I'm starting a whole new category today, the Cycling Phun Moment Of Intolerance, but you may call it the CPMOI if you ask nicely... OK, you may. Let me take a moment to set up the story and then I will get up on my soapbox and become irate and, likely, a bit demeaning. My wife, who by the way is awesome and have I mentioned as of today is my wife of ten years, was out last night and brought me home a Ohio Sports & Fitness Magazine. I have to say here, I get a kick out of how they Photoshop out all signs of any companies and corporate names. One perfect example of this would be the April 2008 issue. The new nameless bike, now without spokes! can be seen here:
OK, now I guess that just sounded like petty bitching, digressing and moving on, sort of.So my wife brought home the August 2008 issue for me since she knows I love to thumb through it regardless of how I just lambasted the zine. I picked it up and immediately thought, "What the..." Yeah, so the cover of this months issue was crazy, take a look and see if you can tell what is wrong with this cover. Hey that'd make a slick game show: What's Wrong With This Cover?!
OK, figure it out, or give up? I'll tell you... admittedly this will be way easier and cooler if you live in or near Cleveland, but just follow along. The first issue, that is a glaring one, in my mind is that anyone who is NOT an idiot and rides a mountain bike would NEVER cruise through a random field with no trail. Besides that fact you are likely to catch a thorn, or hundreds of thorns, in the process. Second is that most mountain bikers have the decency to not tear up trails, let alone random fields. The third thing, much funnier if you know the Cleveland area, is the fact that the lead story on the cover is "The Best Of The Metro Parks Activities That Inspire In And Around Cuyahoga Valley." The truth of the matter is there are almost NO trails in the majority of the Cuyahoga County Metroparks, and there are only four trails "AROUND" the Cuyahoga Valley Park that allow bikes. None of them are mountain bike trails, most are paved, and the only other legal place is streets and parking lots. Four major bicycle trails occur in and around the Cuyahoga Valley: the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail, the Metro Parks' Bike & Hike Trail, and the All Purpose Trails in Brecksville and Bedford reservations. Recreational bicycling at CVNP is limited to those trails, as well as all roads and parking lots. Bicycling is prohibited on all other trails. -Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Website
Alright, I could go on about the cover but I'll switch gears. I saw what I thought would be a great article on the contents page, It was a picture of a local racer, Shawn Adams, with the title "Team Lake Effects On A Cyclocross Bike." Problem one: It was Shawn, not "Team Lake Effects", and (two) it's Team Lake Effect, not plural. Problem three, and this was a flagrant error in my opinion, is that Shawn was riding what appears to be a Cannondale Scalpel. For those of you who do not know what the Scalpel is, it looks like this:
That's right kids, his Cross bike is none other than an XC mountain bike. I went to the article and, as you've already guessed, the picture in the article was also Shawn on the FS XC bike. They even ask in the story, "What's so special about a cyclocross bike?" Interested in the answer? "At first glance, a `cross bike might look like nothing more than a road bike with fat tires" or I guess in this case like a full suspension cross country bike. It will be interesting to see how they follow this. Maybe they'll do a story for next month on single person tandem bikes, or two wheel tricycles. I hope I wasn't too critical for you folks, wonder if I'll get a response from the OS&F group as to what the hell they were thinking. As for now, I'm taking the weekend off to enjoy an anniversary dinner, likely killing my healthy eating plan, with the wife. Will also likely catch Pineapple Express, and get a Saturday and Sunday ride in. Hopefully. Hope everyone has a good weekend, maybe we'll talk about the Olympics next week, would ya like that? Lemme know. Bye for now.
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5 comments:
Despite the 'inaccuracies' of the articles, or in this case the photos accompanying the articles (file photos?), I think OSFM does a good job overall with promoting S&F activities. I read (skimmed) the CX article by Charles Howe, and from what I remember, the article itself was accurate. But yeah, I really had to ask myself why they're showing a pic of Shawn on a XC bike instead of a CX bike (there's a pic of Shawn on a CX bike in the race report from one of his many CX wins). A swapping of letters will cause problems any Tym.
What was even worse than the S&F error was the PD putting either a full page or 1/2 page color pic of a guy on a MTB doing a CX race at Regan Park in Medina last year. There were only 3 of us racing B's that day (it was FREEZING in Feb), and I knew I had a 1 in 3 shot of being the one pictured. I can't remember if the other guy who wasn't pictured was on a CX bike or a MTB. Come to think of it, this reaks of a mass reporting conspiracy to highlight MTB over CX!! ;)
Yeah, I know... I was unfairly harsh on OS&F about this. But, c'mon! You have to give me my point about the Metroparks, right? Also, I own, technically, an XC bike (Rockhopper, which Specialized lists as a hardtail XC not a downhill or an MTB), so I guess I owe myself a bit of chastising.
OK, GB, admittedly upon rereading it I was a bit harsh on S&F. I have changed things up a bit to tone down some of the harshness, however I did leave the Metropak comments in. I actually do have to admit, though, that the comments should probably be directed more toward the Cuyahoga Metro Park system than S&F. Cuyahoga, in my opinion, has missed the ball repeatedly on a lot of opportunities to open up the parks to cyclists. An example of this is there are about as many trails in the Cuyahoga Metroparks that you CAN ride on as their are trails in the Lake Metropark system that you CANNON ride. With that said, there are so few that I would dare say you could count them on one hand in Lake. Not to mention I seem to think that Lake County as a whole is far more cycling friendly. I might even call up the example of Ray's where the group got pulled over in Gates Mills. It's as if they're going out of their way to make it as miserable for cyclists as possible to keep them off the roads. Not sure what the answer is, but totally willing to be a part of the solution.
I took that sweet pic at the Mohican 100 mtb race.
Robert- That's awesome! You can now say you've had your pictures published.
-gb
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