Bike shop snobbery is ruining the world. It stops people from biking, which in turn makes them drive thereby burning gasoline and causing wars. You and I might not enjoy walking into a bike shop with a staff that treats you like you’re some kind of idiot for asking if they sell any helmets that lack flame jobs, but a lot of people are too intimidated to admit that they have no idea what the bike seller is talking about when they mention components or different frame materials. The same thing used to exist with computers, but Apple turned things around with their approachable if expensive brand and customer-service oriented sales/support force. Now bike shops need to pick up the slack and make it easy for people to buy bikes based on color. Of course, not all bike shops are like the ones I’ve described, but we can all think of at least one, and I would argue that condescending bike shop help is found a lot more often than not.

Anyway, the Forty-One-Thirty Cafe Racer is a rare bike that people who know absolutely nothing bikes and people who live bikes could both love. The original was custom made for an Amsterdam artist so that it’d blend in with the utilitarian city bikes while offering a sick ride. Granted, at $1500 it’s crazy overpriced, but it’s not like we have to be jerks about it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 at 8:56 am and is filed under Cycling, Gear, Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.