as you know, are the makers and distributors of eleven different flavors of bullshit sold at Target and K-Mart -- you know them and love them as the purveyors of Magna, Vertical, Next, and all those other Dynacrap bikes that even the homeless hate to ride.

Anyway, today we hear that Tony will be in Vegas at Interbike along with Dynacrap, so we'll all get a nice celebrity goose while we're oogling the "huckJam" series of "high-end" carbon fiber Magnas.

John Bisges, one of Dyncrap's talking suits, tells us,

"We are very pleased to have Tony Hawk with us at Interbike as we debut these two innovative lines of bicycles. Tony and his team have been true partners in every step of the development process. Therefore, it's highly appropriate that Tony is with us in person as we present Tony Hawk HuckJam bikes to the biking community."

Right. This is all too perfect. Tony Hawk, who isn't actually a cyclist, developing a bike with Dynacrap, who don't actually build bikes, to be sold at Target, which isn't actually a bike shop.

We'll do our part by not actually riding one.

Why do kids like bikes?

OK, I'm not going to belabor this point, because I'll start seeming like an elitist prick.

But when kids think a Mongoose is an upgrade from a Next, and when they have to be repeatedly prompted to say that biking is "fun" ("fast" and "better than walking" rank higher)... well, something just ain't right. Cue the Dynacrap rant...

Taking a Dynacrap ride to the limit: Canadian edition

God bless Canada and the Canadians! This fellow is very earnestly trying to learn -- through trial and error and bloody knuckles and Canadian dollars -- whether it is possible to"successfully commute" on a "$99 department store bike." In other words, a Dynacrap bike.

And now he has come up against an age-old philosophical question, normally reserved for socks. (When you have patched and darned so much that no original material is left-- is it still the same sock?) In this case, our man has replaced parts and made expenditures that far exceed his original Dynacrap purchase.

And yet, for some reason he still feels he does not have an answer to the most pragmatic of his questions:

Would it have been wiser (and perhaps cheaper) to purchase a low-end bike from a Local Bike Shop as a commuter?

Which brings us to our own philosophical quandry: What's the Canadian word for "Duh!"?

Ultimately though, our friend tips his hand: It's all an exercise in sado-masochistic fun. Fun is fun, but there is a serious ethical question embedded here as well: Buying Dyncrap bikes supports the Dynacrap bike industry, and that definitely puts a cyclist's immortal soul in peril.

Maybe NOW they'll change the name back to the "Hard Times Bike Club"

1200 brandspankingnew bikes have been donated to Burning Man for general public use at Black Rock City in two weeks.

The bad news is that they appear to be Huffys -- the dynacrap bike non pareil.

The good news is that the Black Label Bike Club is assembling and painting them, which means in all likelihood about 500 bikes will result. But you'll have an awesome view from the saddle... if you know what we mean.

Who donated the bikes? Not sure, but perhaps Wal-Mart is needing shelf-space for all that Italian carbon.

And, just for the record: "Black Label" is kinda silly, whereas "Hard Times" is evocative and melancholy. As Mark Twain said, "the difference between the almost-right word and the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."

And if it's a beer brewer's endorsement they're after, well... Miller High Life, duh!

The Wal-Mart of bike shops is... Wal-Mart?

You know, Constant Reader, how we feel about Dynacrap bikes -- those cheap department store models that are a blight on the land because they are badly built and no fun to ride and ultimately turn kids off to riding. In June, we reached a sort of apotheosis-- Skateboarder Tony Hawk (!) signed a deal with Dynacraft (makers of such fine brands as Magna and Vertical bikes) to introduce a whole new line of complete crap to the Targets and K-Marts of the world.

Well, but now there's this: Wal-Mart is going all Ultegra with this new $1900 ride...

What do you say to that, genteel cyclist? In our little corner of the world, we have a hard time believing that anyone looking to drop Two Gees on a road ride would darken the doorstep of a Wal-Mart. On the other hand, if Joe and Jane Sixpack begin to understand that a good dependable ride is worth a significant chunk of change, perhaps it spells the first letter in the epitaph of Dynacrap bikes.

(By the way, we're not saying a discount carbon frame equipped with Ultegra is a "good dependable ride." Actually, we'd never say that about carbon, but we're funny that way.)

Broken-Record Rant #1: Dynacrap bikes

We mentioned a few weeks ago that Dynacrap has thrown a bunch of money at Bikes Belong, an industry lobby and advocacy group. We're a little surprised that the rest of the bike industry is willing to be in the same room with the company that has littered the country with so many Magnas, Verticals, and Nexts -- the marginal two-wheeled vehicles that Bike Commuter has aptly named "Bike Shaped Objects." Why are we so hard on Dynacrap?

Well, let's look at Bike Belong's mission statement, for starters:

Bikes Belong members are industry leaders who help put more people on bicycles more often.

Just to reiterate our little peeve: Dynacrap products are sold under the conceit that the world needs more "affordable" bikes available at Target and K-Mart stores. That's the more bikes part. Check. But the problem is that no one likes to ride a bike that is badly designed, poorly put together, and quick to break down. The world definitely does not need more bikes like that.

