A Beacon Or Deterrent To Thieves

If you live in an urban area (in the US, anyway), you've probably seen bikes with tacky or simply ugly paint glopped or blotched on them.  

The bikes' owners so deface them in order to make them less appealing to would-be thieves.

However, some argue that it can have exactly the opposite effect:  Crooks, they say, know that the bike must be good if someone made such an effort to make them visually unappetizing.  

In any event, the bike in the photo turned out to be,  on closer inspection, just a typical '70's Bike Boom ten-speed turned into a single-speed.  It's perfectly reliable transportation, I'm sure, but nothing special. Or, at least, it's not special enough that its owner had to make it seem less special.
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Methode VTT (Velo Tout Terrain)

On New Year's Day, you may have shared a bottle of "champagne" with friends or family members. 

Chances are, though, that it wasn't Champagne.  More than likely, it was probably a sparkling wine prepared according to the Methode Champenoise.

Now, I haven't drunk very much Methode Champenoise wine--or, for that matter, Champagne itself. So, I don't mean to be snobbish or condescending when I make the distinction between sparkling wines. I mention it only because  someone who drinks, makes or sells Champagne, though, would probably be upset if you used the name of their product for the bubbly you drank over the holidays.

What got me thinking about that distinction?, you ask.  Believe it or not, it was a bike parked a couple of blocks from my apartment:

Now, what does a bike from which a Huffy would be an upgrade have to do with a drink some blind French monk invented by accident?  

Take a look at the downtube:

It reads "ATB Style."

I guess it's supposed to mean that the bike is an ATB-style bike.  In what sense, though?  Sure, it has fat tires, upright handlebars and gears.  But it also has the wretched cheap long-arm sidepulls found on so many bad bike-boom ten-sppeds.  Worse, the brakes are supposed to do their work on steel rims--which means that in wet weather, they will hardly work at all.

And, of course, the bike is twice as heavy and about half as strong as a real ATB.  

What I find interesting is that All-Terrain Bike was coined because Joe Breeze, one of the early builders of bikes in this genre, patented the term "mountain bike" and wasn't too happy when Gary Fisher, Fat Chance and other fat-tire pioneers were using the term.    So, one might say that "ATB" is the methode champenoise of off-road bicycles.

Then again, for all I know, ATB might be the monogram of a fashion designer or clothing store.

She's Not Wearing A Helmet, But...

We all know that bicycles and cycling have been used to advertised all sorts of products, even those that seem utterly antithetical to the reasons why people ride bikes.

Given that some of the world's most imaginative advertising  comes from Italy (That is a completely unbiased statement! ;-)), perhaps it's no surprise to see that this ad aired there some years back:



I love the "halo" around one girl's head.  Is it supposed to substitute for a helmets?  You have to admit, though, that those girls look great, and that the shot of them descending that hill is really cool.

Now, to a confession:  During the time I was riding off-road, I drank more Coca-Cola than I had at perhaps any other time in my adult life.  In fact, almost all of the off-road riders--especially those in the then-nascent cult of downhill riding--I knew in those days drank it.  Some even carried it in their water bottles (or, later, Camel Backs).  As "Crazy Ray", one of the guys I used to ride with, said, "It's rocket fuel!"  He was right:  Humans can't ingest very many other things that will give as much of a rush of sugar and caffeine as the "Pause That Refreshes" can.  Remember that back in those days, Starbucks' stores were just starting to open in this part of the US, and they hadn't yet introduced many of the hyper-caffeinated sugar bombs that teenagers and hipsters line up, and pay good money, for.

Of course, given that the ad is Italian, it's easy to read a lot into the "si, si, si" refrain of that ad!