How come bicycle clothing looks so silly?

In article ,
A Muzi writes:
-snip-
Tom Keats wrote:
-snip-
What's
up with that? At least Willie Dixon wrote stuff
we knew what the heck he was singing about.)

As for your pedantry, I hereby invoke "common usage."
Sometimes there's nothing wrong with being wrong.
Especially when one makes the right mistake.

Or John Lee Hooker. How how how how.

I take it you're referring to his tune: "Boom Boom"
(a charming hymn.) That "how how how how" stuff is
readily recognizable as the Primal Grunt of love.

The following line: "Gonna shoot you right down" is
disturbing; it overlays loving nookie with violence.
But I guess "melt you like butter in a microwave"
didn't rhyme.

Hey everyone errs. I give you Willie Dixon's 'Big Three Trio'.

Yeah, signing with Columbia at the time probably cramped
his style, but I figure he had no other option. I hope
for him the Allstars and the subsequent Chess label signing
made up for it.

I figure Dixon would have been a good voice in Siegel/Schwall.
Corky's an excellent harp player, but he sings through his nose.

Dixon would have supplied weight and substance to their tunes.
And, hey -- you can't go wrong with a John Henry's fiddle in
there, even if there's already an electric bass guitar (as
expertly played by Rollo Radford.)

I bet Rollo Radford and Chris Squire could get along with each
other, and trade licks. That would be cool.


cheers,
Tom

--
Nothing is safe from me.
I'm really at:
tkeats curlicue vcn dot bc dot ca

On Jan 13, 5:34*pm, !Jones' Sock Puppet wrote:
Actually, I kinda *like* men in tight, black panties... but, my
question has always been: How do you wear that stuff in public and
keep a straight face?

I recall when a decent bicycle cost a day's wages and you could ride
the damn thing in cut-offs, a T-shirt, and sneakers. *If you were
*really* high-tech, you had a Bendix two-speed kick-back. *It was
heavy, noisy, and difficult to ride; however, real *men* rode bicycles
in those days... and no self-respecting faggot would have been caught
in Spandex!

Nowadays, bicycles cost more than an African wage-earner can hope to
make in his or her lifetime! *There's something wrong here!

Why can't I buy a decent friction shifter anymore? *Indexed shifters
are OK until they wear a little bit, then they're useless. *I can't
adjust my front cage with an indexed shifter...

... but, mostly, how come I gotta wear these goofy-looking panties? *I
simply cannot be seen in public wearing these things! *I'd sooner ride
nekkid!

Eat yer heart out, Nitla!

Jones

I love wearing spandex people respect me,drivers are more attentive to
me, and it's lot more comfortable than cotton underpants. Spandex was
the savior of cyclists because previous shorts aka wool itch like
hell. I ride like the cowboys in the west (They always had their
riding clothes on) ready to ride at any moment(I wear my spandex
24/7). Spandex sure looks weird to people in pubic but people read my
jersey I wear with it they know what I am and know that he a hard core
bicyclist not to messed with.

!Jones' Sock Puppet wrote:
In '70, one could buy a decent bicycle for $20 - $30 at a hardware
store. I paid $48.33 in '68 for my '66 Schwinn equipped with a Bendix
kickback and that was considered extravagant. In '70, I was in
Vietnam, so I didn't have a bicycle; however, in '72, I was driving a
cab and considered 40 bucks to be a decent night's book... I probably
averaged $30 to $35.

I was in Georgetown, DC in October doing a little urban hiking...
granted, that's a pricey neighborhood. We walked by a bike shop and
their window display bike had a $22K price tag!!! Sheeze! That's
more than I paid for my first *house*!

But your house wasn't made from carbon fiber.

!Jones' Sock Puppet wrote:
On Thu, 15 Jan 2009 16:00:42 -0800 (PST), in alt.war.vietnam
" wrote:

On Jan 15, 7:06 am, !Jones' Sock Puppet wrote:
In '70, one could buy a decent bicycle for $20 - $30 at a hardware
store. I paid $48.33 in '68 for my '66 Schwinn equipped with a Bendix
kickback and that was considered extravagant. In '70, I was in
Vietnam, so I didn't have a bicycle; however, in '72, I was driving a
cab and considered 40 bucks to be a decent night's book... I probably
averaged $30 to $35.

I was in Georgetown, DC in October doing a little urban hiking...
granted, that's a pricey neighborhood. We walked by a bike shop and
their window display bike had a $22K price tag!!! Sheeze! That's
more than I paid for my first *house*! It's even a fairly large part
of it when adjusted for inflation.

When you put multiple thousands of dollars into a bicycle, what you
have is a fetish, not transportation.

Jones
You can buy a $70 bike at walmart, target, kmart. they'll ride fine
and can be used to commute.

Oh, in today's market, methinks I'd budget about $500 or so for a
decent commuter. Then about half again for the racks, fenders, and
panniers... those accesories ain't cheap!

True, by the time they are marked up from the manufacturer, distributor,
and retailer, they aren't cheap. In reality, they are all extremely
inexpensive when included as part of the bicycle. A rack costs the
manufacturer under $2. As do fenders.

