What type of motor does your bicycle have?  Class 1?  Class 2? Class 3? Pedal Assist?, or do you have a throttle? How fast does the whirring assist take you?
Mine is "Class Nil"... I have no motor to speak of installed in my bicycle.  The principle reason is this -- Because batteries shoved into my frame are stupid.  This will always be stupid. It was stupid, and remains ...well, Stupid!  I'm a fan of getting everyone on bikes; even motorized bikes. I love e-bike riding?  I've rented and long considered purchase.  I have helped with E-bike companys & retail start-ups, and I've helped other's purchase, and rent E-Bikes.

So you would think that I would know exactly why most bike makers build a battery pack deep within the frames of their E-Bikes.  It's almost like their are smuggling a shit-ton of button cells through customs. The question is a bit like asking why a Twinkie has cream filling rather than frosting.  What is the technical benefit of concealing the battery cells deep within the frame?  I have some theories, and they may not sit too well with you, nor their manufacturers.  
An "E-bike" is initially a "bike" correct?  Meaning that the bike is the place where the motor and batteries get attached, No?  Yes... This is true, but what is an e-bike when the battery is detachable?  It's still an e-bike.  What is it then when the motor AND the Battery come off?  It's a huge competitor to the fashion of selling
​e-bikes for stratospheric prices.  THIS is why e-bike makers shoe-horn li-poly cells into the frame.

You see, that a Fazua Motor is a self contained concept where the motor-battery assembly can be detached.  This clever invention clicks into the downtube, connecting to the bottom bracket and cranks --  viola!, you have an e-bike.  Take it out and what do you have?, well... It's still an e-bike, if a bit lighter.  This design gets startlingly close to an acceptable form, but not quite.  The concave downtube which houses the motor/battery looks a bit like a cargo helicopter, sans container.  The bike comes quite close to riding like a normal bicycle would, but without attachments -- So with the motor detached is it still an e-bike?

I would prefer to believe in the magic of this Helicopter being powered by four VW beetles, but that is not the case here, however this illustrates how a cargo copter looks without it's payload.  Yep..., basically like the Fazua Bike does without it's tiny genius motor and battery payload.  It rides well either way, but I'm still wondering why the battery for most if all popular brand e-bikes is crammed in their belly.  Why could these bikes not just have an attached battery-pack below the downtube, or even a bottle-style battery in a standard bottle-cage, to power a hub motor?
Because Satan is my Motor, I don't much care how you get your e-bike fix, but if left up to the marketing team -- one can draw some quick lines between Dolby Labs, and enumerable down-tube laden battery packs.  Dolby created 90 different surround sound modes, to help sell a gazillion speakers over time.  There was AC-3, 3.1, 5.1, 5.2, 7.2. 9.2, Atomos, and any manner of excessive speaker combinations -- then the world said, "Fuck It" I'll just buy a pissy little sound-bar. It was a great ride for retail while it lasted, but they spoiled it for everyone, by jumping a shark with a fuck-ton of speakers on their back. People now stream their music and movies through a speaker the size of their palm, and they want their bike to charge their speakers, and pedal for them as well.
 Today nearly all my friends have shitty sound-bars for their party tunes.  Casting aside any complexity, in favor of a single cylinder.  These sound like shit, but I don't mention it.  So E-Bikes play this game of slow evolution selling a different form factor every single year, expiring last years design without support for last year.  Sure the Bosch motors are generally BB loaded, and yes the battery being held down low will best center the COG (center of gravity), but engineering a frame with a shitload of tiny Li-Poly cells in it like a pregnant fish, is merely done to maintain propriety over a "System".  For Trek it seems to preclude compatibility with another brand, and for Giant and Specialized the same seems true, but the core design of the Bosch and or any system is an architecture where the motor maker gets paid and hands you a set of specs, and even some skeletal carcass, like a rib-cage and you slap carbon plies around it like papier mache'. "Here, Build your bike around this thing".

So if you cannot travel on the airlines with your e-bike it is because of two things which could have been different: One is that the battery cannot be removed for travel, preventing air travel adventures, and also preventing Fedex and other Express curriers from moving it around for you.  Two is that the Bike is not modular and hence it weighs a Metric Ton, and none of that weight can be removed and divided for travel.
OK, so I know what you are thinking..., you say, "well on many the battery is removable from the downtube"; Which is true.  But you cannot get around the fact that the bike was shaped around the battery pack, and THAT is the issue, My issue with e-bikes.
The only good reason to shape the battery du jour within a sculpted frame is to make it proprietary, and hence you see a "System" because as soon as the Mahle Motor and a Bottle battery are sold separately, why in the fuck would you buy an $8500.-$12,000. e-bike from Specialized, Trek, Giant etc...?  You wouldn't.  Those who wanted an e-bike would simply buy a 'Class X' kit, (Likely from Mahle) and drop a battery or two in their bottle cage, and off they roll.

Here is another con against the con for integrated Batteries in your downtube; When Trek stopped asking their Taiwanese OEM to build you a Domane-E, and the following year they pencil a new plan, that is the very moment that the Battery and parts for your precious e-bike become obsolete.  Add to that the Charger, with proprietary connector, and the silly glowing buttons on the top-tube.  If you trash a battery with the wrong charger, get it wet, or short it out, then you now have a pedal bike like mine, with 30 spare pounds to lug about, that nobody wants to buy from you.

