This Just In: Premature Holiday Commencement!

It's hot.  The kind of hot when housecats just lie around on their backs all day with their legs spread, airing out their private parts.

(NSFW)

There are also people who do the same thing.

Or so I've heard.

In addition to being Hot As Balls, it's also Our Nation's Birthday in two (2) days, which means I've already got one foot out the door.  (I don't literally have one foot out the door.  Right now both feet are up in the air as I cool my private parts in front of the air conditioning.)  In other words, after this post I'll be gone until Monday, July 7th, at which point I will resume regular updates.

Also, please allow me to extend belated happy birthday wishes to our passive-aggressive neighbor to the north, who celebrated Fête du Canada yesterday, and who will no doubt leave their usual note on our front door this Friday as we grill meats and blow shit up:

And we will leave our customary reply:

It's true, 36% of Americans believe Barack Obama is the Prime Minister of Canada, and of that 36% roughly half also believe that the President of the United States is Jesus Christ.

(Pffft.  A Jew President?  It'll never happen.)

Speaking of American Awesomeness, the Great Trek Bicycle Making Company has unveiled the World's Lightest Production Bicycle in the World, and it's made right here in Jesus Land--or Waterloo, Wisconsin to be precise, which until just a few minutes ago I thought was in Canada:

Although the bike had been seen at the Criterium du Dauphiné, the Trek Émonda was officially launched just days before the Tour de France. At a claimed 690g for a painted 56cm frame, the hyperlight road machine builds up to a 4.65kg/10.25lb complete bicycle thanks in part to new Bontrager integrated components like an XXX bar/stem combination and Speed Stop direct-mount brakes.

Of course, Trek know a thing or two about building road bikes, having won anywhere from one (1) to nine (9) Tours de France, depending on how you look at it:

(Wow.  You know your sport's a shitshow when your list of champions looks like a hastily-revised bar band setlist.)

Nevertheless, I'm confused by this bicycle.  If it's so great (US$15,749 great to be precise), where are the disc brakes and thru-axles I thought we were supposed to have now?

(Remember?)

I thought getting on a state-of-the-art road bike with hydrolic dick breaks and thew-axes was like going from a Model T you have to stop with your feet Fred Flintstone-style to a BMW 8-series luxury sports sedan coupe crossover SUV with eight vented rotors the size of manhole covers plus the $20,000 optional full all-weather electronic traction-sensing douchebag package:

(Your rim brakes.)

(Your bike on discs.)

So why then are they charging approximately US$10,000 for the bike dripping with the very latest technology, but they're charging almost US$16,000 for the bike sporting a bunch of obsolete crap all the reviewers are telling us suddenly sucks balls now?

Simple: because by making the "obsolete" bike obscenely expensive and the "modern" bike merely grossly expensive, the new technology seems like a bargain, all the Freds move to disc brakes, and all Trek had to do to make it happen was whip together an ultralight Fred charios, slap a stupid price tag on it, and get it written up on a few bike blogs.

That's the kind of marketing genius that makes America great.

I'm not so sure about that foreign-sounding name though:

The overarching design and engineering principle is simple: cut weight, increase stiffness. Even the name, Emonda, is a play on the French verb meaning to trim or to cut, emonder. 

"To trim or to cut," eh?  I would have called it the "Trek Circumcision."  ("Trek Bris" would have been too ethnic.)  Also, "Émonda" sure sounds pretty close to "LeMond," which is a brand of bikes Trek sold until they dumped the guy after whom the bikes were named, allegedly at the behest of a certain seven-time Tour de France winner, who they also ended up dumping after too many people knew he took drugs.

Got all that?

Don't worry, it's okay if you don't.

In fact, Trek is counting on it.

And if all that weren't complicated enough, now Specialized is suing Trek over the whole Émonda/LeMond thing:

Sure, Specialized has no claim whatsoever to the LeMond name.  Nevertheless, their lawyers are under strict instructions to take action whenever any bicycle anywhere is given a French-sounding name.

Speaking of LeMond bicycles, I used to have one:

Wow.  I almost look fit in that photo--which is not to say that I was.  In fact, all those riders passed me roughly four seconds after that picture was taken, at which point I probably fell down, slid onto another portion of the course, and got run over by those very same riders.  Still, it's the only photograph in existence in which there are riders behind me in a bicycle race, which is why it's 10 feet high by 15 feet wide and hanging in my living room.

And with that, I conclude my broadcast day.  Inasmuch as it is a short week I will not administer a quiz, but by way of compensation here is some bonus hot summer cat porn:

Thanks for reading, ride safe, and enjoy the holiday.  (Unless you don't live here in Canada's milking machine, in which case we'll enjoy it for you.)  See you on Monday, July 7th.


--Wildcat Rock Machine