In the 2 previous posts, I chatted briefly with you about the need for Bicycle Companies to LOSE the status quo websites and give their visitors a more interactive web experience.
I threw out 2 suggestions and want to expand on the 2 previous posts;
1. Lose the 'Dealer Locator' page and expand that into putting an employee within the zip code in charge of following up with a person IF site visitors fill out some sort of preference profile.
2. Lose the 'Contact Us' page in lieu of a page where a visitor can set up a profile and based on their Profile preferences, the company could feed the visitor company information based on their profiles.
The problem with a Dealer Locator pages in this age of Social Media is the user plugs in their Zip Code and the visitor is pointed in the direction of the retail outlet where the product is stocked...With no interactivity, what message is this sending to your POTENTIAL Customer?
-These are our products
-This is where you can go buy them.
My goodness!These same consumers are only 3 friend additions or less from having a LIVE CHAT or at a minimum receiving a 'Tweet' from super stars such as Beyonce, Lebron James and Hannah Montana online...How does your visitor experiences compare to this Bicycle Company owner?
Your FEARLESS BLOGGER!
WOW! I had an interesting comment from a reader concerning my Gary-Fisher-Trek post... which I feel compelled to respond to... A reader seemed...well..Upset and basically said I post UNEDUCATED comments...The comment was (and the reader didn't post their web address or email)...The comment was;
"If you knew anything about the bicycle industry, you would know by now, that Trek and Gary Fisher are the same company. So many of your posts are nothing more than uneducated opinions. What does any of these uneducated opinions have to do with Marshall Taylor?
What would Marshall Taylor think about you trying to represent him?"
The reader obviously didn't read the post in total because I DID SAY these are the same companies. Trek acquired Gary Fisher! The point of THAT POST was to pose the question, WHY would a company who owns both brands, make competing products that look almost the same and one (Gary Fisher), obviously superior to the other (Trek).
I have read too many other blogs and blog comments over the years to count and the one thing I noticed is that there are some folks (like me) who have some very strong opinions. The strange thing is (while reading comments), I only remember reading a few blogs containing comments of disagreement. This means either the Blog Owner shares the opinions (without any variations within those opinions) with all of their readers, OR the blog owners don't approve those comments for posting or delete the comments that don't agree with the opinion of the Blog Owner.
I, your fearless blogger will do no such thing (not approve or delete dissenting opinions)because what makes MY COUNTRY and the country we live in so great is we are free to express our opinions without fear of syndication or arrest.
Also...the commenter said "If you knew anything about the bicycle industry", Well, this is true, I don't know JACK about the industry! Why should I know anything about the industry? My friend, that is THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS BLOG! To give an IGNORANT OUTSIDERS view of an industry that has so thoroughly uninspired the Urban Areas in this country, that bicycle industry products mean NOTHING to youth anymore.
What would Marshall Taylor think of how I am representing him? From being one of the foremost expert in the world on Marshall Major Taylor, My company is set to REPRESENT HIM in a way that no one in the 133 years since his birth has. How will we do that? Just stay tuned!
Anonymous Commenter, I will go even further than your comments concerning my opinions being 'Uneducated'. As the bicycle industry is concerned, I am "Unlearned AND Ignorant" and if being uneducated, unlearned and ignorant means my mind is free too, very shortly, bring the world the HOOTTTESST Rec Bikes on the planet, I accept your judgment and statement that I am uneducated.
It is my hope that you return to read this blog because soon, my company will roll out something that I guarantee you will love. Until that time though Anonymous, I will continue to post MY OPINIONS. Men of vision, like myself, are often ridiculed by those who have accepted the OPINIONS of others as EDUCATION that somehow (they believe) give them an edge over others. It is ALWAYS such people who end up drawing their paychecks from the very people whom they are more educated than :)
As I have in the past told others, I now tell you...Listen to the video and please accept "It's my party (blog) and I will cry if I want to."
WOW! Your fearless blogger has been humbled once again. As many of my regular readers know, I have a DISDAIN for bicycles that have 'Alot of Stuff' and clutter on them. It, in my opinion, just takes away from the simplicity that is bike design. My eyes start to roll around in my head as I count the number of EXTRA WIRES, gears, and what I view as totally unecessary additions to bikes that make them look more complicated (in the name of adding value) than they really are.
That is until I saw this design people and Urban Funk Enthusiasts! This design certainly won't make it into my design 'Funk Hall of Fame' anytime soon, but this design from a company called Work Cycles catches my eye on a few levels. The first is although I think black tires and black frames are totally MINDLESS and unimaginative, it works on this bike, the sprocket and chain are covered with a slick cover and the top and bottom tubing are a thing of BEAUTY. Not the FUNK, but well done...Work Cycles, I don't like ANY of your other designs, but I like this one...you get the APPLAUSE!
