To Bling...or Not to Bling...Read on!

Due to the many responses concerning my last post entitled 'Cruisin on my Scraper Bike' and my assertion that it wasn't rappers or hip-hop artists who 1st did the 'Bling-Thing' but rather, it was in fact Liberace, I need to deal with this issue further by way of this post. One reader asked "What is the definition of Bling-Bling? How is it one person who has on some jewelry isn't considered to be blingin', while others are?" Let me make this as simple as I can, when someone is blingin', this simply means "One who wears excess and\or expensive jewelry". There you have it! In the 1980's when Run-DMC was the thing, they didn't called it bling, they simple used the phrase "Trucked down excessive".

Another question from a reader was "Do you think there should be a bling-bling bicycle?" I will start from the beginning on that question. Did any of you know that the jewelry company Tiffany's actually took a shot at blingin' a bicycle out back in the 1890's?(See above picture) This bicycle, built by Tiffany's Jewelry Company, was built for Lillian Russell who was an actress and singer WAY back in the day. The detail in this design, especially for this era, was INCREDIBLE. Some things that were added for 'The Look' were; sterling silver, carved ivory hand grips, and jewelry type attachments. The color is, as Austin Powers would say 'Simply Smashing!'

I marvel that bicycle design during this period was in its' infancy and someone came up with not only this FUNK BALL, as it concerns aesthetics (the look), but guess what people...This bicycle was also a FIXED GEAR that a few of you have fallen prey to as the latest 'New Big Thing'. This bicycle is absolutely gorgeous and my heart is truly heavy that very few designs on the market today have this level of aesthetic detail and originality! When any of you get a minute, take a look at some of the designs in Europe, particularly the 'Cruisers' and compare what they say (and many of you bicycle bloggers) is new, as compared to THIS design. You may be shocked.

The last question I will deal with is a picture a reader sent asking me what I thought of this bling bicycle design, and further, what would I do differently? I will preface my comments by saying this.... when I say something about bicycle design, these are my opinions and every picture any of you send me will always be measured against my vision of bicycle design! If what you send lines up with that, you may get posted, if it doesn't, I won't post it! If the design is stupid and idiotic and I feel compelled to say something, it may get posted also. But what will not get posted, is bicycles that don't have anything to do with what I think this blog is about. I will not post stuff on here just to have updated content on my blog! That makes about as much sense to me as having a home phone on a LAN line and everyone in the house has a cell phone. Having something just for the sake of having it or others knowing you have it is flat out stupid.

Back to the fella in the picture below. Hmmm? Those rims POP and the fenders are freak shows! The steering wheel is tacky, the frame color is bland, the seat looks to be black and ordinary but even with all of that, changes I would make to this design to take it to another level are as follows:

- Loose the tacky steering wheel and instead design the handle bars to coincide with the color of the fenders.

- Increase the stem length to 12 inches and since this would make the handle bars sit up REALLY high, position the handle bars to slope downwards as a steep angle.

- The black tires with white walls totally works against everything this design is supposed to stand for which is 'Custom'. If custom colored tires can't be ordered, I would simply throw some powder white tires on here.

-The 'Crank' is not only ordinary, it is to big. This says to me, whoever designed this bike took the time to custom decorate this bicycle, and just settled for a crappy crank. A custom, smaller size crank is definitely in order here.

- The color of the frame.....oh the humanity! I would need a better picture than this to even comment on the color but that forest green thing they got going on there is.......I'll leave that alone.

Now there are a few other things I would do but this isn't a very great picture and I tell you what, even the fenders could have been costumed a bit more. More length, more width, etc. But, like I said earlier, these are just my opinions!