ALLEZ ALLEZ ALLEZ!

So what the fuck is up with Specialized?  The whole "Roubaix" debacle may have disappeared in our helment mirrors, but now Klaus of Cycling Inquisition emails me this:

Effective immediately we are retiring our ALIZE bike name and replacing it with NAZARÉ. This is just a name change – your beloved bike will remain exactly the same.

This change comes at the behest of a well known bike company. According to their lawyers the ALIZE name was too close to one of their trademarked bike names and, as such, we need to stop using it.

If you don't know who that "well known bike company is," here's a hint: it's Specialized, it thinks it owns any word that is vaguely French-sounding, and also it's Specialized.

(Specialized is also suing the estate of Peter Sellers for his ersatz French accent.)

It would appear that Specialized is using its typical modus operandi, which involves spending all the money you give them for their overpriced plastic shit on lawyers:

We didn't really see it the same way. Both the spelling and meaning are completely different. All our names come from winds (or other water sports references) which is in our heritage. ALIZE is a north-easterly wind found in central Africa and the Caribbean. Any similarity with the name in question, however questionable, was purely coincidental. We are proud of our bikes and our heritage and wouldn't swap it for anyone's.

In the end, after months of arguing with lawyers, we were forced to change the name to avoid a protracted and potentially costly legal battle. We prefer to focus on designing great bikes than communicating with lawyers. As such, all ALIZE bikes produced from this spring will carry the name NAZARÉ.

So what do you think when you hear "Alize?"  Do you think of Specialized, or it's "Allez" model bicycle?  I sure don't.  The first think I think of is a sophisticated adult beverage:

And the first cycling-related thing I think of is chainrings:

By the way, TA chainrings used to be how you got cyclocross gearing before the advent of the pre-packaged "cyclocross specific" groupset:

Bikes were way cooler when you actually did a few things yourself.

Also, by the time you finish reading this sentence, Specialized will have sued TA.  Sorry, Specialities TA:

Omigod they have "Special" in their name they're so fucked.

("Now I got this Sinyard guy on my ass.  Thanks for nothing, asshole."--President of Specialities TA, as played in the feature film by Gerard Depardieu)

ANYWAY, like most people with a pulse, I am able to distinguish between "Alize" and "Allez," the latter of which is basically the French word for "Go," as you might shout to a Tour de France doper or someone chugging a bottle of Alizé.  It's also the model name of a Specialized bicycle, as ridden in "American Flyers:"

It's widely known fact that the Reagan administration worked closely with Hollywood to undermine subcultures by making them appear ridiculous in feature films.  "American Flyers," "Rad," and "Quicksilver"--all released within a remarkable two-year period--took devastating aim at the various factions of cycling.  Meanwhile, the nascent hip-hop culture received similar treatment via the film "Breakin'," and Reagan's final act of executive film propaganda was the greenlighting of the skateboarding film "Gleaming the Cube," which was released just as he was leaving office.

It would be years before any of these movements exhibited so much as a glimmer of recovery.

Since reading about this latest Specialized cock-block I've been redlining my admittedly small-displacement brain in order to envision a realistic scenario in which someone shopping for a Specialized Allez might unwittingly wind up with a Neal Pryde Alize, and I have yet to come up with one.  It seems to me the hapless Specialized customer would have a much bigger chance of inadvertently stumbling into casual coitus, to wit:

LBS EMPLOYEE: "Hi, welcome to Fred Cycles, may I help you?"

FRED: "Yeah, I'm interested in an Allez.  I read about it in 'Bicycling.'  They said it has the ride quality of a bike costing thousands more."

LBS EMPLOYEE: "Yeah, they say that about every bike.  So wait, which one again?"

FRED: "Allez."

LBS EMPLOYEE: "You want a lay?"

FRED: "Yeah, I think so."

LBS EMPLOYEE: "All right, wait for me in the fit studio and drop your pants."

--FIN--

If this has happened to you too, please join my class action sexual harassment suit against Specialized bicycles.  With therapy, I've been coming to terms with my own experience, but I think a large cash settlement would really help me turn the corner.

By the way, there was a scene very similar to the one above in "American Flyers," but it wound up on the cutting room floor.

I wish I could say that this latest Specialized incident has given me the final push I need to complete Project Faggin, but I'm ashamed to admit I haven't even started it yet:

This is because: 1) I'm lazy; 2) I'm cheap; 3) I'm lazy; 4) I'm forgetful; and 6) I'm still basking in the afterglow of the Son of Scat project, which was an unmitigated success.

Here's an analogy:

This:

Is To This:

As This:

Is To This:

That is to say, "Cheaper, uglier, and about a thousand times more awesome," if you need it spelled out for you.

Cycle of life, I guess.