Why do e-bikes have a large doorbell button glowing on their top-tube?  This is a throwback to electric skateboards from 1997.  Can't the "controls" be a wireless button, or wired mount for the stem or handlebar?  Yes..., yes they could, but they have to integrate these things to keep you aligned with the cult of integration.  This makes it look like they are delivering to you (a system) something other than a bike with someone else's motor and battery attached. This is not intended to bash a brand, but for crissakes, let's move this slow evolution forward a bit faster.

I'd like an e-bike which has a bottle battery, and a rear wheel motor, and nothing more.  Heck, I may even want a two wheel drive e-bike with two wheel motors, which can pull me through the snow or sloppy mud, but that would ONLY require a new set of wheels, and a battery.  A' la-fucking-carte is my future e-bike. It's OK to sell me a proprietary system, but I really don't need to encase my nuts and such in carbonite to make it go. You could say that my e-bike wouldn't be much of an e-bike at all... Mine would only be my bike, but faster (bought and paid for with a few grand into the conversion).  I'd have a modular and versatile, shippable airline-ready e-bike for those days that I feel flu-like symptoms, or feign an injury. If I were to feel lazy and wish to, "roll like me, only faster", I could slap that kit on any one of my bikes, and have a go.

So the "e-bike thing" today, is betwixt between a beguiling bafoonery of glacial evol., and poncy proprietary piss-me-off integration.  Your e-bike will sport a bewitching button beset upon the top-tube -- This glowing cyclops door-bell, is wired into 'Brand-X' motor but this will be obsolete next season, along with it's custom painted battery. We've all been taught that our "ON Button" is somewhere near our crotch, but for a bike the position of that bionic button is bunk. I want to look down and scratch whilst charging forward at 22mph?

You can see the evolution happen so fast that last years e-bikes are being sold beside this year's models for different prices, with essentially the same feature set, only today's are smarter. You can also see the evolution toward any relevant standard of retrofit, as glacial.  Today, if they cannot find owners to adopt last years tech,  these surplus e-bikes will soon dwell in a land of misfit toys. This is obvious when visiting any brand retailer, who is completely out of regular bikes but is sitting on a half dozen of last year's over-thought pregnant down-tubes.

When you say, "...just maybe, he is getting carried away with his rant" -- I have no reasonable retort, except to say that, "it's MY rant". Today when i wish to be wisked away with a whoosh, I will likely do so under my own power, thank you...  Because well, "Satan is My Motor".

Hear my motor purr
Satan is my motor
Hear my motor purr
Satan is the only one who seems to understand
Satan is my motor                                                              -Cake 

I have mixed feelings about plagiarism.  Not ethically, per se' because I may have copied someone's Math and English assignments in the pre-google period. (B.G. Before Google). Criticizing 'copy-cats' would make me a hypocrite, but I do believe in intellectual property rights, and more loosely in Trade Marks.  How does that saying go?... Plagiarism is the fondest form of flattery?  Nah... And as insulting idioms go, we all know the feeling when the new guy starts -- And the smug fucker, (barely out of school), projects airs of superiority, and innate wisdom -- which could not possibly be merited, right?
  Born back when there was something called "the school of hard knocks", I was run through the grinder with every attempt, advance, and shift in position.  This fo course sucks as much as it evolves stronger character, thicker skin, and better equipped humans. But what of the copycat, who observes and makes a copy without fully understanding how it works?  Can this be hazardous? I dreamt last night of inexperienced youthful self-assured snowflakes being ground into a fine powder by those with actual experience, and expertise.  Alas, (sigh) above all we seem to stamp-out freshly minted "New Kids" with ZERO experience, and even less grace, while we coddle them as creative 'fresh talent'. They will, "help us connect with our market", we older crew recite. But what do copy-cats, and these un-formed babies have in common?  Perhaps they have a desire to play out a fraud, amongst the genuine.  Swimming in the pool of doers, where larger sharks lurk until the wee ones, and the fakers slam their heads squarely against the ladder, they should have grasped.    Drawing a line between authenticity-and-clones, as with capability-and-clowns, can be a useful skillset. But when the information appears legit, and nothing bounces back in the background check -- Then  you have to take a leap of faith when buying that generic brand of cat food, a knock-off toddler toy, or cheap kite-board.  The rub is, just how much do you trust the one trillion positive reviews, before you pull the rip-cord, and assume your life will be saved by a Brand "X" Parachute. When drawing a line between inventiveness and copy-cats, it may prove a critical boundary, to assert some rules, before someone gets hurt. ...And so we have laws. Copyright laws, Patent Laws, Import Laws, and Property rights Laws, amongst other's.  When Brand "X" makes a Bottle of glass cleaner to look exactly like Windex for the Dollar Store, a trademark boundary is traversed, and the agreed upon norms, and laws which protect brand rights are broken.  Owing to a corrosive vortex called the internet, and with ancient US Postal legislations, anyone abroad can copy your product and sell it into your market for less than you can. In fact this is now so simple that what you thought was the "Next Big thing", gets rubbed out by some crap-tastic brand like "Shinoma". 
Quick Question: Why even change the name?, why not just make fakes?
When moving two letters around to create a "me too" brand using the same font-type, do the Makers of Shinoma, or Shinano know how close their Product's brand name cuts against the pejorative word for a shoe polish, feces, or a bad TV band? 

