Bicycle Industry Just As Pathetic As Auto Industry
I’ve often complained about the slowness of bike manufacturers and bike retailers in reacting to the incredible uptick in interest for real commuter bikes. They’re still not with the program. We’re still waiting for them to start building and marketing bikes that people want - in particular, commuter bikes.
In this regard, the bicycle industry is no different from the automotive industry.
That needs to change. The auto industry finally managed a nice implosion this time around — the bike industry got lucky. Luck should not be confused with competence.
All the effects of our bicycle industry’s ineptitude are not bad - there are small shops like this one in LA that are importing real commuter bicycles - that’s good for LA, and good for Flying Pigeon (wiki). There’s a real opportunity for small bike manufacturers - whether they’re building bakfiets in Portland, high-end touring and fitness bikes in LA, or scraper-bikes in Oakland - these are all very good things.
We’ve showed you this video before, but it’s kind of cool:
Commuter bikes, for the record, have chainguards.
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December 10th, 2008 at 12:53 am
It’s more than just chainguards. This is a video made in a cycle factory just 40 km down the road from my home in the Netherlands:
http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=IHmgHu_eRxg
Note the brine bath in which components and pain finishes are tested to make sure they can endure conditions like this and last 20 years of daily use:
http://hembrow.blogspot.com/2008/12/bit-of-snow.html