The Empire Strikes Back

From the minds that brought you this:

...Comes yet another technological cluster fuck!

Yes, the geniuses at General Motors have been hard at work denying that they built an inferior product and did little to nothing to fix it. But Alas, they still let one slip through the cracks...

Folks, I once again present you with this:

 (exhibit B: Now in RED!)

If you remember, and how could you not , I am probably the loudest voice out there when it comes to hating these rolling shit bags. 
I have been blasting them publicly for years and to this day, they continue to be a bane to my existence. I never once reckoned that they would go away, but just when I thought I had seen everything these bastards have to offer, I was once again in for a surprise.

See, not only are the wheels crap, the derailleurs made of plastic, the fork always bent... but the parts "spec" calls for grip shifters on the flats of the bars. There is one major problem with this (besides the fact that grip shifters do not belong on road bikes) which is, if you need to replace them, they cannot slide down the bar to be removed. "What then?" you ask?

Ladies and Gentlemen I give you...

...the two piece drop bar:

 

While it may appear to be an ordinary bar, I can assure you it is not. Look closer...

It's not like this is the first time I have seen this bar but I always thought that the spacer (red) was installed because they were too cheap to spec the proper diameter bar. And the bolt (yellow) was used to keep the bars from rotating inside the spacer:

I was wrong. (there, I said it ;) It was indeed what I had feared; a bar that breaks away in the middle for the sole purpose of installing cheap, incompatible parts in order to save a buck.

Removing the stem's face plate was the first indicator:

Then, by removing the spacer, the intention becomes clear:

After removing the bolt...

...the sadness sets in.

The sudden realization of what the industry is truly capable of in order to make a buck, leaves me bewildered as to why anyone deserves to be in this business at all. Here you have a prime example of "it's good enough for who it's for" from a company who's brand recognition alone is enough to make people buy their junk just out of trust. Much like the folks who are duped into buying a Schwinn from Walmart because of the name. I hear it from customers all the time, "It's a Schwinn, so it's a good bike, right?"

 (Courtesy: your bike hates you)

 The brand recognition in this case generates dollars on a level I could only characterize as criminal, by lulling folks into a false sense of trust and taking advantage of them. By offering the populace something that appears to be one thing on the outside...

...yet is clearly another thing on the inside,

 is no better than selling me a piece of shit outright, even if they are being up front about it.

The problem is, no one is being honest about the shit they sell. It takes a douche bag bike blogger/mechanic on the internet to do it for them. At this point it appears to have worked for them as no one (to my knowledge) has been hurt by this contraption, but a little part of me wishes some would get hurt. Only then would they have to take responsibility instead of a paycheck.

Please feel free to pass this and the other posts along to them in an effort to effect some change. Lord knows I can't do much about it from my work bench.

Any way, I apologize for the late start to this weeks posts, but I have other shit on my plate right now. I just thought that perhaps I could cobble a post together for today and end it on a high note:

(from atop my pedestal that is ;)

#killthedenali 


* UPDATE Just after posting this blog, a reader informs me that there is a waste of space on the internet telling you to that these are good products. 

 http://gmcbike.net/

Therein, you will find such lies as:

"a GMC bike is the best bike to start your cycling experience with."

"GMC bikes are made by the same great manufacturer company which makes GMC trucks. Therefore, it can be guaranteed that GMC bikes are made with the same technology and precision of GMC trucks. This is also an assurance that GMC bikes are delivered in the same fine quality of their truck counterparts."


Please lambaste these bastards accordingly. Your bike thanks you.