First, I'm delighted in Shinola and their mission, though I do think they're milking it a little too hard with the "made in Detroit" thing. Parsing the nuances between "hand made," "hand built," "assembled by hand," and "made in" is one thing-- and I will say that for a traditional manufacturing town like Detroit, if you say "made in Detroit" about a hard good, you're saying manufactured; stamped, welded, forged, machined, painted, and polished, none of which applies to the Shinola bikes-- and another is pushing this populist notion when the products are out of reach of 99% of the population of Detroit.

I get that there needs to be a top tier, and I think the Runwell looks the part, but couldn't they ease off the "made in Detroit" message a bit? I mean, I just had a Taiwan made frame built up in L.A., but that doesn't make the bike "built in Los Angeles," and the shop that built it doesn't claim to make bikes, either. Shinola doesn't even build the wheels. Now, I don't think Shinola are trying to hoodwink us, but their pitch feels a little smarmy.

Even the claim that Detroit is the "new watchmaking capitol of America" feels disingenuous and ahead of things. The watch is not yet available, and what they call "their movement" appears to be just assembly of a Swiss quartz design, but yet we have in Pennsylvania both RGM and Kobold watch companies, who not only design and manufacture their own mechanical movements, but also make their own cases, true feats of watchmaking. When Shinola claims Detroit is the watchmaking capitol, it smacks of arrogance, and implicitly ignores what any watch buff would say are the more impressive achievements of RGM and Kobold. After the headlining, watchmaking capitol claim, they try to qualify by saying mass-produced watches, but again, jeez, let's actually see some production first, right?

I dunno...maybe I'm being too hard on Shinola, who really are engaged in Detroit in an important and meaningful way, and are not just an address in an office building in the 'burbs, but on the other hand, if Detroit has anything, it's authenticity, and I think Shinola would do well to express more of that themselves, rather than selling so much of the image.

I'm definitely pro-Detroit resurgence, though, and will try to buy what I can from Shinola, while hoping their efforts to stimulate Detroit's recovery while also making money, really pays off in every sense, and leads the way to truly cool things, both literally and figuratively.