So there is this brand called Shimano, who have been innovating many industries with intricate machining and blissfully brilliant functionality for nearly 70 years.  Then along comes some Chinese knock-off, who moves two vowels around, and begins selling into the US market with, well basically shit.   
Have Shimano made crappy devices in the past?, not really, even a bike wrench will tell you that when setting up their worst derailleur, 'Tourney SIS', "it basically needs nothing  but lube or occasional cable for a decade or more of riding".
​
Any Internet inducement can advertise similar specifications, with similar weights, and one can even instantly create credibility by buying 10,000 positive comments, with links to all sorts of fake reviews, (thank you social media, you greedy whore).  One can pay Yelp, Google, or Fake Book to leverage your new clone brand to the middle top of the food chain, by equal parts mimesis, fraud, & false marketing.  I can now buy any fare of junk on Amazon, which look  (from a distance) just like the "real thing".  Your newly minted clone falls far short of it's performance, and safety threshold, because there is no expectation for function, durability, and authenticity.  We perpetuate the fraud with a fake Louis Vuitton, bag, but that of course will only hurt the brand, and not the user.  So what of a Bicycle, featuring real Shinoma Parts?  Will you love it?  Will your new toy bring joy, and many years of fond outings.  To induce your online purchase of the latest gadget today,  requires a whole new lexicon of promises such as, "Designed in California", "Free Delivery & Free Returns", "Guaranteed Highest Quality", "Just Like the Real Thing",  You are possibly purchasing something which will fulfill your wildest dreams.  Or, Perhaps you are procuring a total piece of crap which was engineered to imitate, forged from faulty parts, with inferior standards. To the unwitting consumer we have but one caution; Buyer Beware. The makers of fake shit are laughing when they sell you truly crappy stuff.  They mock your disposable lifestyle -- Your empty life full of cheap broken shit filling your garage and basement.  Tisk tisk for walking out of your local bike shop saying, "C'mon, we can just find one on Amazon/Ebay".  If the vendor knocks off something great, can you guarantee it will be even good? When they make something crappy and then move two syllables around: swapping 'ma' for 'no' exchanging 'mano' for 'noma', you go from Shimano to Shinoma, you don't have to present too much to the judge to see that this is about as graceless a grab as they come.  But fear not because there IS a sucker born every minute, and they just left the qualified and helpful staff of the local family owned bicycle retailer, to endeavor to buy five bikes through the lifespan of the one they didn't buy today from the local bike shop. Searching their smart-phone while speaking with the salesperson.
"Oh well, He can't tell Shit from Shinoma!", they may mock.​

While collaboration is nearly always a myth in the cycling industry, Innovation seems to be unfettered.  More competition yields more creative work-arounds.  Brilliance often emerges from tireless work to circumvent patent boundaries.  Unlike the technology industry, cycling may suffer from far too much pride to either concede to pay a royalty, or to offer a collaborative olive branch. Exhibits abound from Chain-ring teeth, to rim profiles, spoke patterns to shift buttons.  
A short list of bicycle bottom brackets follows:
BSA Threaded
TREK BB90
TREK BB95
PF24 (Chris King)
PF41 (Hope)
PF86
PF92 (Trek)
BB107/PF107
BB121
PF121 (Trek)
BB132
BB30
Specialized Alloy OSBB
BBRight (Direct Fit)
Cannondale BB30a
PF30
BBRight (Press Fit)
Specialized OSBB Carbon (Road)
Cannondale PF30a
Cannondale Asymmetric Integration (Ai)
T47
386EVO
392EVO
Colnago ThreadFit82.5
Look BB95
Wilier BB94
Truvativ ISIS Overdrive
and...
Italian

These are simply the cups and/or bearings which hold ones rotating cranks to the bike.
Why we have any flats at all, is equal parts karma, and conditions. For nearly 60 years the square taper BB spindle was perhaps the last agreed upon "standard system" used universally.  This leads me to believe that if the technology can outlast the patent, then we are all happier, paying less, and enjoying more free time.
​ 
Tubeless Tyre leaks should equally be blamed upon bad karma, and adversarial brands, who cannot or will not concede that "Brand X" simply has a far better design.  Instead, innovation follows stubbornness to constantly re-invent the wheel. While Punctures are rightfully blamed upon saboteurs, and the slobs who litter --  That slow hissing sound is not your tube, but every vendor conspiring to suck money from your pockets. Fitment between a tyre, and the hoop it clings to is anything but standardized, and while Mavic, and a few others work to make combinations of tyre and rim, this bicycle industry seems destined to march in distinct directions, and to different music. It should be noted that one can shod a car with new tires for less than their race bike, and it is no surprise that nearly any rim measured to match it's car tyre will run until bald without a tube nor fickle servicing.   Just like when bikes used inner-tubes, I have a 1956 Schwinn with one original tire, and it seldom requires that we bond over a pump.
If you are riding A RACE DAY TIRE out for coffee and flat..., then you can take solace that this is far preferred to flatting nearly any place else.  While inconvenient and not any less hazardous, the inevitable outcome is preferable to the calamity of a high-speed corner descent.

