Last week you had the opportunity to purchase Albert Einstein’s bicycle saddle:
Well, go fetch your wallet and some chain lube, because now here’s Mick Jagger’s bicycle:
[Via Alpaca‘s sister publication]
It even comes with an obsequious thank you letter from a Rolling Stones lackey to Condor Cycles:
I’m not sure why this is a selling point. Not to impugn the heritage of Condor Cycles, but how difficult could it possibly have been to fulfill the Rolling Stones’s “cycling requirements?” Between touring, album recording sessions, and debauched bacchanals, I highly doubt that the entire band’s annual cycling mileage exceeded a mile and a half a year. Now if you showed me a similar letter to Mick Taylor’s luthier, or Keith Richards’s drug dealer, then I might be impressed, but a letter to the Rolling Stones’s bike shop is about as meaningful as one to Yul Brynner’s hair stylist.
The eBay listing also includes this video of Jagger riding the bike in a floppy coat while employing a highly unorthodox hand position:
This is like selling Eddy Merckx’s guitar and showing a video of him attempting to play it with his feet.
But wait, there’s more! Here’s Jagger and his retinue looking at the bike (or one like it) like a bunch of cavemen pondering a microwave:
This photo was taken moments before they started poking at it with sticks and running away.
All of this is to say I find no compelling reason to pay a premium for Mick Jagger’s bicycle. However, if you do, the first thing I’d do is swap the saddle for Einstein’s. Then you can auction off Mick Jagger’s bicycle seat, which I suspect would fetch far more in the fetish marketplace than the entire bicycle would on eBay.
Speaking of leather saddles and lugged steel bicycles, the retrogrouch movement has now spread to the car market:
This is because everything automotive has become electronic, overcomplicated, and expensive:
Car companies boast it’s exactly what modern buyers crave: More iPhone on wheels, less rumbling, mechanical machine. It can be a boon for them, too. Some features are anchored in subscriptions, aimed at giving automakers a source of recurring revenue.
Even as the price of a new car soars—now hovering around $50,000—automakers argue buyers are getting more bang for their buck, including more safety and entertainment tech features.
For many buyers, that’s exactly the problem.
Sound familiar?
And at least one car company might be listening:
Nissan CEO Ivan Espinosa says the industry’s approach to new technology is a bit backward. Automakers tend to put the techiest features in their priciest models, but buyers of those cars skew older and may be more likely to reject new technology, he said.
“Sometimes, actually, your entry cars should start adopting these technologies because that’s where the younger customers are trying to go,” he said.
So which automaker will be the first to launch the Rivendell of Cars?
And if you’re wondering what that would like, here’s how the AI envisions it:
I think it got a little confused there, though Clark W. Griswold would certainly approve.