You can buy a Big Wheel for a lot less than a Magna, that doesn't mean you want to ride one around for regular fun and transportation.

By the way, the occasion for this broken-record rant is this: Bikes Belong has used some of their $2 million budget to launch a new website. You can check it here.

Whoa. Now THAT'S a solomonic decision!

Seen in the papers over lunch...

Two things.

1) Though we hail from the Twin Cities, this was not... um... us.

2) Secondly, we're not positive but we're guessing he was trying to trade a Magna for a tallboy of Old Milwaukee. Easily a trade we would make.

Free bikes! Really crappy!

In Europe, there are lots of efforts afoot to put free bikes on the streets of cities like London, Paris, and Amsterdam. Generally speaking, the idea is to help folks transition to human-powered transportation, at the same time conveying them "the last mile" from where public transportation ends to wherever they're headed. But this is a new twist: A couple of business school grads are launching a service to provide free bikes to college students in Wales. The goal? To reduce or eliminate bike theft, sort of like the transportation equivalent to legalizing pot.

Hundreds of bicycles are stolen from students in Wales every academic year – with 300 reports of theft annually in Cardiff alone. The density of bikes in student living areas, and the fact that many aren’t adequately secured, make them an easy target for thieves. But a scheme that will lend bicycles to students in Cardiff free of charge looks set to change that when it is implemented at the start of the next academic year in September.

The problem with this plan is this: Only worthless bikes won't get stolen. Most serious bike thieves--the kind that target university campuses and college towns--don't steal bikes in order to ride them. They steal 'em to strip 'em and sell 'em.

We'll file this one under "Dynacrappy," because the bikes will all come from China, ensuring that they'll be all but unrideable. This appears to be a Catch-22: either the bikes will suck too much to be ridden by anyone, or they'll still get stolen. If Wales is anything like anywhere we've ever been, there are free crappy bikes already abandoned all over the place.

Come to think of it, free legal pot would probably succeed better than a free Magna. Unless college has changed dramatically since we matriculated.

Bring out the turd polish! It's a Dynacrappy day!

By now, y'all know that we're not haters, except when it comes to one particular bike company that is a blight on the land. We're talking about Dynacrap, the makers and purveyors of the world's suckiest bikes-- Magnas, Verticals, Nexts, and all manner of unspeakable junk.

If the value of a bike can be judged by the value of the lock its owner typically uses, the fact that most Magnas are tied to parking meters with swingset chain-- well, that's kind of your guide, right?

Not to go too deeply into the philosophy here, but cheap bikes are no fun to ride. They end up being abandoned bikes. Worse, they produce a whole generation of kids that think riding bikes sucks--for the simple reason that the bike they rode sucked, because their parents thought they should buy the cheapest ride they could find at a department store.

OK, enough with the soapbox. Anyway, Dynacrap today announced that they're signing on to Bikes Belong, a national bike advocacy and lobbying group. That's a nice first step toward karmic correction. Building bikes that don't suck so badly would be a good second step.

Oh, and incidentally, Dynacrap also announced today an exclusive deal with Tony Hawk to build crappy bikes under the Tony Hawk moniker. Nice!

Tony says,

"I'm looking forward to a long and successful partnership with Dynacraft. Their expertise in bike design and technology has made them a leader in their industry. Together, we'll develop unique lines of "Tony Hawk HuckJam" bikes that will excite the most discerning consumers."

We just present the information. Y'all draw your own conclusions. But let's just say this: We can certainly understand why Tony Hawk is looking forward to this. There must be hundreds of millions of reasons. Possibly billions of reasons.

Making limeade out of limes

We're on the record as being completely conflicted about Trek's new everyman/everywoman bike, the Lime. We don't want to be snobs on the level of bike messengers, and pretend that everyone who doesn't ride a Ciocc fixie is a poseur and a prick. And any bike that gets people riding and puts a smile on their face is basically a good bike.

Still, everything we hear and read about the Lime makes our teeth hurt and our skin crawl. Like this press release from Volkswagen of Chicago, who inform us that they're giving away Lime bikes and Saris racks with every purchase of a new Rabbit.

The Lime, one of Trek's newest bikes, comes standard with Shimano's coasting technology, incorporating a three-speed automatic transmission that changes gears automatically to make bike riding more enjoyable.

Uh, we weren't aware that shifting was such a drag, such an impediment to cycling. Just so, there's a simpler solution: Don't shift. Better yet, ride a singlespeed.

The Lime is also customizable with "skins," a chain guard grip color decal, which can be switched out to the color of your choice. The Lime's most important features are its environmental friendliness and promotion of a healthy lifestyle.

Those are pretty high-falutin' features for a free bike. So we're sticking with our basic Dynacrap line: A bike that is no fun to ride is crap, for the simple reason that no one will ride it. Power to the people is all fine and good, but there are far more Magnas tied to parking meters with swingset chain than the world needs. Perhaps a few more Ciocc fixies would not be a bad thing.