Saturday, March 29, 2008

OK, now I've seen everything

The current bike worldwide boom is a good thing, nay - a great thing- but like most things in life it's not an unalloyed joy.

Twenty-odd years ago we had to deal with the sudden appearance of triathletes - strapping meat puppets immune to pain but barely smart enough to to steer around corners. Then came the mountain bikers and they were mostly ok. Now come the fixed gear riders and I'm coping pretty well with that. Each group bought some cultural baggage with them to add to the rich mix that makes up the pasttime. But eventually matters must reach a point where even the most sanguine of us much cry: Enough! Ride the things, don't worship them as gods.

Without wanting to sound too much like Bike Snob NYC, have a bloody look at this: you can get paintings of bicycles from BicyclePaintings.com in New York. They even have gallery. WTF? WTFF?

For a mere $US600, you can buy a painting, oil on board, of Roberto's rain bike. Never mind that Roberto's rain bike is clearly a piece of shit you could buy for less than $US600 and still have enough money for some hooks to hang it on a wall at your place. (Also Roberto, get your brakes serviced, one of the calipers is badly bent.) For $US1500 you can buy Alana's Bike on paper. Look at it there, looking coquettishly over its shoulder at us. (Alana, baby, you need some brakes and some handlebar tape.) But hey, if that's too rich for your blood you can always buy a painting of a Tour de France water bottle for $300. Or you could buy 100 of the fuckers for real and have your own performance art party at home.

1,181km so far this year.

3 comments:

Treadly and Me said...

Well, I don't know much about bikes, but I know what I like...

Anonymous said...

Suppose this is not the time to tell anyone I've had Taliah's screensaver installed for about 3-4 years. Oh shit, just have. Sorry about that.

Nick said...

Hey, if some rich fool wants to pay $600 for a pile of merde on wheels, that's fine. Just so long as nobody's forcing anyone to buy.