On Sat, 24 Jan 2009 06:06:14 -0800, in alt.war.vietnam SMS
wrote:

I was in Georgetown, DC in October doing a little urban hiking...
granted, that's a pricey neighborhood. We walked by a bike shop and
their window display bike had a $22K price tag!!! Sheeze! That's
more than I paid for my first *house*!

But your house wasn't made from carbon fiber.

Seems like that bicycle used fertile whooping crane eggs in its
production.

Jones

On Sat, 24 Jan 2009 06:10:08 -0800, in alt.war.vietnam SMS
wrote:

True, by the time they are marked up from the manufacturer, distributor,
and retailer, they aren't cheap. In reality, they are all extremely
inexpensive when included as part of the bicycle. A rack costs the
manufacturer under $2. As do fenders.

Well, that's true of almost any consumer product. The actual
fabrication cost averages around 5% of the retail cost. The high-end
stuff has a much greater profit margin; however, that's driven by fad
and carrys the risk pf being stuck with lots of product that's no
longer in fashion.

As I recall, there are several LBS owners herein... ask them about the
huge profits they make.

Jones

On Jan 24, 3:34 pm, !Jones' Sock Puppet wrote:

Well, that's true of almost any consumer product. The actual
fabrication cost averages around 5% of the retail cost. The high-end
stuff has a much greater profit margin; however, that's driven by fad
and carrys the risk pf being stuck with lots of product that's no
longer in fashion.

As I recall, there are several LBS owners herein... ask them about the
huge profits they make.

Jones

I'm a custom builder, and depending on how I look at the balance sheet
I'm making 20-25% or losing 10-15%. Since I do all my own fabricating
I'm paying myself for the labor, and if I were to charge the local
rate of $50-75 per hour for fabrication then I would be losing money
on each bike, but since part of what I do involves building something,
looking at it and seeing if it works from an esthetic point of view,
and re-doing it if it doesn't look right, I couldn't charge like that.
So most bikes I make money, some I lose money. Unfortunately mostly I
don't make bikes at all. The ones that seem to sell the best are the
"rat bike" or "trash bike" that I make from recycled kids' bike
frames. I consider those to be UGLY with a capital UGH, but they work
well and ride nice and people seem to like them. I guess there's no
accounting for taste?

Opus

!Jones' Sock Puppet wrote:
On Sat, 24 Jan 2009 06:10:08 -0800, in alt.war.vietnam SMS
wrote:

True, by the time they are marked up from the manufacturer, distributor,
and retailer, they aren't cheap. In reality, they are all extremely
inexpensive when included as part of the bicycle. A rack costs the
manufacturer under $2. As do fenders.

Well, that's true of almost any consumer product. The actual
fabrication cost averages around 5% of the retail cost.

It's really annoying have so few bicycles come standard with basic
accessories, especially on commute and touring bicycles where it's
pretty well accepted that the buyer will be adding things like racks,
fenders, bells, bottle cages, etc. $100 worth of retail accessories
would cost the bicycle manufacturer about $8, which would end up adding
maybe $22-25 to the retail cost. I was kind of impressed that the
Raleigh Sojourn comes with most of that stuff.

SMS wrote:

It's really annoying have so few bicycles come standard with basic
accessories, especially on commute and touring bicycles where it's
pretty well accepted that the buyer will be adding things like racks,
fenders, bells, bottle cages, etc. $100 worth of retail accessories
would cost the bicycle manufacturer about $8, which would end up adding
maybe $22-25 to the retail cost. I was kind of impressed that the
Raleigh Sojourn comes with most of that stuff.

Bike manufacturers have a symbiotic relationship with bike retailers,
which are usually service shops as well. Retailers depend heavily
upon accessory sales. When I was in the bike shop business, markups
on complete bikes ran in the 35% range, while markups on accessories
were usually 100%. The margin on bikes might cover the cost of
keeping bikes on the floor, but it was the margin on everything else
that made it plausible to do business.

If bikes in the US market begin to come well equipped with
accessories, then the markup will have to increase as well. That
might prove to be more economical for those riders who were going to
buy all that stuff anyway, but it would surely cost more for the folks
who would have bought only a small subset of the accessories, or none
at all. That doesn't necessarily make it a bad idea, but it's
something to consider.

On the other hand, there is the possibility that more comprehensively
spec'ed bikes would sell to more people, and economy of scale would
make it a net win for everyone. I'm not at all sure what it would
take in terms of accessories to get non-cyclists to buy in, though.
Maybe something that pedals for you. :^)

Chalo

On Sat, 24 Jan 2009 14:45:36 -0800, SMS wrote:

It's really annoying have so few bicycles come standard with basic
accessories, especially on commute and touring bicycles where it's
pretty well accepted that the buyer will be adding things like racks,
fenders, bells, bottle cages, etc. $100 worth of retail accessories
would cost the bicycle manufacturer about $8, which would end up adding
maybe $22-25 to the retail cost. I was kind of impressed that the
Raleigh Sojourn comes with most of that stuff.

This is all fine if you like what is already on the RS, but if you do not,
then it is just wasted money.

When I look for accessories, then I have very specific requirements about
their construction as well.

So different folks, different accessories.