Appropriate for April Fools

One feature of becoming a member of the bike league is that you get a complimentary subscription to a mass market cycling magazine. It just starts showing up. For some reason, this magazine misspells “Buycycling” on their cover, because this is a magazine that attempts to persuade the innocent reader that one simply MUST have items such as a carbon fiber floor pump and a carbon beam rack, that touts a $1500 bike as “entry level,” and talks about how many grams you can save with lightweight rim strips. This didn’t really bother me (actually, it DID bother me, but not enough to rant about it), until I took a look at their April 2011 issue. Yes, that’s April, as in the month in which April Fool’s Day occurs. The highlight of this issue was a so-called buying guide. I chuckled at some of the prose, and then put it away for a week or so. Then, mental fermentation set in.


FINDING THE APRIL FOOL JOKE
A while back, I thought it was silly of this magazine to glow about the Civia Hyland as a commuter bike. Certainly, the Civia is a nice enough bike, but it struck me as overpriced and overkill for most commuters, but lacking in performance for the rest. It seemed a bike for people that liked to talk about bike commuting without actually DOING it. However, I didn’t begin to dream what these guys would include in their 2011 April “Buyer’s Guide.” Perhaps they took the April Fool Day theme to heart. THIS issue featured, for a commuter bike, a custom frame and fork that listed for $4000. This wasn’t $4000 for a whole commuter bike. It was $4000 for a frame. This might make sense if your name is Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, or Warren Buffett and you want to start bike commuting, but it struck me as a joke to feature a $4000 frame as a bike commuter item in a magazine that doesn’t mention actually LOCKING a bike anywhere. I’m sure this is a very nice frame, but most commuter bikes get locked up, OUTSIDE, EVERY DAY. Most commuter bikes I see come from big box stores, and sport brand names such as “Roadmaster” or “Huffy.” The fancy ones say "Schwinn." Neither myself, nor my loyal reader are typical in our choice of a commuting bike. Quite honestly, more often than not, commuter bikes lead a harsh existence – until they get stolen. John Forester devotes quite a bit of space in EFFECTIVE CYCLING to characteristics needed in commuting bikes – functional and easy to keep running, but not flashy or particularly high end. My wife’s Nishiki fit that profile. Buddy was a little excessive, but so was the commute to Alliance, and I had a nice, warm, secure, office environment in which to keep the bike when I reached work. And I bought Buddy used.

GAPING HOLES
This magazine had dozens of categories of bikes. For example, instead of a category covering road bikes, they had “Entry level,” “Recreational,” “Enthusiast,” “Dream,” and “Plush,” They had other road categories as well, but you get the idea. Is there some reason I should either understand or CARE about the differences between these categories that all are subdivisions of the same kind of bike? I know more about bikes than the average person, but I confess I don’t understand all that blather.

So I instead looked for two of my favorite categories of bikes: cyclocross and touring. I found nothing. It occurred to me that maybe they had them under a less familiar category heading, so I looked at some of the various road and mountain bike categories. Not a single cross or touring bike to be found. I guess that if you are looking for one of these categories of bikes, you are simply expected to look elsewhere. Other categories of bikes were missing as well; tandems, recumbents, bikes to carry STUFF; all missing. I’m sad to report that there were no categories of roadster or dutch bike, either. Heck, they didn’t even glow about the Civia this year. I guess you don’t need a Civia when you’re dropping $4000 for a commuter frame. Chandra might simply be well advised to stay away from REI – Novara didn’t appear in the buyer’s guide in any category, though they did have a spendy Co Motion frame with S and S couplings to glow about.

EPIPHANY
After a while of furiously flipping through the magazine, looking for stuff that simply isn’t there, it struck me then that this magazine might not be so dumb. If you considered the target market as the advertisers rather than bicycle enthusiasts, it began to make sense. In a sense, the magazine is somewhat like the in-flight magazines that you find in the seat pockets of pretty much every airline, combined with the “gadget mall” catalog that usually accompanies them.

ONCE A FOOL
A few years ago, as I began to upgrade my bike technology, one of my daughters was selling magazine subscriptions as part of her school’s “raise money” campaign. Not knowing any better, I picked this magazine. Well, the first issue was pretty interesting, but after about the third one, the pattern had become pretty well established. Needless to say, I didn’t renew the subscription. You know, “fool me once; shame on…”

UPDATE - EVEN DOPIER THAN "BUYCYCLING!"
Perhaps $4000 isn't so crazy for a commuter bike as I imagined. Today, I saw that Audi (yes, the auto company) is putting its name on a WOODEN FRAMED bike, with the wood selected to match the wood trim on its cars. Here is the PR blurb: "A cafe/leisure bike, urban explorer and all-weather commuter; the most approachable bike for casual cyclists. Features include an upright position for short distances, comfort and traffic vigilance; wide puncture-resistant 32mm tires; LED lights; fenders; rack; and Shimano Nexus 8-speed gear train. Price: $6,530."

Somehow, I can't imagine many "casual cyclists" dropping that kind of money for a bike, even if it floated through the air on gossamer wings. More details here, along with many other places. I'd really like to hear who gets fired at Audi for such a brain-damaged notion. Crimeny, it doesn't even have an Alfine gear train for durn near $7k.