Well, I dropped the Bargain Basement Bike off with a popular courier service yesterday, and it’s now officially off to Japan:
I want to thank everyone who pitched in to help with the shipping costs, so I will:
Thank you everyone who pitched in to help with the shipping costs.
So are you wondering how much it costs to send a bike from New York City to Otawara, Japan? Well, the total came to $424.56, packing the bike in a standard cardboard bike box using Bikeflights. That sounds like a lotta fun tix, unless you’ve shipped a fair number bikes over the years like I have, in which case it doesn’t sound like a lot. Of course there’s always the possibility I’ll get an email notifying me of an additional charge because I under-measured or something, which did happen to me once, but hopefully not this time. Also, I used the same box Paul used to ship me the Anti-Riv:
[The Anti-Riv]
Not only is the box fairly travel-worn, but I also left all the scrap newspaper in there that Paul had used for packing material:
This, together with the fact that I didn’t exactly wash and detail the bike, give the overall impression the package could contain flora that is a threat to the Japanese ecosystem, or a bunch of puppies, or both, so hopefully Japanese customs don’t send it right into quarantine.
Oh, and speaking of contributions, you may recall I said this:
I’m not creating some kind of charity thermometer thingy that shows how much money I’ve collected, so if a bunch of people pitch in a crapload and I wind up with a million dollars I get to keep the change, which seems fair, since conversely if nobody pitches in at all then that’s my problem and I’ve got to cover shipping the bike to some British Columbian expat political extremist all myself. My point is, if you send me any money, be comfortable with the idea that you’re doing it because I’m the world’s greatest living bike blogger and an exemplary person, and that the money could potentially go to something other than shipping the bike, such as feeding my kids or buying dental floss or something.
In the spirit of full disclosure, because you are all so generous, I did wind up collecting more than it cost to ship the bike. How much more? Well, not enough for me to retire, but to put it in terms the modern American consumer can understand, let’s call it enough for a tank of gas, or treating the family to Chipotle–which frankly I deserve, considering the time I took to wrap the bike in bubble wrap and foam, stuff it into a cardboard box full of old newspaper, and drive it to the shipping place in Yonkers. (I love that place. They were so excited the box was going all the way to Japan! It was like they were going too.) Also, let’s not forget I’m the one who bought the bike off Craigslist in the first place, and also fixed it up, too, with new tires and brake hoods and bar tape and everything, not to mention lovingly sourcing the small parts necessary to rehabilitate the Campagnolo Proton wheels. So WHO’S THE GENEROUS ONE NOW?
Yes, my munificence is exceeded only by my modesty.
And yes, I know what you’re thinking. “What, you drove the box to Yonkers? Why not use THAT GODDAMN E-BIKE OF YOURS?” Look, I know I’m a huge disappointment to you. But not only am I used to disappointing people, but yesterday my son and I took a lovely little sunset cruise over the Henry Hudson Bridge to Upper Manhattan that reminded me why we got this thing in the first place:
The climb up to the bridge is one even most non-Fredly adults would have a problem with, and so the kid had a little electrical tailwind, so what?
And lest you think I coddle my children, I can assure you I’ve made them walk home over that bridge before, and I can also assure you they’re still angry about it.
And no, we won’t be getting these:
Though I do reserve the right to at least consider them should a cataclysm cause a drastic change in the Earth’s gravity. (Assuming that change makes us all heavier, of course. If we all wind up lighter then I’d go with weighted shoes. So let’s all hope for the latter, since a weighted shoe shouldn’t require any short of motor or connectivity and would therefore be much cheaper.)
I’ll spare you any images of the e-bike, which I shall heretofore refer to as “E Who Cannot Be Named,” and instead allow you to gaze upon the Glory Of The Homer (GOTH):
I know some of you find the manner in which I’ve de-twee-ified this bike almost as upsetting as my little e-bike commute on Tuesday, but I’d at least like a little credit for switching to a black saddle. Also, for the record, this is my actual commuting bike, though next time I commute by bike I’ll almost certainly use the PashMo:
And when I look at the PashMo, I can’t help but think of another diminutive-wheeled British feat of engineering I once had:
Ironically I passed the Brompton along because I wasn’t commuting anymore and I felt like I wasn’t using it enough, go figure. Now here I am commuting again, and tragically Bromptonless. But I loved the bike, and anybody who asks me which folding bike they should buy always gets the exact same answer: “Don’t bother shopping around, get a Brompton, that’s it, done and done.” Unfortunately, Bromptons are similar to Rivendells in that they’re exactly the bikes most people who ask you what kind of bike they should get need, but when you tell those people this they don’t listen because they’re “too expensive.” So instead of a Brompton that is extremely well made and folds up in like three seconds into something so small you can practically fit in your wallet they get some awkward thing that barely folds down to the size of the fully assembled PashMo.
I mean sure, I love cheap bikes, and yes, a layperson (assuming they have the free help of a friend who’s a giant bike dork) could conceivably hit the classifieds and the parts bin and put together something both inexpensive and Rivend-ish, but broadly speaking most people would be better off just Riv-ing it up in the first place–and when it comes to something as specialized as a folding bike getting anything else simply isn’t worth it.
In fact, I’ve been surprised to see more and more Bromptons on the bike path lately, though only now am I discovering they’re probably not Bromptons at all:
I had no idea! I feel so naive:
As I understand it (probably incorrectly) from five minutes of popular search engine jockeying filtered through my blown-out intellect, the Brompton patent expired in like 1999 or something, and people started copying it, so Brompton went on to claim the design of the bike was protected by copyright, and a Belgian court decided the following:
The Court’s answer is that copyright can protect a product’s shape which is, at least in part, necessary to obtain a technical result, provided it is original (para. 38). If the shape is solely dictated by function, copyright cannot protect it.
This is a fascinating philosophical question, for presumably anyone copying a Brompton has to claim that they’re not ripping off someone else’s creative expression; rather, they’re simply making something that has to look the way it does in order to function and can take no other shape. In other words, they’re saying the Brompton works so well that everything about it is basically inevitable, which is high praise indeed–though by that logic you could also just steal anything. “‘Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning’ starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren is an excellent movie. In order for any movie to function properly it can look no other way. That is why, in order to obtain the desired technical result, we had no other choice but to copy it exactly.”
At the same time, perhaps it’s only right and fair that anyone who wants to should now be able to make a Brompton-like bicycle. Centuries ago, someone came up with what we now recognize as the clock face. Today, can not anybody make a watch with two hands of differing lengths moving around a circular face in a left-to-right direction with the hours of the day inscribed around it? Would requiring every company who makes a timepiece to completely rethink its design really be in the best interest of humanity? And whether it’s a bike or a watch, isn’t it the very fact that makers must compete with each other ultimately what ensures that quality will remain high?
And yes, I know you can patent the movement inside the watch and copyright design elements of the watch. But I’m just talking about the overall watch. Is a Brompton like a watch? Or like the workings inside the watch?
I dunno. Too much to think about. My brain just folded like an off-brand Brompton.