December Blahg

I'm glad the following story made the front page of The New York Times. No comment on this, it's just interesting and familiarly tragic.

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 Was somebody hired to write these subjects to get people to open it up? And then what? — they've gotcha?  The "say what?" & "No way" are great bookends for the low $2.99 price. All that's missing is a "Dude!"

From your pals at Running Wild, a Limited Liability Corporation.

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You gotta read this feel-good story.

It's a repatritation story. Go, team, go. 

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Going into 2025, we're going to dig deep on some things. There will be some changes, some external ones will be above your radar, some internal ones, below it.  Saying that makes it sound like I assume you'll care or find something to like or not like, but it's not that kind of change, I don't think.

For the first 26 years, it's been a struggle to even hang in here, seriously. Our online presence, and the fact that we're probably bigger than some other small groovy bicycle companies has, for a decade or fifteen years, suggested that we're bigger and more together than we were, or are. 

It feels yukky when somebody suggests that the Pandemic turned things around for us. We were on a decent path before that, and I don't like the idea that a pandemic that took so many lives benefitted us. The real change year was 2018. We'd reached the point where enough people knew about us and liked whatever this approach is, that we didn't have to reach out and MARKET ourselves as much (and we never the money to do that in a big way, anyway).

The challenges are a different now. We have a small crew, about 11. I don't know off the top of my head, but I know the names. Moving east to west according to work area: Sergio, James, Mark, Vince, Rich, me, Antonio, Roman, Spencer, Will, Calvin, Harry, Mary...and former GM John up in Portland does our IG and assorted other tasks regularly. Everybody is essential, there is no fat to cut and nobody who I wish would quit.  I still wish we had a small pool of candidates. Even if we need another person, it's hard to get a job here. I recently made a list of job requirements that might not go anywhere soon, except here.  I think there are lots of jobs that you can get and learn the basics on the go, but working here in most capacities requires a history with bicycles that can't be taught, or at least we can't teach it, and most of our millenials had that going in. They were born too late, but learned a lot from fixing up old bikes for themselves or friends.

Here's a list of requirements I came up with in ten to fifteen minutes without deep thinking. Usually I was three or four ahead of my typing them, so I may have forgotten some.

Requirements and Warnings About Working Here

1. You must be truly nice, not just interview nice.
2. Once you’re nice enough, you must love bicycles.
3. Then you must know all about us.
4. And if you pass 2 & 3 and you don’t own one of our bicycles, it doesn’t rule you out, it just makes us wonder why. You think an old Bstone is the same? It's not. If you’re tied with somebody else who has one of our bikes, they’ll have a leg up on you.
5. Must be presentable to a wide audience. Clean body, clothing, no smell.
6. Bicycle mechanic skills are helpful, even if you’re not trying to be a mechanic.
7. Must get along with our team. Must not see your coworkers as competition. 
8. All else equal, we hire those who we feel comfortable talking to about social issues, the environment, science, religion, politics, anything.
9. Must be a rower on the ship, not a barnacle.
10. Related to 9: Your main job is to make everybody else’s job easier. Must be flexible and helpful. Nobody here has ever said, “That’s not my job.”
11. Follow through.
12. Gotta: Show up on time every time. Stay late if your customer requires it.
13. Good communicator. Speaking, writing.
14. Honest. Seriously honest. If you’re ever stolen anything, we’re not for you.
15. Bottle up your bad mood or just stay home. No making others uncomfortable.
16. Nobody is above taking out the garbage, and don’t wait for somebody else to.
17. Reload the TP before it’s down to nothing. If the thought occurs to you that this isn’t “what I went to school for," don’t apply.
18. MUST know about pre-1990s bicycles. Otherwise, you’ll think of ours as freaks, even if you don’t say it. A certain amount of modern bicycle history is essential, too.
19. Must be comfortable with our style. We KNOW the market. Trying to be the internal operative who gets us to change our ways won’t fly here. We have our thing, and we want only those who love it already. Who don’t need convincing or educating to “come around” or understand it.
20. Riding skills don’t matter at all, but it helps if you ride a bicycle a lot.
21. We play music softly if at all.
22. Dress normally. Wear some of the stuff we sell some of the time.
23. Don’t try to impress anybody here or any customers with your knowledge, but take the time to teach. Customers should leave smarter. Just because somebody’s spending a lot on a bicycle doesn’t mean they known tons about it. Don’t assume stuff, and present new information in the most respectful and humble way.

