Big, Brass Balls
This post started out when I checked out the new Odyssey catalog and noticed that they seem to have given up on metal pedals all together. This got me to thinking about how when I was a kid, getting rid of the cheap, plastic pedals that came with most completes was of high priority. Shimano DX pedals where a huge status symbol. If you were the man you’d convince your parents to upgrade your cranks to three piece ones at the same time (three piece cranks and one piece cranks used different spindle sizes. Of course, Stu Thomsen rode $12 one piece cranks and could beat everyone, so…). But these days kids throw away perfectly good metal pedals to replace them with plastic ones and higher end completes come with plastic pedals.
Then I started thinking about how many parts on a modern BMX bike are disposable. I mean, I’m not just talking about plastic pedals and plastic pegs but also any peg labeled “park only/light street.” All of the plastic one piece seat/post combos, super thin grips and constant forays into plastic bottom brackets. Not to mention that there seems to be a race on to see how much material can be removed from every metal part of a bike until someone actually dies from product failure.
Somehow or other we’ve gotten to a point in BMX where marketers have turned weakness into strength, “Plegs are cheap and easy to replace!” Yeah, but a couple of weeks ago I was talking to Dave at the skatepark (and I don’t know Dave’s last name, he’s just Dave, there’s also Mrs. Dave and Baby Dave) and he was talking about how he’s had the same set of Kink OG pegs for either five or nine years and he’s almost ground through them, finally. I’m not against plastic pegs (I actually run two sets of Dumbchucks, I do like that they’re less destructive, although I have to call “marketing hyperbole” on George French’s original claims that plegs do no harm to the environment) but I just think it’s crazy that kids will now replace the cheap Wellgo pedals that came on their bikes – that will likely outlast their frames – for equally cheap plastic pedals that will likely need to be replaced due to general riding.
Say what you will, the BMX industry has giant balls for pulling this one off. But not as big a set as the good folks of Sears, Roebuck & Co.
Anyone who knows me knows about this
View from my deck 8:31 am 09/21/2009
I’d gone to let the dogs out an hour earlier and water had actually gotten up to the top step. At this point the water started to recede and by 1:00 it was all gone. By 7:00PM the water was back up to the top step again. We had experienced a “500 year flood” two times in one day. In the shed were, among other things, my paint gun, some two stage auto paints, my table saw, my random orbital sander and my lawnmower. All but the paint gun were submerged, twice.
So, for the last couple of weeks we’ve been looking for a new lawnmower and we found that most Sears stores carry a collection of used mowers, some of which had what seemed to be really good prices. But you had to get them when they were “priced to sell.” Last week a salesman even straight up told us not to waste our time and come back this week. So, this week we came back and we saw a few used mowers that seemed to be good deals, but The Mrs. said “let’s go inside and see if these are actually good deals compared to new ones.”
No, they weren’t.
The Sears at Gwinnett Place Mall (and I don’t know if this is true for all of them) was selling used mowers for exactly the same price as new mowers.
We couldn’t believe this was true, so we went out and checked and, yup. So, a guy who answered the phone “manager on duty” while talking to us was like, “If it were me, I’d buy a new mower, the used ones are usually people who really don’t understand lawn mowers who bring them back and they may not have treated them the best.” But the price of a new one and the price of a used one are EXACTLY THE SAME, “Yeah, I can’t really change the price. I’d just buy a new one.” But, seriously, why would you price a used one the same as a new one? “Yeah, I’m not in control of that.”
Yeah, BMX industry, you may have perfected openly selling planned obsolescence to adolescents, but your cojones need to grow about 50 sizes to match this crap.
Also, don’t buy used lawn mowers from Sears.
