Is there anything on this earth more abjectly depressing than a bicycle built down to the price, standards and shelf life of a takeaway McHappy Meal?

It can’t be denied that there are, indeed, at least two classes of bike buyers out there. In the one camp are the enthusiasts. That would be anyone who reads this humble blog. In the other camp are what I would describe as the ‘Cycling McHappy Wheel’ tribe. They’re the mob who expect the world for the price of a bag of chips. They’re the mob taken in by expectations forged in the kiln of packaging and play school naivety.

The McHappy Wheel tribe are the vast majority of cycle-buyers. They’re the quickest to buy their way in and the first to loose interest; with the products of their ill-formed enthusiasms rusting in time with their short-fused persistence. These are the bicycles stowed, lost and forlorn in the shed, garden, basement or attic – or passed quickly on like some kind of virulent disease. Too crude, rude and unwieldy to use, these things blight any enthusiasm before the blessings of cycling ever get the chance to take hold.

I saw a sign! I heard the warning of danger to come. I read it first in the motorcycling press. Hate the subject or not, cycling and motorcycling are related by more than the number of the wheels they share. They’re two segments of a common front against cars. They are two segments of a common front of enthusiasm for wind-in-your-hair, braving the elements, asserted individuality that the car tribe will never comprehend. The McHappy Wheel virus has hit the motorcycling arm at gale force 10. Thus far, we cyclists are still sheltered behind the dunes.

Yes, we are seeing more and more China made bicycles out there. Yes, there have always been supermarket ‘drain pipe specials’ with all the grace and durability of a bag of soggy Happy Meal fries. Yes. But we have not seen anything yet. The cyclone is still offshore. It’s busy blighting our cousins in the petrol powered cycling domain.

Time to introduce the smirking devil we’re about the confront. The Chinese bicycle biz. This blight is as far from the history-forged cycling culture that stars the eyes of all those who truly know what it is to be, and to forever remain, a cyclist. The Chinese bicycle biz is only ever about making a buck. A quick, dirty, scruple free buck to be extracted from the loose change of those who have succumbed to the transfat-gorged fast food acculturation of the world. The Chinese bicycle biz can turn its talents with equal dedication and minimal re-tooling to the production of plastic spoons, nappy liners or red flags. It’s all the same thing to them. But for now, their focus is on the production of the most horrendous, vile, obscenely non-durable motorcycles the world has ever seen. And the great, tragically uninformed McHappy Moto-Wheelers are lapping it up.

There’s a few new games in town right now. Centre stage are the here-now-gone-tomorrow importers siren-songed into the Chinese tune of quick buck scalping busy selling ‘Flying Duck Happy Leaping Deer’ brand motorcycles to all those dumb enough to be seduced by prices way too good to be true. Even though that particular truth is the only truth the buyers are ever likely to find in transactions of that kind… The other game is the sheep-shuffle of embarrassed cringliness as the dudded McHappy Moto-Wheelers wheel their way into real dealers to get their junk fixed; once they find their 24 hour warranty has expired like the mobile phone number of the importers who’ve now so mysteriously vanished.

But what are we left with once all this dumping of Chinese cyclo-junk runs its inevitable course? No industry – that’s what! The masses have voted with their ill-informed stupidity. The real dealers are left with too many bikes they then can’t sell. Those bikes become last year’s models and become even harder to shift. Next thing you know, that dealer with a history back to the inter-war years is no longer there; or anywhere. Then the real-deal makers go under, or worse, are bought out for a song by a Peoples’ flag waving plastic spoon and motorcycle manufacturing company based in the industrial slumlands of invaded Tibet.

This model works even better for bicycles, of that you can be assured. For starters, for most folk, bicycles are an even less considered purchase than the motorbicycles with which the Chinese are now so enthusiastically engaged. The level of bicycle buyer intelligence that’s likely to apply will be even less than the low to which the motorcycle industry has now succumbed. We are all going to be dragged down into the swill-soured bog as the folk start spend-sending our industry to the oblivion of no-return.

There are some hopeful signs. Both the Canadians and the EU have hit Chinese McHappy Wheel makers with anti-dumping levies of 30% or more. To my mind, these levies are a levee from the bevy of the impending tide. Long may these levy levee walls hold! Our cycling future depends on it! Tell your local politicians you want protection! Vote with your money only for the real deal. Spread the message. Support your local bicycle shop!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 at 4:40 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.