Many hope for a "Tyre Standard" (for rim and tire beads to at last match perfectly), but the best we have to offer today, are clogged valves, tight fits, and that bubbling hissing geyser of latex which is your cushy "pneu" lifestyle. One thing is certain, keeping air in your tire is fundamental for a good ride, and however you manage, it is certain that when you hop on your bike it would be swell that you didn't look down to see a splashy tire.  For people with less time to fuck around with fickle systems, perhaps keeping a few inner tubes around the house is a good idea.

Thank you.

Hushhhh!... Can you hear that?, the silvery slow hissing hush of nothing whatsoever?

In times like these..., a silence is surreal. When it lifts, will we return to straight-talk? honesty?,  bringing more people into the conversation, using plain language? Cognizant, of how unprecedented things are -- Perhaps the most irritating thing is not our collective CoVid dread, nor the outgoing fascist's half-baked insurrection, What is most irritating to me of late, is our abuse of the word "cognizant". In what context will the word "aware" not suffice? While we are at it... Can we please dispense with the term "unprecedented"?, at least through the inauguration? Everything we are witnessing today, has precedent. If you cannot find precedent for autocracy, racism, classism, and even hapless rebellion, then any compendium of white-washed 8th grade world history, should suffice. Finally, can we please dispose of the excruciating phrase, "...In times like these"? What the fuck other times did you have in mind? These are of course "times like these".
cog•ni•zant kŏg′nĭ-zənt  

• adj.
  Fully informed; conscious. synonym: aware. Yep! Aware...
• Having cognizance or knowledge: with of.
• In law, competent to take legal or judicial notice, as of a cause or a crime.

Let's try the first sentence again: "Today, aware that the outgoing president, (a blatant narcissist sexist racist fascist homophobe), hosted a half-assed cross-burning party at our capitol, but botched the date, because he was busy getting his hair done, Should we finally return to plain language, and bring more people into the conversation, with plain language?, Because perhaps some disenfranchised resent our smarmy words. (Fact Check): The soon to be former President couldn't make it to his own party, because he was in his royal-orange paint-booth from 2-5 pm EST.
What I've learned from the recent well-precedented melee, is that we were all 'aware' (cognizant) of what was going to happen at Trump's final Tea Party. But, let's not use such fancy words around common folks, because it's precisely this "fancy smart-talk" that makes 'them' hate fancy-talking democrats. It is precisely the collective's lack of straight-talk, and not calling-out fascism, that tossed the keys to an adolescent autocrat.

It appears that -- As soon as said President realized the party he'd missed was actually for him he got dropped from Twitter, dang!!! Apparently Chump violated Twitter's official terms of use - Which quite clearly preclude "using it's platform for E-vites"... So he got dropped from Twitter, alas! He used an illicit e-vite on their platform... Nothing unprecedented here. Earth to Meekus; There is a different internet app for that, duh! He, The President (a blatant narcissist sexist racist fascist homophobe),"should have known better".
The fact that it took this long for him to break Twitter's cardinal rule of "No e-vites on our platform", "...whether it be for birthdays, cross-burnings, or lynchings" Quoting Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, when interviewed about share value tanking after removing Trump, Dorsey continued ..." Our policy is plainly stated in this-here cryptic EULA agreement", "This President (a blatant narcissist sexist racist fascist homophobe), and half a billion other plain folks willingly click our EULA daily..."
"It's so easy to do, We make it simple for our users". But this too is neither unprecedented, nor unique. From the insidious EULA, I'm sure I owe Apple my first Born, and my 401K, because you see... it is plainly stated in their terms of use. It sure feels that we all know by now, that this (but another day in a time-line of complacent embedded fandom, and white-pride exuberance), current rules just seem too stodgy, and traditional for progress to be made, which is why I'm gladly counting down the silent days until we can all exhale what haunted us for 4 plus years -- Simple Meteoric populism, crashing and burning. The fact that Twitter chose now to dump Trump, merely means that it now is ultra-convenient, because -- Like the first "Lorde" record, popularity peaks, and then ratings wane, and well Trump, (a blatant narcissist sexist racist fascist homophobe), used Twitter for the Evite. Poor chap missed his own party of GOP bigots and hicks, as they trashed the house, while the Adults were off to dinner somewhere. This trenchant Tea Party was apparently so loud that someone finally called the cops. Bummer, that the cops stayed for a few beers, before asking the kids to "Please keep it down", and, "Oh hey, could you Lock up and turn off the lights when you leave..." "...Thanks."
As for Twitter, when the Democrats put these fans on trial in February for their loose rules and anti-trust violations, and shine a light on Social Media for complicity in the coup-party, they can say, much like Betsy De Vos, "...As soon as I noticed the party was out of control, and the dickhead was an autocrat, I left".

Alas, cosmic justice for this historic (Mr.) Precedent. And, peace for the rest of us.