24. We’re Equal Opportunity. Our VP and CFO is a woman, and eight women have worked here, but all of the above requirements still apply. (To compensate for our woman-shortage, we donate heavily to causes and charities that support women.)
25. All else equal, we’ll hire the person who’d have a harder time getting a job some other place. If that doesn’t make sense to you, you lack the empathy to work here.
26. The cost of living around here is high. We can't pay enough for you to buy a house. If your partner isn't comfortable with that, you won't be happy here and it won't last. I wouldn't MIND moving to a lower-cost area after I retire, but I've got family here and as long as I'm working, I'm not leaving them. I don't think it would be easy to sell to the rest of the crew, either. I could retire and let them move it to anywhere, but the biggest challenge would be replacing those who didn't move. I could imagine it all going to hell. 
27. Organized. Relatively neat. More than the top boss is.
28. Willing to learn, but not in deep need of teaching. Just open to learning without feeling insecure about not knowing something.
29. Must not feel that your unique contribution is going to be something that, could hypothetically expand our reach/customer base, but requires a loosening of our focus, something like, "Just do ONE bike with disc brakes--they're great! Imagine an Atlantis with disc! And you've SAID titanium is a good material--why not do Ti versions of the existing models?" You have to understand our mission and direction and not feel as though it's holding us (and you) back, missing all of those opportunities out there

This isn't a current invitation to apply, it's just an internal document made semi-public right now.

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 Faba or Fava? Either way, I was on a plane recently and was feeling a little light-headed or something. I hadn't eaten in 20 hours and I THINK I was psychosomaticizing my way into a slight panic attack, so I got this burrito, and the ingredients list was a little disconcerting. It also lists super-trace ingredients, but the main thing is, look at that long list, and is it necessary? I say, make them another way. Take out the faba bean flour at least. This is seriously ridiculous.

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 A friend suggested this documentary;

https://www.hbo.com/100-foot-wave

It's interesting, especially the third episode, but naturally I see this through a tainted lens that has me suspicious of all sponsorships. Like, the sure way to get sponsored it to be really good at a life-threatening sport. Then, enough people doing that in the whole range of life-risking sports, and you will end up being complicit in their deaths, and what that does to their survivors, often kids. 

It seems like a sad trap to get into. You're in your teens or twenties and getting to the top of your sport, often bypassing college or trade school or whatever, because to get that good you have to do it all the time; and then it's hard to stop and restart your life in another direction. I know this isn't my unique observation...it's kind of obvious...but this movie-doc really drove it home. That doesn't make the story itself or the stars of the show less amazing. It makes them more sympathetic and human, if anything. It's not all admiration and inspiration, is all I mean.

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IN THE BRIDGESTONE YEARS ENDING IN 1994, the warehouse was overloaded with size-and-color match replacement forks going back twelve years, all models, all sizes, a few of each, until we must have had several thousand forks, and a few hundred pounds of mini-bottles of touch-up paint that dried up after a couple of years. We're trying to go greener all the time, so pretty soon we'll stop getting original color touch-up, and then, if you want to patch a chip, just use nail polish. Sally Hansen is the brand Joe Bell recommends, and he's the best painter out there. Even if you have some non-dried-up original touch-up, it won't blend perfectly with the factory spray, so just have fun with a close-enough match or a  wildly contrasting color nail polish.

