It’s pretty hard to write about bicycles while Colorado is on fire. The photos that have surfaced so far are horrifying, and we can only hope for a break in the weather and continued safety for everyone in harm’s way–especially the people fighting the fire. Red Bull athletes aren’t too shabby, but the men and women on the front line of that shit are brave.
Speaking of horrifying photos, have you seen Pinarello’s mountain bike? While I’d hate to be the person in charge of warranty service there, I have to give them credit. In a world of “me-too” cookie cutter carbon fiber 29ers, it takes some serious orgoglio to say, “Screw that, let’s overlap the seatstays and see what happens.”
And why the hell not? I mean other than killing off your demographic, which I’m pretty sure is a marketing mistake. At any rate, they’ll die doing what they loved: riding a $10k mountain bike around on bike paths.
In better news, it looks like Aston Martin is continuing the trend we first saw with Audi’s insane electric bike, and releasing an Aston Martin bicycle that isn’t just another hybrid with a decimal out of place in the price tag.
Don’t get me wrong. They forgot the decimal point entirely in the rumored $40k Aston Martin/Factor One-77 collaboration bike, but at least it’s sufficiently bizarre to warrant a freakish price. I’d thought this was the same Factor chassis Steve Domahidy helped design, but apparently this predates that, so now I’m all confused by Factor. Even their name is a mathematical thing. Intimidating.
I like the bikes, though, and they’re a legitimately different animal, but this isn’t surprising. Aston Martin actually has a bit of a history of getting custom bike collaborations a little closer to “right” than, say, Porsche or Chrysler. They’d previously chosen to work with small frame builders instead of slapping their badge on just anything picked out of a catalog–and they were able to articulate why they made that decision.
Taken together, I think the One-77 and Pinarello Dogma 29er are really positive signs. Sure, the Pinarello scares me to death with seat stays anchored with a stem faceplate badge, but both bikes are legitimately something different, and we need more of that.
http://www.luxurylaunches.com/transport/aston_martin_one77_bicycle_launched.php
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.