Great things sometimes come to those who wait.

securityguard

Happy Monday, or as the forefathers of this great nation used to call it, “screw this crap“.

What I have for you today is a recap of the throw down I announced last Monday held at Elevation Bike Company featuring the bikecycles of Ibis, and artwork by Christmas Alley;
Ibis art announcement
Naturally, because for the time being, I’m dependent on rides to get anywhere, and no one can stand to be in a car with me for more than a couple of blocks, I was once again stuck at home. “No problem” I thought. “Duncdee is there. (Who for the sake of clarification, was the person who initially clued us in on the event.) I’ll just ask him to shoot a couple photos and send me a quick run down of what occurred.

What resulted was an exchange of texts that were probably reminiscent of a conversation between you and your inebriated uncle trying to figure out how to use his phone.

And in all fairness, I won’t say specifically which one of us was filling that particular role.

Anyway, luckily, the ever-present, and ever accommodating Pamela Palma was there and quicker than you can say “that’s pretty quick“, she sent me over the following photos of what her lens had caught;
scotbypamelapalma
drinkingscotbypamelapalma
openersbypamelapalma
chrisbypamelapalma
Oh, and also, here’s the aforementioned Duncdee, not taking photos for me;
duncdeebypamela copy
MORE LIKE, DRUNKDEE, AMIRIGHT?………..

Anyway, the following day, I went so far as to text Christmas Alley himself to see how it was, hoping to get any kernel of information about the event and he replied to me with this;
howwasitchris
If a picture is indeed worth a thousand words, then I guess we have about a million word dissertation of how things went down and we can leave it at that.

In news of both a saddening, and maddening nature, I present for your consideration the story regarding the recent passing of 23 year old DJ Pinkerton;
*Video has since been removed*
He knew he would die young. He knew that it would be on his bike and that’s the best way that could have happened. That’s how he would have preferred to die“, his girlfriend Rebecca Yzaguirre was quoted as saying.

Now, perhaps my perspective won’t be a popular one, but everything about this story from the top to the bottom is just about the dipshittiest of dipshitness that I think I’ve ever come across.

My heart hurts- Like, literally, aches for his family, but this rock and roll romanticism nonsense is complete and utter crap. We all assume that there’s a better than good possibility that we’ll get taken out on our bikes, but is it a thing we expect, or in this case, willingly increase the odds to see happen?

No, because that’s foolish.

No lights, helmet, or brakes, entering a main and unlighted road off of a side, blind, unlighted and unmaintained service road? This seems like a fairly adequite combination for resulting bad times. Granted, you can wear all the helmets and lights and drip brakes all over your bike that you want, but if a car is present, riding into traffic from a blind corner is still gonna put you down.

I remember being twenty three, and a component of that age was being fairly reckless, so I won’t spend much more time dwelling on this, and please understand that in no way, shape or form am I victim blaming here, because as I see it, DJ wasn’t the only victim. The bottom line is his family and friends lost an important component, the cop now has to deal with the guilt of his or her part in this story, the rest of our immediate community has to contend with the inevitable backlash that will occur from this, and all of it was completely avoidable.

In other unrelated, but almost equally distressing news, Cannondale has once again released a bike that will make all of your bikes obsolete;

Remember approximately fifteen years ago when they tried a similar tactic?;
cannondale-headshox
I do, and I can recall the same sense of hopelessness that my road bike wasn’t going to cut it any longer.

Luckily I weathered the storm, and my road bike, and sometimes even my cyclocross bike filled the necessary roles just fine. Though soon after, a glut of XS800s made their way to Craigslist, and ultimately into the hands of legions of quietly weeping mechanics as they opened the Headshox to service, spilling hundreds of directional needle bearing all over the floor.

And also, wasn’t it Cannondale who at one point tried to copyright the term ‘Freeride‘?

Oh Cannonade- you so cray, and the purchasing public, even more so.

There will potentially be a day when the bike industry leaves well enough alone and stops trying to convince the public that the newest bell, whistle, googah, or doodad will enhance their riding experience to the nth degree, and on turn that maybe the pubic will stop encouraging the industry’s behavior by buying into it hook, line and sinker.

Until that day comes, and though there’s no guarantee of the arrival of anything great, I suppose I’ll just simply continue to wait.
newlittleskull

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5 Responses to “Great things sometimes come to those who wait.”

  1. Steve-er-eno June 15, 2015 at 10:19 am #

    I found this over on the Paceline forum…
    http://i.imgur.com/ZswWWee.gif

  2. Knuckler June 15, 2015 at 1:30 pm #

    Is it just me or is there a squeaky chain through that entire video?

  3. db June 15, 2015 at 1:57 pm #

    Soooo, a road/cross bike with a HeadShok?

  4. Tanya Pinkerton January 17, 2017 at 1:54 pm #

    I appreciate your article and by no means assume you are victim blaming. I wish that my son’s girlfriend never made that comment. She made it sound as if he had a death wish or was a novice at riding. My son had been riding for as long as I can remember. He took courier jobs and rode in florida, Ohio, New Mexico and California. His bicycle was his main mode of transportation. It was a horribly unfortunate accident that I wished had never happened.

    • Stevil January 17, 2017 at 8:27 pm #

      I’m so, so, so sorry for your loss, and I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to respond. As they were when I initially wrote this post, my thoughts continue to be with you and your family.