Tuesday, January 22, 2013

This is a real product

http://reviews.mtbr.com/review-upright-designs-totem-pole-bike-rack?fb_comment_id=fbc_254766877988225_1089901_255128124618767



Honestly, I can't make this stuff up. Sure, I love the sound of stanchions, brake rotors, and fresh paint rattling into each other during the "road test," the grimace of the reviewer as he breaks loose the bikes as he gets each of them unstuck, and of course I'm fond of the $5 yellow truck stop tiedown that Upright Designs provides as the "bicycle retention device," but my favorite part is at 3 minutes or so when the reviewer, brimming with energy and excitement, gives Upright Design's new rack the ultimate vote of confidence: "It's pretty okay."

If I were the marketing guy at Upright Designs, I'd mail Francis at MTBR flowers and a box of chocolates, give the sales guys at Upright a heads up that invoices are going to be coming in like a bed intruder in Lincoln Park, and call in sick for the next two months, because my job is done. Hard to get a better recommendation than that. It's like a case study of success for Marketing 101; no doubt, people will be reading about the Totem Pole rack for years to come.

It's times like these that I realize I need to be taking more advantage of my official status as the "main contributor to a popular mountain bike blog" and as a "professional mountain bike athlete." Why am I letting MTBR have all the fun? Guaranteed, I could get one of these in the mail tomorrow to "test out" their "exciting new product" if I put on my adult sounding "interview voice" and wrote a formal proposal to Upright Designs.

And even if it's not this rack, which looks hellaciously awful and potentially hilarious to test, it could be anything. Companies love to get their stuff product tested, especially by a young but professional sounding blogger that's "in touch with the new generation of consumers." And so I bring you, 2013's upcoming Team Robot product tests:


  • Anything made by Mongoose
  • Offroad recumbent test
  • Vee Rubber Tires
  • Saddle bags for DH appliques
  • Viagra
  • TAG wheels
  • this thing:



Really, the possibilities are endless. Maybe we could even try to write real reviews for good products, but that seems like a lot more work, and a lot of emotional/time investment.



Anyway, this thing is mind blowing. Enjoy:



Do you have a perfectly good pickup, but you'd rather sandwich $20,000 in bikes together in a painful orgy of spokes, pedals, and broken dreams? Upright designs has you dialed in with their new Totem Pole Rack.



The bicycle is a distant brethren of the robot, and the robots secreted lubrication oil from our aftermarket tear ports when we saw the pivot of our pivots, the metal of our metals being abused in this way.



Still better than the flatbed trucks that run shuttle at Fontana.



It's like sending boys off to war. Some will make it back, some won't, but none will ever be the same again. A paint gouge here, a stanchion there, but something in your bike is lost on that shuttle that you can never get back: innocence.

3 comments:

  1. Sk-Pete's Internet Mentoring ProgramJanuary 22, 2013 at 10:02 PM

    When I hear you say: "I need to take more advantage of my status.............." .
    I think- Didn't Charlie go to Reed College, the priciest school in Portland?? anyway,
    .
    ***Here is a Scenario for you Status dude-
    - What if Diamondback was to come out with a new line of Fixie Bike, and they wanted you to make a WEB video of you gettin RAD on it???
    -
    Would you ride it like you was Chris Akrigg ??....... or tell them- HELL NO BITCH!!

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  3. I loved "that one was pretty hung up" as he took the first bike off.

    Last paragraph was brilliant. Hope you make it back to the nw someday.

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