Hey, Are You Guys Open?

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pre·tense/ prê•tens/
1. An attempt to make something that is not the case appear true.
2. An attempt to make mountain biking appeal to RISD, OTIS, and SCAD students as well as board-certified triathaletes.

okay.  i’m bitter.  also skeptic, but virtuously.  skepticism is what has constructed the stoic pillar of design critique upon which i have mounted myself, and it’s what will stuff the pillows of my retirement bed.  i win.  that said, i’m still bitter.

check it out – there’s a silly side to cycling these days.  well, i’ll admit it might just be silly to me, and i myself am an extremely silly little bitch, so you know it’s getting bad.  ironically, when i say “silly,”  my biggest BIG concern is that my motivation to regard something as frivolous stems from the observation that a laughless quark somewhere in the galaxy of cycling has given birth to a dark star of unfun.

i’m trying to say that there’s a great chance that gerard vroomen and andy kessler when forming their new company O P E N, may not have generated a single fart joke, dick joke, or practical joke while forging this solution to hardtail mountain bike frame offerings.  the problem was that there was a huge gap in the market, and there is nothing funny about that shit, silly.  well listen, the gap is now closed.  it’s so closed, in fact, that maybe these serious little circus bears should have called their company C L O S E D.  it’s nothing personal.  i don’t know these cats and maybe they’re rad bros – i mean, they make cycling things.  that’s pretty rad.  so why am i whining?  because i am a silly jerk.

i know, you’re thinking, “wow, they forgot the hell out of putting stickers on the new Rockhopper.”  but look closer.

see?  it’s not a Rockhopper.  it’s O P E N.  and it’s designed as hell.  see the thing around the bottom of the steering hole?  that has been designed.  there was so much dark, oily portland presspot juice consumed during the jokeless design sessions that when it came down to it, all they could do to keep from crying was slap the little stripe from the bottom of a 12-pack carton around the frame front.  usually i’d call it a head tube, but at O P E N, they are keeping in line with the new standard of having a walk-in closet take the place of a head tube.  you can’t see it here, but there is a hatch on the other side of the front mass, and that is where the rider can keep extra Rapha jerseys in the event of a puddle crossing.

you can see from the spans that connect the components (usually called “tubes”) that some serious CAD know-how has been flexed.  these dudes can CAD their eyes out.

check out the x-factor on this bottom bracket house.  it’s like the centerfold of a DWELL magazine.  there is room in there to store some extra aerobars in case you are late to the sprint triathalon and don’t have time to make Cervélo the nanny re-rack your bikes.

now if this doesn’t make you throw a Blue Steel when you see another cyclist coming, i don’t know what will.  “Most seatposts have a minimum insertion, but that tells you nothing about what’s safe for the frame,” said Vroomen. “So we put a small hole on the seat tube and if you can see the post through it, you’re safe.”  see?  proper seatpost insertion is no longer harder than dental school!  the only problem, is that since Vroomen has likely not been around a peasant bike for clearly maybe a decade or something, he didn’t know that Specialized stole his tech a couple model years ago.  that’s me splitting hairs, though.  the important thing is that the bike is safe.  there is nothing funny about that, thank steven.

while the shredability of this sweet piece of blackness rides high, you need to be VERY sure of yourself when purchasing it.  if your AmEx is declined at the register, there can be no second chances.  you will just have to get some other cloth hardtail that probably has a graphacs package straight off of a  milwaukee power drill box.  part of this frame’s trim package includes a luster cream kit that lets one match the sheen of the frame to the sheen of one’s legs, depending his or her level of dermatological ashiness.  crucial.  careful attention has also been paid to packaging, as is the standard in the world of haute vanité.  you will find the frame on the shelves of your favorite boutique cyclery packed in a black merino wool sack with a tiny little ribbon of color at the seam, and you guessed it, they are left O P E N.

happy weekend.  i’m going for a mountain bike ride on my mountain biking bike.

 

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About Snake Hawk

good, bad, funny, sad, stupid, rad, has, had. non-joining funhaver from coast to coast(er brake). buster of the chops, drawer of the logos. North Carolina, USA

39 Replies to “Hey, Are You Guys Open?”

  1. Spot on. If you can afford this, don’t be a douche. At least buy a locally made, custom, steal hardtail.

  2. Hard as fuck is the new having fun, dog. Don’t forget this shit. You might have thought bikes were “cool” or they “make you happy” or something weak like that but this is the future now slapping you upside the head with 12cm of stiff resinated seriousness.

    Are you bitches ready to race?!? Huh? Shit, my sunglasses are cool.

    I’m skipping ALL this Sea Otter foolishness and heading straight to the SLeaZE Otter Saturday night, 7pm at Fisherman’s Wharf. Any of you who know and are out here will be there too.

  3. I like it despite all of its pretentious, over-designed, under-decorated qualities. It does need a matching carbon fork, though.

