Bike Anti-Porn - When Things Go Wrong

Spotted this double-bar-combo on Rye Lane. Indecisiveness?

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It's a bike mullet. Business up the front party at the back.

Ultimate macho bike; grew another pair.

Needs more stems...

O Planet X. Y U do dis?

http://www.planetx.co.uk/i/q/DBCL000142/180---holdsworth-steel-single-speed---orange---tri-spoke-wheels---medium

Also, tri means three, not 5.

Got into a bit of a row with Planet X over their 'Holdsworth' frames that they're flogging. They didn't like being compared to Sports Direct and Lonsdale. I regret nothing.

Their 'Holdsworth' frames look like bad copies, ill fitting stickers and all.

Isn't that their stated business model?

What, buy out dead companies and use the brand on gas pipe at inflated prices? Pretty much.

The argument centred around them having some 753 'Holdsworth' frames made - I asked them on Facebook what made them 'Holdsworth' other than the name on them, as they're being made by someone else. I don't get it personally - it's not like Holdsworth has amazing marque. I can't remember who it was that was making them, but his name was more desirable than Holdsworth.

There's a lot to knock Planet X for (falsely inflating prices before sales etc), but this one particularly irked me as it's dishonest. At least with SAB they bought a load of dead stock. Their Holdsworth stuff has never been near anyone to do with the original brand, as far as I can make out.

Maybe I shouldn't let this stuff bother me...

Yeah I'm just puzzled that they'd object to being compared to SD. I'm sure the guy's been quoted as saying that's what their aim was. Mind you I'm not sure that any of the brands they've bought have any great cachet.

This

Oh really? I hadn't seen that. My interaction was with a social media employee (or equivalent), and the message was very different.

This alludes to it:

As for who Loughran admires in the business world, the first name that comes up is Mike Ashley, the billionaire founder of Sports Direct, which operates more than 500 stores worldwide. Loughran has consciously followed the Sports Direct model: build a business around multiple brands that you own and cut out as many tiers in the supply chain as you can. Loughran also looks up to Grant Petersen, the iconoclastic bike designer who once headed up Bridgestone USA before starting Rivendell Cycles, a small company in northern California making elegant, consciously retro bikes in lugged steel. “I love them because they do their own thing, a hundred per cent what they believe in,” he says.

Loughran’s biggest hero, however, is the entrepreneur Hugh Facey, founder of Gripple, the Sheffield company with 300 employees that makes tiny widgets for joining and tensioning wire. Once described by the Daily Mail as ‘the best boss in Britain’, Facey has put in place a revolutionary employee share ownership system that will eventually mean the company is co-owned by staff and an independent trust set up to safeguard the interests of the workforce. I check in with him a few weeks later to ask whether such a radical idea wasn’t just another flight of fancy. He confirmed he was still committed to the plan, “yes, definitely.”

https://rouleur.cc/journal/bicycles/planet-x-brand-interview-history

But that probably doesn't matter as it will only be ridden to the organic cafe and back, carrying a mackbook air and maybe a spare pair of matching pink socks.

Dang, maybe I shouldn't have gotten a randonneur bike...

Mine are fine (SKS) no rattling, no snapping.

Ironically those kind of mudguard are more prone to breaking than the metal one.

If you want proper functional mudguard, go for an all steel one, which, again ironically lighter than a similar SKS one.

Yeah like rain on your wedding day.

You laugh, but if it weren't for experts like Ed I'd never have known that plastic was easier to break than steel.

OMG those wheels are hilariously ugly.

Clown bike.

Long

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#scobled?

Hm never any bother with SKS. Metal ones do look nice :)

Some good anti on display here:

https://www.instagram.com/therealjmj/

I think I've just won the thread.

Have you met pengy?

^^ that looks to be rocking a replica arospkk.

Mind blown.jif

^^ that looks to be rocking a replica arospkk

First generation if I'm correct: