From Beautiful Bicycle: Stanridge Speed x Death Spray Custom Highstreet Track

From Recent Roll: Garrett Chow and His FEA Specialized Venge

Social media has done a great deal for the cycling industry. One of which being a platform for people who are movers and shakers, who might have not had a readily-accessible forum before. The two parties involved with this post in particular have created some stellar work in their day and if anyone has the right to have their opinions heard, it’s them. I saw this on Garrett Chow’s Instagram and had to post it up:

“From the paint-booths of @deathspray and @garrett_chow:

Hey Cycling-Industry! With the trade-show season upon us, it’s our guess that a great many in your employ are feeling the annual, dread pall of humiliation and embarrassment with your ‘little problem’: Shit Colors and Graphics, and weak product-offering. That twinge of, “oh fuck, I donno know — just make everything black, red, or white”. And, the tiresome, nagging itch of, “put three stripes on it, and call it a day”, needn’t be suffered nor endured any longer. These ‘strategies’ never hide the fact that your bikes are inane, open-tooling, off-the-shelf death-traps, anyway. And, no amount of voice-conferences, consultants, or Power-Point presentations will ever change this, either.

Adding insult to injury, the small company two booths over, who invested 1/23rd the cost of your ‘clever’ marketing-budget on their talented, appreciated and fairly-compensated designer (and not a color-blind engineer moon-lighting as your ‘de-facto design team’–the one with an iMac and a dog-eared back-issue of IdN Magazine on his desk), is literally KILLING your 2014 line-plan with one hand tied behind its back. Your self-congratulatory back-slapping echoing throughout the exhibit-hall–like so many floundering, dying fish gasping their last breaths–belies the fact that the death of our beautiful industry is precisely where your pedestrian products are taking us.

So, here’s your escape plan for model year 2015: Please, put down the golf magazine just long enough to write an email to: info@deathspraycustom.com and, garrettchow@yahoo.com IT’S REALLY, /REALLY/ THAT EASY! We are here for you –and with love, D & GC”

As someone who also works freelance and constantly finds himself frustrated with the lack of creativity in cycling, I can commend these two…