An open letter to Specialized and SRAM

Dear Head Honchos,

I know what it’s like to make mistakes. Trust me — I’ve suffered my share of guilt, shame and embarrassment. Don’t believe me? Just ask the Eldermans up the street. (John, Susan: If you’re reading this, know that I can’t apologize enough. RIP Mittens.)

With the recent Cafe Roubaix-gate and hydraulic disc brake total recall, you each have a unique opportunity — not to simply learn from your mistakes and correct them, but to avoid such a faux pas in the future.

You see, there are two ways to handle such blunders. First, you can apologize profusely and try to reverse the damage. It’s a time-honored tactic, and it generally yields reasonable levels of success. It’s like taking Daniel Richter’s home-grown filet mignon and sheepishly showing up with IKEA meatballs to make amends. It may not be what he wanted, but at least he won’t go hungry.

Or, you could preemptively avoid the headache by employing a grassroots PR consultant. Namely, me: Drew Streip, The Rouleur For The People. 

I know what The People want. The People don’t just want an apology; they want the offense never to have been committed. They don’t just want transparency; they want a world in which transparency is so transparent, you can actually see it, like the force field that zapped Peeta in “The Hunger Games.” That way, when you’re about to bump up against it and get burned, you’ll be able to back away gracefully — unlike that stupid baker’s boy. Seriously, he’s always screwing up the most obvious things.

I’m willing to get dirty for you. I know you don’t actually want to be in the trenches with us — The People — the ones who buy your components and expect them not to fail, sending us into those aforementioned trenches.

So I’ll ask the tough questions, like: “Who wants brakes that stop?” and “Does ‘Roubaix’ have any Special meaning to you?”  I’ll do group rides, putting myself at risk among the unpredictable masses. I’ll go to trade events and put up with all the other industry types, just to hear the PR nightmares your competitors are planning. I’ll visit local bike shops and build relationships that are built on actually riding bikes — not boycotting them and sending them back for an exchange.

I will do all this and more for the simple exchange of three (3) Specialized bicycles — road, MTB and CX — with mechanical SRAM components.* You would, of course, also pay my travel expenses. I’ll even fly coach. That way, I can still act like one of The People while representing The Man.

So what do you say? I’m open to talks and negotiations. But you might be better off accepting this deal before I get to it’s necessary to offer it to Trek and Shimano.

Rubber-side down,

Drew

*I still trust Avid Code hydraulic disc brakes on the mountain bike.

10 Reasons to Love Riding in Your Hometown

Admit it: On some level, you resent your hometown. Whether it’s a big city or barely on the map, it feels claustrophobic, and you believe every other place to be more desirable. Live in the Southeast? You probably dream of British Columbia. Live in B.C.? You probably wish it didn’t rain so damn much (and that there weren’t so many damn amateurs grabbing fistfuls of brake down A-Line). Live in Minneapolis? You’re right. That stinks, and I can’t help you.

Regardless, your hometown deserves better than you give it. Because when you venture out into the big wide world, you learn that you can no longer count on the shop finishing up your bike by Friday at 5 p.m. And when you sit inside on a Saturday that should have been spent riding, you’ll (deservedly) feel more than a little homesick.

So here are 10 reasons to embrace the old homeplace. If you need more than that, I definitely can’t help you.    

1. Riding from your house.
2. The LBS gives you better deals than most low-level “sponsored” privateers.
3. Getting lost on an unfamiliar road is a privilege, not an inconvenience.
4. You always know the guy who snagged your Strava KOM.
5. You can practice the best lines on a trail — over and over — without feeling guilty for wasting ride time (or a pricey lift pass).
6. ^ That line? You and your friends helped build it.
7. You had to learn the difference between a mattock and a Pulaski the hard way. (No need to be a jerk about it now.)
8. The coffee shops and bars don’t bat an eye when you show up in costume.
9. Your relatives think you’re famous because you’ve been interviewed for every local news story about cycling in the last six years.
10. You recognize fellow rouleurs by their bikes, rather than the cars they’re mounted on.