But what comes next, Now?... Bedlam? Revolution?, nah... What comes next is real work, the sound of progress like a 6th grade study-hall.

Silence comes now. All conceivable oxygen stolen from a raging media fire. As the embers cool to black charcoal, grab a chunk to draw some new boundaries, and the factual history upon your cave wall.

​As the lights come up, these bugs will skitter into the shadows, We'll grab a mop, and begin cleaning house. It will be quiet, for a spell. A short-lived holiday from hideous scowls, flash grenades, and tear gas.
Until their next charismatic leader leads them by the hand, lured out of the shadows... -- for now, it's quiet.
It should remain calm without: Cognizant, Unprecedented, and the phrase, 'In times like these'. Life was far simpler without such fancy talk.

A year from Now, as the new holiday emerges, to commemorate January 6th -- May I suggest, January 7th 2021, remain as ("Insurrection Observed Day"), where we celebrate the silencing of America's first true Autocrat?

Can you hear it? Nothing at all sounds perfect right about now. Soon a new warm wave will crash against this shore, This new hushed wave looks like every other, but this one will change us. Be ready for a complete easing of your tensions. Roll your shoulders back and stretch your neck up toward the sun. You will not be alone basking in this new conspicuous quiet. What's about to wash over this great country will feel like a heavy silent wave. Your most comfortable bed, a dark room in which to rest, and recover. We will repair as this gentle tide consumes us, softness and solitude washing over, our ears fill with warm white-noise, our heads become softly submerged, our hair loosely floating, lolling about to the sound of absolutely nothing at all. This, our first warm bath after a miserable unshakable flu... We will remember this hushed moment above all else most conspicuously. This, our first real holiday during the plague years. This numbness will subside gently, and we will return to the work before us. Queue some Marvin Gaye, for some quality 'alone time'.

...But for the next few days, turn off the netflix, the news, give your thumbs a break, and have a walk outside in your fairy garden, to enjoy the hush.

To be dissuaded by inclement weather is no longer a thing.  This is simply because, to remain indoors for a solid year, cannot be one's destiny.  Living through adversity means braving some of it's sharpest edges, and being brave really is not the point.  Bragging rights do often come to those who struggle, true -- But as everyone does so now, it's not a badge of courage.
Rule Number 5: Harden the Fuck Up.
 Just get your ass outside, and if you happen to stumble upon a shelled out building burnt down the evening before, or a carcass in the road eviscerated by coyotes... Then may it serve as a reminder that you have it far better than some.

Velominati state that riding outside in the cold makes you a badass.  This is a stretch of course, but doing so does give you something to bitch about during and later.  Those who remain silent, returning from an epic winter ride with ice beset upon their brow, edge closer to doing it for the right reasons.

Rule Number 9: If you are out riding in bad weather, it means you are a badass. Period.Fair-weather riding is a luxury reserved for Sunday afternoons and wide boulevards. Those who ride in foul weather – be it cold, wet, or inordinately hot – are members of a special club of riders who, on the morning of a big ride, pull back the curtain to check the weather and, upon seeing rain falling from the skies, allow a wry smile to spread across their face. This is a rider who loves the work.

So perhaps now is the ideal time to work on your character, welcome winter, and get away from it all, if only for a few frigid hours.  As they say..., "A bad day riding outside is far better than a great day on a fucking Peloton".  This will serve you well when the weather breaks and your milk-toast friend with bad balance and wobbly legs drags you out hungover on a sunny Morning before 8 AM.

Rule Number 10:  It never gets easier, you just go faster.As this famous quote by Greg LeMan tells us, training, climbing, and racing is hard. It stays hard. To put it another way, per Greg Henderson: “Training is like fighting with a gorilla. You don’t stop when you’re tired. You stop when the gorilla is tired.” Sur la Plaque, fucktards.4

Yeah, I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge.
The kids are coming up from behind.
I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge to the kids from France and from London.
But I was there.I was there in 1968. 
I was there at the first Can show in Cologne.
I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge to the kids whose footsteps I hear when they get on the decks.
I'm losing my edge to the Internet seekers who can tell me every member of every good group from 1962 to 1978.
I'm losing my edge.To all the kids in Tokyo and Berlin.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Brooklynites in little jackets and borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered eighties.