But back to the forks: We now have several hundred, sorted by model-size-color, and it's rare that anybody needs one. Once or twice a year somebody will crash and bend a fork. If the fork is slightly bent, a frame builder can straighten it, but if we recommend that, it's a liability risk to us, so against our greenest and most practical judgment, we say "get a new fork." Which is painful to say, because a slightly bent steel fork can be bent back and ridden safely, but...we can't take the risk that maybe the fork was bent too much, or maybe the local fixer guy was incompetent. And so, to minimize our fork storage, we're going to start stocking replacement forks in silver only.  This is great news for owners of silver Rivendells, but it's not bad news for anybody else. My vote was for red, but Will and Sergio and Roman likes SILVER more, and I see the logic there.

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 Rear Derailer: Most BLAHGs will have something about this, because there is news-along-the-way all the time. We're sending microshift our SILVER logo with the backwards E and upside down i, and that will go onto the outside parallelogram, the normal place. This model will be the OM-1, for opposite movement, and the 1 means its the first model we have. It may be the last, but I'm guessing no. We're not now and never were at the "testing the waters/running it up the flag pole" stage, wondering how it'll go. We know normal derailers work great, and we know these work better and make more sense, because with an OM (or Shimano RapidRise), you push the shifters in the same direction to get the same effect, either front or back shifting. It may be interesting and maybe frustrating when Shimano sees a microshift-made version of a style of rear derailer that they tried and failed to win acceptance for five whole years, 1999 to 2004 (or so). But that's the breaks, and I'd love to see them reintroduce any of their older models. But the thing is, with indexed shifters, it hardly makes a difference. Shimano has dumbed down (or simplified) shifting so much that an incremental improvement is of no value. But it's more noticeable--not saying it's critical or essential--in friction shifting.

microshift will send us a 3D-printed test model by the end of February. If no changes, maybe delivery by end of June.

It'll look something like this:

The little stuff after the SILVER logo says OM1. We've committed to buy 3,000 of them over three years. It seems like a lot, but it'll set us up with derailers for a long time. I think it'll shift to at least 36t in friction--based on the microshift R9, which is rated to 34t but goes that high. We'll know more when we try the sample. No promises about anything until we've tried it. but the design is not a guessing game. There are some actual known quantitites and facts--it just feels early to promise. But--boy, are we happy about it.

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 The letter below appeared in the NYT Dec 4. I am not what anybody'd call a die-hard opera enthusiast, and I didn't know the direction modern opera seems to be taking, but so much of what she says can be applied to ... almost anything. Bicycles and fly-fishing come to mind, and you can probably think of a few others. It comes from the perceived need to grow, to reach out to the greater masses at the low end of the pyramid. That can be a good thing in some areas, but it isn't always good.

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 I'm not into APPS, and the apps I have on my phone, somebody else put them there for me or they came with the phone...but this is an interesting one, and I actually use it:

https://yuka.io/en/

It's for stuff you put on your skin or in your mouth. It tells you how heinously toxic they are, either to you or the enviro. Go for it.

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This came to me. I'm not on twitter or MEGA or whatever it is now. It was a pull quote from a story I was reading, and I thought it was worth passing on.

There's a lot going on in that tweet. Do they still have tweets?

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 SHITTHROPOCENE is a 46-minute movie. By Patagonia. It applies to more than clothes. I'm guessing conservatively that 95 percent of the carbon frames and forks made this year will be landfill in 20 years; 80 percent in 10 years. Roman here told me about this movie. 

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And an ad that just came to me and I don't know why:

 Is this for getting revved up and maintaining the rev-up for long video game sessions? Lock in with those three flavors. Whether you're soloing or partying with friends. And if you're doing the latter, bring some for them. Share the wealth.

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IT SEEMS NOBODY makes an organic cotton T with a pocket. No wholesalers, anyway. Would like to find one. We may be seeing the last of our T's and Hoodies. One supplier of Organic Cotton T's, when I asked if we could get some with pockets, said, "I think if you look around, you'll find that nobody makes organic cotton t's with pockets." Blind to the opportunity, holey moley. This is the state-o'-things in that world. Stay between the narrow lines, head down, keep the focus, don't rock the dang boat. Don't offer anything different, for god's sake.