  4. I would confidently take that off a 0 foot drop like 3 or 4 times before becoming concerned.

  5. I think it is truly overpriced. In fact I will go out on a fragile limb and say that all “enthusiast level” bike shit is way overpriced and designed for the simple reason that they can do it. Where does that leave most? Single speed steel rigid 29ers.
    and I like it that way.

  6. …admit it, snegg hawgg…you still make “vroomen, vroomen, vroomen…” noises when you pedal a bike down the street…

  7. I’ve got a half rattlecan of flat black left over from doing my grill. I might have to do some “design” work out in the back yard tonight.

  8. …@john…i won’t even be a smart ass to answer your question…

    …when you show up to test ride bikes, whether you’re a journalist or just a regular guy, you bring your own shoes n’ pedals…

    …that bike is up for test rides at sea otter this weekend…

  9. Ride your bike to ride your bike. That will put all the other bullshit in perspective.

    You’re welcome.

  10. Funny how it’s now cool to shit on the truly high end stuff. Is spending that much on a mountain bike ridiculous? Sure. Would ANY of us take that bike if Vroomen swung by the house and gave it to us? Hell yeah! I know I would.
    And if you say you wouldn’t you’re lying, or full of shit…or both.

  11. Most of my bikes are 20-30 years old. Most of those that aren’t employ technology that was cutting edge at the turn of the previous century. And oddly, I do not feel at a disadvantage for this.

  12. Uncle Musles aka Floyd it is nice to have you back. When are we gonna see you at Whiskey again?

    Snake, that is the funniest fucking post i have read on this site in a long time. Thanks for the laugh, much needed.

  13. It’s overpriced… meh, so what. So’s everything now that I’m not working in a shop and am earning graduate student wages. It looks like every other 29″ carbon hard tail.

    It doesn’t look like that one is set up with the hydraulic shifting (which is really cool, btw. Not perfect yet, but pretty bad ass. The detents need to be more solid).

    The funny part to me, is that they make this big deal about designing the cockpit around a zero setback seatpost. That bike has a setback seatpost on it.

  14. addendum: at that price they are going to have a hard time breaking into an already saturated market. Even if it rides like a dream.

  15. …but, el jefe…ours has a different bell & whistle than the other guys…

  16. If you drop a plastic bike in the woodz where I ride the chance that it will survive is fairly low. Metal for me please.

  17. It’s hard to tell who the cycling snobs are. Is it the ones making high end bikes and driving new tech, or is it the ones who mock them for doing it?

  18. i also don’t think that that bike would be so great during our imminent environmental apocalypse that’s juggernauting towards us more glaringly than a Gary Fisher/Trek marketing campaign. it seems a bit delicate to me. how long before some deluge floods it away or a drought cracks it into bits?!! when we’re shiv fighting over spare parts, how versatile will that machine be? how many muskrats can you carry on it?

  19. put that up against a niner crabon HT or a stumpy and it looks like it wouldn’t have much to differentiate itself, all legs at that point anyhow

  20. This bike will feature BB31 (cause 30 isn’t enough). It’ll also have threads in said BB shell, just because it removes a little more of that pesky, heavy aluminum from the otherwise featherweight frame.

    A 1.6″ X 1.250 tapered HT, as the current tapered trend of ridiculousness, wasn’t quite stiff enough for “their racers”.

    Also lovingly included will be a 145mm rear spacing, as the omnipresent 135, as well as the ridiculous 7mm enhancement, the 142, simply weren’t quite enough to be “it”.

    It will be replete with a $350 rear derailleur, ready to be ripped off by the first opportunistic stick in the path, as well as a $400 cassette which will wear out in a season or two, requiring replacement by an even more expensive, though 3 grams lighter version.

    The fork will have a custom offset, as the current geometry offered by all known fork manufacturers, can’t possibly be good handling enough to bear our name.

    I could go on, but grow bored.

    What really gets me is how on earth can they expect to sell them to every douchebag customer expecting their new bike to only come from companies whose bike were ridden in the TDF, when they only have one lousy sticker proclaiming the progenitors name. How can you possibly impress your fellow riders without at least 35 brand name stickers on the bike?

    This industry sucks the life out of itself a little more with each passing year.

  21. I’ve got an older Colnago CX frame in the garage that has Ernesto’s moniker on it in AT LEAST 18 places…+1 for Open on the weight savings just in stickers/paint.

  22. I’m inspired!

    Shoot a rattlecan of matt black at my 15 year old Mountain bike, slap on an Anarchy sticker on the head tube, clamp on a seat post bottle opener & stencil, wait for it…

    ‘OPENER’ on the top tube, Tah Da!!

    no, I didn’t think that it’d fly either, plus there’d be all those lawyers ..

  23. …i do like inspired ideas especially when paired w/ a savvy mindset & hurben’s got ’em both goin’ on for himself right now, so, hey, i’m in…

    …that’s actually pretty funny, bud, considering just how many bikes have integrated bottle openers these days…

    “…but your honor…this ‘opened’ case should be considered closed…”