I'm too busy hoping some trends will disappear to think about new ones. And I agree: I'd love it if people would just ride more, work on/fix their own bicycles, and stop worrying so much about aesthetics. The tipping point has hopefully been reached in 2007 and things will slowly return to being about riding.

Also, I hope Mr. West is a better cyclist than a rapper/performer/MC since he is f*ckin' terrible. On a related musical note, and dealing with some good performers - I almost died last week when I asked my students (mostly college sophomores and juniors) if any of them listened to Public Enemy. We were talking about music. Out of 22 students, TWO had even heard of them. I don't understand how that is possible.