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 Open Letters. An open letter is a public letter that gets read by people who are. not the person or company the letter is addressed to. They're wimpy in that way, and maybe a sign of laziness, or doubt that the letter, even if. properly addressed, would get to the person rather than being intercepted by a minion who tossed it. Please pass them on to the addressees, if you can figure that out.

Dear Valentino Campagnolo,

The bicycle world and pro racing and all that have changed since your dad, Tullio, was running the show. It was easier then, because Campy didn't have as much competition. But now, with you at the head of a family-owned business with all that heritage but not enough money to pay riders...you're giving up. You don't seem to want to rest on your dad's laurels. Understood. You wanna make your own mark, to take Camp into ye olde future. Understood.

It won't work, what you're doing. Your Super Record derailers look like SRAM derailers. Your lustrous silver finishes are all black now. So they blend in with dark carbon frames, or to give them that mean & serious look. SRAM and SHIMANO and microshift stuff works 100 percent as well as yours, and their finishes are as good, too. What can you DO with black? Matte or shiny or somethere in between, but it's all black, and boring. 

Who even buys Campy anymore? Not enough. So. here's what you do:

Make a deluxe, all silver road group. Give it the overall finish of midd-'90s Campy, or early 2000s, just the best. Give the crank a 5-arm 110x74 bolt circle so the rings are more usable, not just by racers. Get rid of angles and reintroduce curves--in the derailers, pulley cages, brakes. Rim brakes, but allow clearance for tires up to 45mm. They can and should be dual-pivot. Make a killer platform pedal. Make your rear hub splines Shimano-compatible. No disc. No electronics. Make a nice looking brake lever, not too ergo, but big enough for a hand. The Shimano BL-400 is a good starting point. Friction shifting, maybe with an indexed option if you must. Seven speeds is plenty.

Price it wherever. People will buy it. Have simple boxes, like the old ones. Don't sponsor pros, go after recreational riders who want good, nice-looking stuff. Don't give any of it funny names. Don't update it, period. Make it beautiful and right and manual. Your only hope.

Grant P.

Dear Shimano,

Reintroduce maybe modified versions of the Dura-Ace 7700 group and either a Deore XT or XTR. Silver. Campy-quality finish. Manual, nice looking because it's designed by people not computers. Don't wreck it with funky cranks with four arms or three and bad proportions and black. Rim brakes for both, but increase the reach of the sidepulls to fit 45mm tires. Your road derailer should shift to 32t, Don't make the cage too long. I hear Campy is doing the same. Friction shifting--downtube, bar-end, thumby. Index option, OK. RapidRise for the road. Yes.

For the Mtn group, rim brakes. Make the V-brakes open all the way past the fork blades and seat stays. Offer a cantilever, too. Use road-length pads, not the freaky 73mm ones. Do what SRAM can't. You can still keep your eletronic and unfortunate-looking parts, but do a manual, beautiful group for roads and trails. You could do the mtn crank in a 94/56 bolt circle, but five-arm. You used to do that.  Let the derailer s hift to 42t. More than that, combined with an 18t granny--it's more than enough. Friction shifting with index option Keep your modern SRAM-like stuff, but make this. SRAM couldn't, and won't. You have the history with it already. It is what made you, and now you're chasing SRAM? Kind of pathetic. Sad.  Do what you did when you were at your best. Also, RapidRise derailers. You know you prefer them.

 Grant P.

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Have I already said this? Not sure, but we're stepping it up next year in the hippies-trying-to-get-greener-and-save-the-earth department. Baby steps, and you'll see. Less plastic, no more PFAS, groovy new all-wool grips. Nothing freaky, all makes sense, all fun, let's all go!

G