beater bike post!
 

http://pricklepear.com/bikes/dear-beater-bike/

there's some other random bike mentions on it too.

give it a read if you're bored.

That article is very annoying.

huh huh...he said 'beater'.

To call something like a Pista, which one drops at least $500 to acquire, a "beater" is testimony to the crass materialism of the author.

To me a "beater" is an old Murray or Schwinn that you found in a dumpster run as a singlepeed and keep chained up at a street corner where the bus lets you off.

wow. ok, i can relate to this guy (in beginer experience, not the ******* way he talks) up until he starts talking like "I'm friends with a bike mechanic and I pay him WAY to much money to build bikes for me because i'm too much a ***** daddys boy to figure it out myself. oh and he he builded me awesome beater bikes for only 340, that still dont get me any friends besides my loser ass trust fund friends. i just wanna be hip. whaaaaa"

oh, and i'll bet dollars to donuts that "mechanic" would never admit tobeing friends with that guy. sheesh.

it's all about the money!!

this is true. i forgot about the money.

Am I the only one who hates everyone with a nicer bike than me? My main and only bike is built out of crappier stuff than most people's beaters I've seen posted.

My Pista is both my beater and prized bike.

well, he does have a point, the components on a mercier kilo tt are absolute ****. hell, my khs is my "beater" even though it clocks in at around $750, but that's just because i have another bike that cost more than 2x as much. it's not materialism, i just have enough appreciation for bikes to build a rain/work bike that isn't a complete piece of garbage but also isn't going to bruise my ego when it gets scratched / crashed / banged around on the bike rack.

You basically just said the exact same thing as the article, except you added 400 dollars to the pricetag of your beater.

I don't like to drive my Ferrari around town for fear it might get scratched, so I just drive around my POS new BMW. I like to think of it as my little "beater car".

Either way, it's still wrong to call that materialism. Consumerism is a better term.

The distinction escapes me. Does this mean `I don't care about the money, I care about the objects I buy with the money'? Maybe consumerism would be `I care about the fact that I bought objects with the money' ...

As much as I find the article annoying, I think it's wrong to classify it as either consumerism or materialism. Although I'm sure his life and worldview are full of both (however you define them), the issue here is neither. It's a lack of perspective on his part on what constitutes inexpensive. A more materialistic article would talk about how he loves buying or owning many bikes, especially extraneous ones.

thanks for the comments guys. i actually wrote the linked post (not good enough to be considered an article) above. my "imagined" audience was much more directed at bike scene outsiders, so the knowledge and expertise of the visitors coming from this forum is a little intimidating.

so lets see here:
@bonechilling. sorry you found it annoying. it was more of a late night vent than a manifesto about bikes. i'll aim for "soothing" and "informative" for the next one.

@MrCjolsen. While I agree that our attitudes towards consumerism in this modern day are pretty skewed, I think that "beater" is a term that can be used relatively. At this point, I find it hard to enjoy riding what you would consider a beater on a daily basis because of things like chain tension from the semi-horizontals, geometry not being as tight as I would like it, and several other personal preferences. I've managed to own everything from a 70's Ross, to a Alpha Mercury (hey, we all start somewhere, right?), to an IRO Angus, KHS flite, and Bianchi Pista (the bob jackson doesn't count because I still haven't ridden it) and assorted other two-wheels beasts. I'd like to think that my consumerism is more educated rather than crass. I believe in a top and a bottom line, just happens that mine are a little pricier than yours. Surely you can appreciate investment and experience.

@time bandit - haha, good one. *******. I got "twattler" the other day, thought it was funny too. The post came out more as a stream of thought rather than a composed representation of myself. Looking back on it now, there are a bunch of typos, and i didn't count any having so many readers. As it turns out, I actually do have several mechanic friends, who dollars or donuts aside, do consider me a friend as well. I believe in supporting and surrounding myself with people who love bikes as much as I do, especially when the skills they provide are ones I don't know myself (yet). As it stands, I can assemble my own headset, have built several pairs of wheels, and offer to help others when they have bike questions. The problem is that I can't justify buying things like a headset press and certain dedicated tools, so then I turn to mechanic friends who do it for a living. I like to think they appreciate the business as well. Unfortunately, daddy hasn't footed the bill for any of my bike lust, and if I have a trust fund, I wish somebody would have told me about it. Then maybe I could have avoided working in a pizza restaurant, messengering, and being a slave to the man for the past half a decade (just graduated college). at least we can agree on the components issue, right?

@andre nickatina - I agree with you 100%. I guess you just put it more eloquently than I could. Thanks for the clarification.

@Superweirdash - well, if you consider my late model pista a mini-bmw, I'm more than happy to sell it you at scale. it comes fully equipped with "squeaks like a rat in heat" bottom bracket, "feels like there's sand inside" headset, and several other luxury features worth preserving for posterity.

@everyone. thanks for the constructive criticism. this is the most traffic my crappy little blog has seen to date. Even if I did have to get called a ******* in the process :)

maybe i'll try to do better on the next post. no promises.

Yeah, this beats my argument, so I suppose I agree.

Clearly a little bit of hyperbole was used, but I think my point still stands. A pista is far from most people's idea of a beater. "Commuter" might be a term people would find much more fitting.

p.s. that post on your blog about people mutilating themselves is really gross.

@superweirdash - hahah. agreed. i actually didn't pen that one. there are two people at the helm of that site, one that errs towards technology, design and bikes (me), and another that likes music, clothes, body modification, and bikes (yoda).

I thought that the topic was new, but it actually drew a surprising amount of search engine hits, so I have to assume there is an audience for her. to each their own, right?

where does this kid live, anyway? Oh-- NYC. Where absolutely nobody will be intersted in that totally lame $350 Pista locked to a parking meter. Why, thieves will barely bother with anything under sub-$1000 these days.

...or you realize that riding a $1200 track bike around the street is just stupid. Seriously: if you're not racing your $$$$ track bike at the stupid velodrome, why do you own it? I'm pretty sure you don't need Columbus tubing to enjoy the 1.75 mile ride to $3 PBR night. Would you leave a $1200 full suspension mountain bike outside the bar? No, because it's not utilitarian enough or something. Even if you take off all the stickers and replace the skewers with "hard to remove" solid axles.

Sorry, a $300 or $500 or $1000 bike is not a beater.

So NYC thieves actually know about bikes? In West Sac the shiny new Walmart double boinger still gets pinched before the "It only has one speed and no brakes" Pista.

The idea that beaterhood is relative is clearly right. Maybe people are expressing their discomfort with this more than anyting else.

I treat all of my bikes like **** and I'm posting from my beater computer.

I've spent a lot more on my conversion than my road bike (something like $400 versus $200). And I beat up the conversion a lot more because it can take it. So which is my beater?

Getting philosophical!!!