Flipper

Thank you for all the input on the t-shirts. It's good to know that—whichever one gets made first—I probably won't be left sitting on 50 of them. Hopefully I'll be sending something off to Supes in the next week or two. Obviously I'll keep everyone posted on the progress. Or lack thereof. (I know me all too well.)

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What's out there today? Well, there's this bike, which has now been e-mailed me twice, once by a reader, and today by its owner. Said owner mentioned that "Moeller said you'd abuse me for this," which is patently untrue. Just because you ride a bike that looks like it was birthed by a Holmes on Thalidomide doesn't mean you should be abused. Isn't the self-abuse of riding such a traveshamockery enough? Apparently not.

I can sort of see how something like this could happen. If you ride mostly transition, and maybe a little trails, your drivetrain is more or less unnecessary. In fact, it becomes a hassle. Taking the whole mess off makes your bike both lighter and simpler. In a way, this should be the kind of thing I approve of.

However.

The beauty of a bicycle, for me, lies within the drivetrain. The coolest thing about riding a bike—again, for me—is being able to crank really hard and go really fast. See: Stricker, Josh. It's not even about gapping over rivers or clearing a 40-foot double or anything, it's about going fast for the sake of going fast. I can't comprehend the thought process that would eliminate that entire aspect of riding. I mean, if you cut your legs off you wouldn't have to worry about athlete's foot or sprained ankles or deciding what shoes to wear, and you'd be a lot lighter, but it seems to me the negatives would outweigh the positives. Would you ride something that looked like this?



Me neither.

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Another reader sent me what has to be the eBay auction of the year, if not the decade.

Not sure whether you realize it or not, but over the past couple of years, the price of vintage BMX stuff has gone through the roof. Hutch parts are more or less worth their weight in gold, and I recently sold a clean set of early Skyway Graphite Tuff Wheels for over $1,200. Since there's no BMX Blue Book or anything, you have to rely on other eBay auctions to inform you of what current values are.

Lately, even mid-school parts (or, to some, new school) have been getting more and more expensive. And maybe it was because of their recent 20th anniversary, but it seems like S&M frames and parts have been going up most of all.

All that said, the person who listed this is obviously insane. And, judging from the seat position, possibly a velociraptor. (In case you were wondering, they do, in fact, ride bicycles.)

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