But I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge, but I was there.
I was there.
But I was there.I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge.
I can hear the footsteps every night on the decks.
But I was there.
I was there in 1974 at the first Suicide practices in a loft in New York City.
I was working on the organ sounds with much patience.
I was there when Captain Beefheart started up his first band.
I told him, "Don't do it that way. You'll never make a dime."
I was there.
I was the first guy playing Daft Punk to the rock kids.
I played it at CBGB's.
Everybody thought I was crazy.
We all know.
I was there.
I was there.
I've never been wrong.
I used to work in the record store. 
I had everything before anyone.
I was there in the Paradise Garage DJ booth with Larry Levan.
I was there in Jamaica during the great sound clashes.
I woke up naked on the beach in Ibiza in 1988.But I'm losing my edge to better-looking people with better ideas and more talent.
And they're actually really, really nice.I'm losing my edge.
I heard you have a compilation of every good song ever done by anybody. Every great song by the Beach Boys. All the underground hits. All the Modern Lovers tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Niagra record on German import.
I heard that you have a white label of every seminal Detroit techno hit - 1985, '86, '87.
I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '60s cut and another box set from the '70s.
I hear you're buying a synthesizer and an arpeggiator and are throwing your computer out the window because you want to make something real.
You want to make a Yaz record.
I hear that you and your band have sold your guitars and bought turntables. 
I hear that you and your band have sold your turntables and bought guitars.
I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.
But have you seen my records? This Heat, Pere Ubu, Outsiders, Nation of Ulysses, Mars, The Trojans, The Black Dice, Todd Terry, the Germs, Section 25, Althea and Donna, Sexual Harrassment, a-ha, Pere Ubu, Dorothy Ashby, PIL, the Fania All-Stars, the Bar-Kays, the Human League, the Normal, Lou Reed, Scott Walker, Monks, Niagra,Joy Division, Lower 48, the Association, Sun Ra, 
Scientists, Royal Trux, 10cc,Eric B. and Rakim, Index, Basic Channel, Soulsonic Force ("just hit me"!), Juan Atkins, David Axelrod, Electric Prunes, Gil! Scott! Heron!, the Slits, Faust, Mantronix, Pharaoh Sanders and the Fire Engines, the Swans, the Soft Cell, the Sonics, the Sonics, the Sonics, the Sonics.
​You don't know what you really want
You don't know what you really want
You don't know what you really want
You don't know what you really want
You don't know what you really want
You don't know what you really want
You don't know what you really want
You don't know what you really want
You don't know what you really want
You don't know what you really want
You don't know what you really want
You don't know what you really want
You don't know what you really want
You don't know what you really want
You don't know what you really want

All of these awesome Lyrics are the copyright of LCD SoundSystem.

 Nostalgia has it's own gravity.

Nobody ever happens upon a wad of cash, dropped by someone else.  It may of course have happened once or twice, but when this occurs it is so rare as to be nearly improbable, and hence we can just agree that stumbling upon wealth simply doesn't happen. So it goes that if you were to find some money in an awkward or obvious place, the first reaction may be a bit like discovering a baby floating down a river.  Hmm... What Tha!?... Then we look about us for the hidden camera, or someone who has a twisted sense of humor.  Of course there will always be the case where someone else says, "I saw that first!." and swoops in, cause hey, "Free Baby!"
In all cases this context notwithstanding, the prankster, or the poor sap who pulled something out of their pocket and dropped the wad of cash will soon discover it missing, and become upset.  But "wealth" can be something else.

One time in Paris, a gypsy street hustler played the wedding ring game with my brother and I and we decided to go along with it for a moment, and once the person pointed the 14K stamp in the ring, for the second time, we simply pocketed the ring and ditched him.  So whereas the scam which nearly always works on the right foreign mark, conscribes a tourist to split the money with the gypsy, we simply took the ring, and the con ended.

It is normal to be skeptical of others, and their pranks.  It is desirable to have the good sense to anticipate their moves steer around the pitfall, and work the scenario forward to its logical conclusion to wiggle out of the set-up before becoming trapped in the game.

So what I'm about to say may appear to conflict with a Critical rule. Rule Number 25: The bikes on top of your car should be worth more than the car -- Or at least be relatively more expensive.  

...And so You do not immediately persecute me for outlandish blaspheme, remember that this rule operatively states "Worth", more than your car.  "Worth", like beauty, is value weighed by it's beholder. (this is not always a Dollar, Pound, Euro, Peso equivalence scale).

If you are lucky enough to have a bike then you are lucky enough; And if you have several bikes then you are a bit obsessed.  Bearing in mind that many people agree that the correct amount of bikes one should own is 3, there is another way to look at this equation, and it is well foot-noted in The Rules.  
Rule Number 12 // The correct number of bikes to own is n+1.
Keeping the N+1 equation in check, is a daily struggle.  Where "N" is the current 'allowable' Number of Bikes to be brought home, and "+1", the quantitative tipping-point. As an equation and a cautionary pitfall, "N+1" is well recorded in Bike lore, and is heretofore subscribed to as Rule #12 in the Velominati Rules, otherwise referred to simply as "The Rules", This equation is best also written as S-1, whereas "S" is the number of bikes owned, that would result in separation from your partner.

So it goes that we often need to thin the herd, or merely be mindful that both relationships and mental health are crucial considerations when considering such logical problems. 

