oh god these should have gone extinct 20 years ago
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They still made decent bmx race bikes. It’s pretty niche but I’d always see a couple new ones. This was ~2 years ago.
Bike packing focused fs
Long travel hard tail
Weird steel rigid 29er
Steel cx/adventure/current name for it
Kona dew shaped bike
Industry outsiders take on 5 bike line up
I’m watching this video about an old bbq place and the guy claims that their oldest pit was built out of steel plates from a decommissioned naval ship. Made me think of Prolly
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Lawwill’s patents were partially to blame on the stagnation of MTB design. There were other designs for power sports that we didn’t start to see until much later.
All of the modern FS designs we have now are based on many of those patents after they expired.
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They even link a Redactivist article in that PB write up.
The Prolly jokes write themselves.
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Prolly’s engagement-est bikes of the year dropped.
Jesus these are horrible things. I like the Riv bc I am one of those people, but oh my god is this really what bike people are interested in? Stock 80s mtbs and pinion drives? That one bike is almost… FINE, but the random silver bits make the whole thing look like it was cobbled together by some first-year mechanic.
A stock specialized with an expensive paint job? Whoever rides that thing needs to get laid off and spend three months working at McDonald’s to get some fucking perspective.
The ones that are inoffensive are just bland or have unforgivable build details.
I have never seen a more pathetic collection of bikes.
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crust bombora? in TYOOL 2024?
i think that breezer is cool enough
I get what you’re going for here but it was painted by an artist for his gf. This wasn’t something they plunked down for in a Specialized store or something.
Also, holy hell, Prolly still needs a goddamned editor.
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He made lots of money without an editor. Why start now.
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Ohh I was not paying very good attention and I thought the artist was commissioned - I take back what I said if the situation was “hey babe I painted your bike” and not “hey babe I dropped $3k to put cacti on your headtube”
Actually anyone riding an aethos could stand to work a few shifts at mcdonald’s, so I don’t take that part back.
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i like the vintage mtb’s. The fixie is pretty damn boring, reminds me of an 80s conversion you’d see locked up. The otherwise inoffensive bombora is ruined by the ridiculous seatpost/seat setup. the geekhouse only gets a pass cuz its a decade old.
Some of those bikes are about who owns them, rather than what the bike is. Oooh, Tom Richey’s bike, Wende Cragg’s bike. I get that they got a lot of readership because of the curiosity.
It’s also so heavy on the ‘retro rebellion’ - I mean, look at the Stridsland Beachcomber, it’s basically ‘No Dad, Fuck You, You Can’t Make Me Add Reach Or Slack To My MTB’ so the teensy tiny wheelbase is ponderously unstable and useless on anything more than a gravel road. The Bombora is similar, it’s got massive tires but has a warning to not ride it too hard or it’ll break. The fewer functional modern standards, the better. All show, no go.
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I literally haven’t bought an aethos bc I haven’t worked fast food yet
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I want an aethos
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The Beachcomber, for when you want a frame bag on your DJ bike and carry a gallon of water on your fork.
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are they using weird lenses?
all the angles look weird
big year for vintage ritchey logic cranks, apparently
that atlantis makes me irrationally annoyed. Brand new XTR cassette and derailleur on an upright townie build. The extremely influenced-by-instagram octalink XTR crankset. Crust wheelset with a dynamo but no lights.
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