If you read this blog regularly (or at all for that matter), you might be under the impression I’m a total Rivendell shill–and obviously you’d be right. However, nobody at Rivendell ever asks me to mention anything on this blog, which probably has far less to do with integrity than it does with self-preservation, since no sane company would ever want its products associated with me. All of this is to say that I recently learned Rivendell is having a fundraiser, and they did not hold a pointy lug to my throat and insist that I flog it; rather, I am sharing it completely of my own volition:
Here’s the background on it:
We’re fine. We’re doing well now, we’re established, but careful and not cocky. We’re investing in our future by taking control of our necessary bits and pieces—the SILVER parts, the lugs and crowns we use, and on a human level, our crew here, too. But we have some huge bills all coming due at once, and we don’t string out our vendors, so we want to ask for some help again. Half will go for tooling . We’re working on some components that most brands and manufacturers have given up on.
This time, $25 credits, but rather than just giving you face value, we’ll give you $7 extra, so… $32 credit for $25.
It still doesn’t make sense if you have no idea when you’ll buy something, but there’s no time limit on the purchase. The plan is valid until next Friday, April 17th at midnight, or until we’re out of the riptide and body-surfing to shore, whichever comes first.
Anyway, in looking it over I note that you can buy the credits and gift them to someone, and that gave me the idea to buy some and give them to one of you, my dear readers, who have been so generous with me and who have received so little in return, apart from my heart, my soul, and my steadfast commitment to maintaining this blog in a half-assed fashion indefinitely, or until I don’t want to anymore, whichever comes first.
So here’s how it’s going to work: the first person to email me with the subject line I’M GONNA DRESS YOU UP IN MY LUGS gets the credit. Anyone’s welcome to go for it, but I’m asking you to self-seed here, and before you do please consider whether or not you really deserve it. For example, I prefer not to give you the credit if you’re a bad actor, such as a terrorist, a human trafficker, or even just a complete and total asshole. Certainly I’d like to give you all the benefit of the doubt, and from my own experience it does seem my readership consists mostly if not entirely of genuinely good people, yet the fact remains that statistically 1-3% of you have Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASDP), and frankly I’m just not qualified to make that determination, at least not based on the short email I’m requiring of you to win this contest. So absent my requiring a full background check and psychological rundown before awarding the prize, only enter if you’re a decent human being who has never murdered anyone who didn’t deserve it, or who can’t at least plausibly explain why the murder was an innocent mistake. You can also consider entering if you killed someone 50 years ago, you’ve been imprisoned ever since, and you’ve since genuinely undergone a profound spiritual transformation, though in that case it’s unlikely that you own and ride a bicycle, and therefore would be unlikely to have much use for what Rivendell sells, apart from perhaps the pine tar soap, assuming you’re even allowed to use your own soap in prison, and please give me credit for refraining from making a tired prison soap-dropping joke…at least until now.
Also, if you’re a billionaire, maybe consider sitting this contest out, or else just sending a large sum of money to me instead.
Also also, it’s very likely that if you don’t get the credits you won’t get a response from me, and even if you do get the credits you might not get a response from me for a little while, so just keep that in mind. (I didn’t start a bike blog because I wanted to do work.)
By the way, as a company investing in the tooling for simple mechanical bicycle components, Rivendell really is doing something important, because whether you own one of their bikes or not we all benefit from the continued availability of simple mechanical drivetrain components:
Like, we’re very close to the the point where if you have a bike made for you by one of the most respected frame builders in America if not the world, you can’t buy a new mechanical drivetrain to put on it:
[Picture appropriated from Karl Farbman’s social media.]
Now, you may be thinking, “Well why doesn’t Farbman start building frames that take dick breaks, then?” Or, you may be thinking, “Rivendell aren’t developing short-reach brake calipers so how does that help me when it’s time to put together my new Farbman?” You may even be thinking, “To hell with anyone who rides a Farbman! I’ve been riding the same Surly since 1998! Death to capitalism!” To that I reply, “You’re missing the point!” The point is…well, I don’t really know what it is, apart from the fact that we’re at an evolutionary fork when it comes to bikes. And while there’s nothing wrong with crabon bikes and dick breaks and remote control shifting and ebikes and all the rest of it, there is if they mean the death of everything that came before it. Ideally we can have a peaceful coexistence (I’m sure there are more than a few people who own and enjoy both types of bikes), but it does mean we can’t take companies like Rivendell for granted, even if–or especially if–you’re still riding a Surly from 1998.
But at least you can count on never forgetting how to ride a bike:
My first thought was, “How come they always make a big deal about how you never forget how to ride a bike, yet nobody ever mentions all the other mundane crap you never forget how to do?,” but to their credit they soon address that:
The truth is there’s nothing particularly special about bike riding—the axiom could have used many other skills, such as ice skating or swimming (in fact, swimming was the favored example of something people don’t forget how to do up until the 1940s, when cycling’s popularity exploded).
They also note the following:
There’s a few reasons why: first, it can be hard to scan a person’s brain while they’re riding around on a 12 speed.
Uh, that’s why all the big companies are going to 13 speeds! Also, you don’t need to scan a rider’s brain to know what they’re thinking:
They’re thinking: “This is great, my bike is awesome, I’m awesome!” Though the article addresses this too:
Second, as Dr. Elizabeth Kensinger, a psychology professor at Boston College and Budson’s co-author, explains, a subject self-reporting how good they are on a bike can be faulty and could skew results.
Dr. Elizabeth Kensinger just explained the whole gravel phenomenon, if not the entire cycling media landscape. Incredible.
Though some people do in fact forget how to ride a bike–sometimes even while they’re still riding it:
We call these people “triathletes.”