So, here is a great, if futile way to save 10K today.
Imagine a day in the past when lean men, with wholly unscientific diets worked in factories, making shoes, or as a plumber.  The same lean citizens entered a challenge a few times a year to prove themselves to their neighbors and family. These black and white peasants climbed aboard equally thin steel diamond-shaped contraptions amidst other wiry men dodging and lunging up and down hills as if fish schooling in a pen to trick a predator.
After a lengthy but indeterminate amount of time and exhaustion, they'd each stop for a big fat lunch, sipping a few glasses of Bordeaux , before a cigar, then coffee, and then remount their ordinary single geared bikes to endure an extended afternoon of punishment amongst their peers. Over snowy passes they rode on crappy crushed gravel and piss-poor pavements sun-stroked, frost-bit and exhausted, they'd close the day after dark with a dinner similar to lunch, but perhaps with a whisky, and they'd count sheep.  By the next dawn, they'd gather again and continue the ritual for the rest of the week, likely collapsing, crashing, or dropping out, but always doing their best. 
Whether the winner or one of many many losers, they'd return to work as Brick-layers, Chimney-sweeps, and the like and use the same bicycles to deliver and fetch groceries, Fuel, and tools.  Their bikes were unremarkable, their spirits doused, but their resolve unfettered.
"Next Year...", they would say.
Amidst a Grand Tour, Short Chase, or a Fondo, A rider reluctantly becomes one with their bike. For a short while these riders were not riding bikes to deliver firewood, coal, or feed, but they were floating above their bikes, their ordinary lives like phantoms, majestic, mock champions.  Pressing into that envelope of prickly air, to stab forward. It is unclear whether the feeling of riding at this pace is otherworldly, or merely a brief disentanglement from the plane of the ordinary, but one never forgets their first experience of floating locomotion. Alas, "Coming down", as they say, is always the hardest thing.  But if the next day someone were to ride that very same bike to work, or church, they will assuredly recall fondly the "Almost" moments when the race, and it's victory were within sight.  For most of us, that is before the gun-shot, and we know how this typically devolves.
In the unremarkable lives of so many spectacular people who rode hard in all weather and all conditions to savor the pipe-dream of the podium, only to pedal the same bike to church the next day and reflect... It is poignant that 3 Bikes is two more than so many champions who came and went.
To be a great rider, as with a skilled Carpenter, Mason, or Smith, is to do the work well, and to maintain and respect the tools of one's trade. For this, we rejoice in the mere opportunity to have a ride, and that feeling, above the tools, where the skillset is planning pace, timing, and breath, but never the tool.  The tool in the work-day of a race is independent of the craft.  Once the motor winds-up one floats seemingly above the bike straining and coasting. breathing and spitting. Today will be a far better day if you bank the money for a new bike and air up some neglected friends for a spin as if for the first time.  Celebrate the opportunity to ride them, wipe them down, and consider your luck. When you have another steed sitting in a cart, and you are a click away from people on the other side of the planet rushing about to dispatch it to you, consider your fortune, your time, and your collection, and if nothing else consider it's use.  Considering the supply-chain shortage... if you are the fortunate person at the bloody threshold of S-1, then maybe take a pass.
We hold these truths to be self evident:
If you are lucky enough to ride a bike, then you are lucky enough. If you have 3 or more bikes, then you are surely winning, -- But if you ride none of these sexy bikes, and your legs are not broken... then -- I'm afraid you are a simply a dickhead!

​Make Space.

My first job in a bike shop was for two pricks who didn't like bikes at all, but one inherited a store, and so it goes, that he grew to own a few branches.  His near disdain for cyclists wore like a badge on a border patrol agent. He'd look you over with X-ray eyes for parasites, flaws, and weakness, before snatching your money.  Fortunately he never visited the stores.  He and his partner were both married to other people, but They seemed to also be romantically affiliated with each other, which made their judgement incongruous. The second bike shop I worked for was owned by a one eyed drunk who was kindhearted, and generous, but mostly a complete train-wreck.  He also inherited the biz, and the family squeezed a lot of cash from it before the next changing of the guard.  More on this Guy later...
So Bike shops are a strange and magical place, where every day feels like Christmas, mostly because you are always rewarding yourself with a new gift in the form of component upgrades, and infinitely aspiring toward the next glossy ride.  The thing with this lusty enthusiasm, is that it does not make for good business sense, any more than the dealer who shoots-up, or a Pizzeria owner who can't get enough zah.   You will end up the overzealous snake who swallows a bichon, and then can't slither out of the road. You will end up an addict... You end up with a lot of toys, and inverted cash-flow.  This I suppose was the fate of many independent dealers, and so in the Late nineties, Trek Bicycle set about to coach dealers on how to be "business-people", and not just enthusiasts.  They built a training program called "Eye on 2000".  (ION2000)  was a look forward to the millennium, and how to market, brand, and sell more shit and stop eating all of your own pizza, or Bichon's.  Anyway, before the fin de' siecle, when Lance was likely learning to dope, and the way things were done in Europe,  Le Mond was haggling with Trek about another partnership... In that enchanted and fictional shit-hole called Las Vegas, the world was spinning on it's perfect axis. Our restaurant was also spinning. The Inter-bike trade-show was in Vegas that year, and we sat above it all spinning atop the Stratosphere with our vendors and those who would change everything, again.  Our table held several key influencers.  (but back then the word 'influencer' had not yet been invented).  The Key principals at Trek were the venerable Dick Burke, and his well heeled son John Burke.  (they sat across from us.)  Beside me were a few other big shop owners, and some fictional characters; Greg Le Mond, Lance, Keith B, Gary Fisher, Missing from this epicenter of talent was Gary Klein, (who was not yet on Trek's radar). Another Brilliant thinker and tinkerer who dined with us was Rolf Dietrich, who was exhibiting in a side flank of the Trek Booth.  Rolf reinvented the wheel. At this day in time, Trek was not yet a complete corporate monster and it's patriarch dined with us holding the helm, and our attention.  Before Trek 2.0. SRAM, (at the time Grip-Shift) was exhibiting in the margins of the convention center, They began with nothing more than a folding table, some print collateral, lithium grease and a dream.  Being from Chicago, we spent time with them at their booth, and with several others, like stoned kids in Wonka's Workshop.  If you blew-up that table, that night -- It is fair to say the cycling world would have been Way way different.  Under John Burke Trek would Sue Le Mond, acquire Bontrager, Grind Fisher into a pulp, and ruin perhaps the most coveted brand in the biz, and arguably the sexiest maverick in the spray booth, Klein. 
Trek inked  deals with Le Mond to Build Bikes under his name, and secured the wunderkind from Texas to Keep America Great again, and again... (and to keep it squarely upon the medal table of a wholly European sport). Before Amazon, before The Dot Com Bubble, and the Y2K apocalypse, There were magical places called bike shops.  Independent retailers, and not Franchises. Generally shitty business people an infectious passion for shiny toys.  In those days, this seemed to be enough.  Certainly before Bikes were bought from strangers over the phone, and shipped unassembled to your door, Bike Shops were rather important.  At this time everything magical came from a cool crusty place with a greasy floor, bad marketing, a coffee maker, parts washer, and a gray box to write a buyers name and address in triplicate. Bike shop consolidation...seemed far off. In this Fantasy land there was a torrent of way cool innovation. Trek's affable and enthusiastic founder was about to hand the keys of his kingdom over to his posh ivy-league son John.  Trek's founder Dick Burke, scored a business degree from Marquette University in Milwaukee, and later worked at an appliance distributor. He was a business man, and a tinkerer like many of those who sat with us that evening. He saw a gap between Schwinn and Asia, and Like so many others who envisioned something new in a schism -- He set about to exploit that gap. We chatted it up with the intelligentsia at every Interbike show; Keith Bontrager, Gary Klein, Le Mond, Rolf, Fisher, and even Stan and FK Day, of Grip Shift.  The Day Brothers saw their space for inventiveness in a simple shifter. In this spirit of invention, whether it be four-bar linkage, the press-fit bearing,  or a dual cylinder thingy that indexed your derailleur -- All of these exploitations of market gaps were being filled by Americans. They were all tinkerers, inventors, and enthusiasts. 

