Rip Off…
Apologies blah blah blah, no posts blah blah blah. So sue me I’m slack, but some days the thought of coming on here and writing stuff down and having to think about some of the dumb shit I see makes me just want to hurt myself…
But well done Pivot Cycles, and well done Ken Bennett…you sir have really rattled my cage with this one. Never before have I seen such blatant theft of someone else’s work. Whilst looking through various press releases and interviews I came across this regurgitated gem…
Look familiar? This happens to be Pivot Cycles new flagship RH race bike, the Phoenix. But you know what, doesn’t it look like something else? Like someone has designed and built a bike that looks exactlythefuckingsame as this one before…someone like I dunno, Iron Horse?
Congratulations! you’ve hydroformed some tubing, changed the drop-outs and rounded off the linkage plates. A-fucking-Star. The fundamentals of this bike are exactly the same as the Sunday, they’ve even nabbed the colour!
When asked about the bike, big Ken had this to say…
“Our new Phoenix DH bike is probably the biggest thing for us this year. We wanted to make an extremely durable downhill bike”. Oh right, a bit like that Iron Horse Sunday!?! But Ken goes on…
“We worked really hard on this. We had a few rough prototypes for a year or so then went in at the deep-end, pretty much worked at nothing else for eight months”
Eight months!? That’s an awful long time to be spending on basically bolting on new bits to an old, proven design. Although the prototypes make sense, just making sure you copied it correctly I presume?
“The World Cup team each got two frames at the start of the season and none of them have had to swap their frame yet - I think that speaks volumes.”
You know what Ken, your right. Just like Gwin didn’t change his Yeti, Kovarik didn’t change his Intense or when Sam Hill and Brendog didn’t change their IRON HORSE’S!!! I think Ken should change his job title to “Existing bike re-arranger”.
So big deal, you’ve managed to copy an existing design so well that the scraped barrel that you call a team couldn’t break it. The proof will be in the pudding, the Sunday was a multiple World Cup and World Champ winning bike, my money is on yours winning jackshit.
Alive!
Apologies for the lack of fresh posts since I started up this blog. I have been far too busy lately with work commitments, and being the small world it is, I’m having to hold my tongue on a few barrages…for now you are safe Cycle Life. But only for now.
Onwards. Andrew Dodd, where do you get off buddy? For the last seven years you’ve been riding your luck working for “Britains best selling Bike Magazine”. I’m old enough to remember when MBUK was a credible publication, however its slip into national fag-rag status seems to strangely coincide with your arrival. Quite how you’ve managed this is far beyond me, sure you’ve been described as having “a formidable combination of serious bike handling skills and in-depth technical knowledge”.
Shit the bed! Not a bad complement for a guy who got fired for not knowing the most basic of stuff, being a complete liability with a spanner and for generally being a bit of a gorm (Action Bikes ringing that solitary bell yet Doddster?). As for your riding skills, your job is to write, review and ride bikes…all day long. Your washed up mug has ridden places most can only dream of. So why is it that after seven looooong years do I flick open your “magazine” nearly every month and see you doing either a) a skid or b) a tabletop with legs so fuckin’ bent that it looks as though your trying to squeeze out your morning glory on the top tube?
Sorry for the rant Dodd, but I just read one too many shit MBUK reviews to let this one slide.
Sky…
As most of you will know, a few weeks ago the Worlds took place in Mont Saint Anne in Canada. The track was great, the racing was great and Tracy Moseley won the Elite women’s DH for Team GB…Fantastic.
However when I stupidly decided to go on to the Sky News website, expecting to read their half assed story about Tracy’s victory, there was absolutely nothing. “Maybe they haven’t updated it yet” I think, but how wrong was I?. In the days and weeks that have passed…nothing. Now I have long come to terms with the fact that for some reason, off-road cycling seems not to interest the general media, yet for the main sponsor of the British team not to even report the fact that one of its riders had won a world championship is absurd.
Here is a picture of a British road rider, Sky care about this guy because hes probably elligable for the Olympics or ‘Tour de Farce’, unlike Tracy.
You may think I’m over reacting, but when a major news corporation and main team sponsor fails to report one of its riders becoming a world champion, yet I have to read an essay every time Bradley Wiggins so much as stands up to wipe is down right farcical.
Sort it out Sky, we know you don’t really care about Downhill/XC/(insert type of cycling without slick tyres here), but it wouldn’t do you any harm to pretend. Fuck.
And So It Begins…
Hello one and all and welcome to Look Mum, No Hands!
For a while now I have been seeking an outlet to vent my frustration on this trade in which I work. That’s right folks, the bicycle industry. I have worked in the Cycle industry almost all of my adult working life…Why? Well it sure as shit isn’t for the money I can tell you.
For me it came as a natural progression from a hobby which I had enjoyed since my very early teenage years. That passion still burns I assure you, however my love for working in this seemingly small world is consistently battered by the non-stop media bullshit, the pretentious trend whores and the almost constant visual assault from companies ramming their shit down our throats.
Why “Look Mum, No Hands!”? Because that age old saying reminds me of what Bikes are meant to be for. Thrashing around in the woods with your friends, cruising round the streets on a summers evening or just getting sideways on ‘that’ turn…