You could definitely say... These were extraordinary times.

I remember Trek's Owner Dick Burke fondly, because he was like a kind uncle full of inventive stories, always oozing with interest and ideas.  He was a sponge.  He asked good questions, seemed charmed, and truly engaged with people.  At a trade-show, you would find him, much like Klein, Keith, or The Day brothers showing you what they'd recently  come up with, and asking you what you would do to improve it.  It was a name-dropper tour de force that evening.  I asked Le Mond what he thought of Carbon bikes, and we digressed into the nuance of all sorts of whacky new innovations.

From a trade show folding table, to a leader in an industry -- Stale trade-show air seemed to blow new ideas up from the convention hall basement -- This wind is not the rarified air of elites & MBA's. First the idea must be born, and those ideas come from enthusiasm.

So the business would boom through the "Cross Bike", and the "Mountain Bike Boom", would flourish with crazy and useless Full Suspension Junk, The "Y" Bike, Klein's Mantra, Pong's Super V, and soo many more gears were yet to come.  Specialized and Trek who first looked incredulously at Raleigh while they glued tubes of "Technium" (round aluminum) into traditional lugs to speed construction. This was soon imitated.  John Tomac, would break several parts before they were near perfect but never that glued joint, and..., Then Raleigh would advance into Titanium.  Trek stared, and took it all in.  Sinyard listened, and re-tooled. The two giant American bike makers would covet, drool, and spurn Kestrel, Merlin & Ibis as they shaped carbon and Titanium into smooth organic forms. Later Trek and The "S" Word, would steal the profitable ideas rejecting Titanium as too tough to tool for,  and they'd both begin to glue, screw, and bake bikes together at the bleeding edge of demand.  But demand only comes when the product is lust-worthy. Meanwhile Klein quietly advanced toward their 20th year in Aluminum with perfect double pass welds, indestructible enamel, oozing sex.

The whole military industrial complex had recently unraveled, gutted -- it later bleed out so many mat-sci wonders, and innovative tooling, into the open I.V. of an industry ripe for such innovation. Downsized Engineers, and Literal Rocket-scientists, CNC operators, and CAD grads, made the perfect pedigree for what was about to boil.  As the Cold war fizzled like a spent bottle rocket..., every type of carbon, & composite, rare metal and exotic material process was about to be homeless.   Bikes, Cars, Boats and Motorcycles, seemed prime to dip their bread in that trickle-down.  Specialized marketed M2 Metal Matrix, which was basically decommissioned helicopter Alloy. Cannondale looked to new engineers, while stoically sanding smooth gloppy 6061 welds in Bedford Pennsylvania.  Trek & Specialized began to Glue and screw carbon to aluminum, and so it began.

Bikes, and parts were being churned out in the USA in volume like a brand new war machine. 

It was awesome.