Team Major Taylor competes every year in what is known as the Men's Little 500. This team is not only made up of Blacks, but people of all races. The Little 500 happens every year in Indianapolis where Major Taylor is a native son.
Courtney Bishop, who is interviewed in the above video raced for Team Major Taylor in 1992. I just want to get a shout out to all of the riders who have ridden in races and competition all over the country to keep Marshall Major Taylor's legacy alive. Keep on keeping on folks and with much prayer, every one of you who ride in the name of America's greatest forgotten sports hero, will sit in the saddle of a Track and Road Bike bearing his name!
Marshall Major Taylor has begun to creep into the public eye with the unveiling of a Statue made in his likeness that now stands outside of the Worcester, MA. library. Nicknamed the Worcester Whirlwind, Taylor was much loved by his adopted hometown where he moved to with Louis 'Birdie' Munger, his mentor, in the late 1800s. To think that he did this in the late 1800s when African-Americans couldn't even drink out of the same fountain as whites makes this athlete's story even more incredible!
On another video interview, his Great-Great grand-daughter and Grandson said something that was almost Prophetic; "No one really knows him now but I hope Major Taylor is a household name in my life-time!" Fear not young ones, soon, your relative will get HIS DUE and in a way that every household in this country will scream the name "Major Taylor!"
I am forced to post some more bicycle designs that are.......well.....dumb. Please play this video when you are inspecting the heights of stupidity these folks have gone to.
Lisa...My Design Style when I made my Pee-Wee Herman was..like the above song:
GHETTO SUPERSTAR!!!!!
I got a very interesting question from a reader concerning a post from a few years back. Her question was "You said you made a ghetto version of the Pee-Wee Herman back in 1985...what was your design style then compared to now?" The answer to that is multu-layered I guess, however, back then I lived in the ghetto so my designs reflected the things that I held dear. Our values, good or bad, are almost always learned. Back then, I had a hero who happened to be one of my sister's boyfriends. His name was Jerry Sallis who we simply called 'Jay Sal'. At that time (most certainly not now) represented EVERYTHING I wanted to be:
1) He was one of the few men I knew who had a job (granted he was stealing $$$ from both of them)
2) He was always dressed nice and had $$$ in his pocket.
3) His car was always clean and he LEANED so hard in it!
4) Jay Sal could cook too!
5) His command of ghetto slang was unmatched. I can still hear him saying "What up cuz?" In the drawl that was uniquely Jerry.
Jay Sal was GHETTO FABOLOS nad I wanted to be also. He was my role model and growing up in such an environment, positive role models were rare. Our sense of what is and what isn't important, our values are sensory driven in our formative years. When many of you hear this, you will think "Oh my goodness, how could he believe that?" Next time you see one of those programs on TV where they are asking you to give $23.00 per month to help feed a hungry child, notice that some of those children are drinking polluted and discolored water while others are eating spoiled food from garbage dumps. They do this, like I, because if that is all you see and are looking for a way to survive or fit in, you work with, eat, and imitate those around you!
Cadillacs, chrome, and FLASH was the order in my neighborhood, and my bike design reflected this. I tell you what, I will remake that bike EXACTLY as it was then and post it this spring. Until then, for those of you out there who feel like an outsider because of the way you dress, act, or other, be who you are because the worst thing any one of you can do is to not be......UNIQUELY YOU!
"Complain if you want..BUT THIS BLOG IS MY PARTY AND I'LL WHINE IF I WANT TO"
Every once in awhile and even though I am a design genius, I give an opinion, which 99% of the time turns out to be fact. However, although you may not believe believe this, 1% of the time I am wrong! Keeping my term Provolution' in mind, I am VERY HARD on those clowns who design stupid looking bikes in the name of INNOVATION. 99% of the time, the only thing they are innovating is the tooling that it takes to make their wacked out designs. This tooling tends to be expensive, which wouldn't be a problem IF their designs had any hope of seeing the marketplace where they could recoup the investment in tooling.
In this case, IF isn't even relative! I thought about posting a few of these idiotic designs but I have determined that my blog space is to precious to put forth such stupidity. Well.....now that I have that off my chest, back to the subject at hand. I found a rendering of one of these designs (futuristic) which my dear readers falls into that 1% category described above....but the design....DANG! This blog is 2.5 years old and I do not remeber saying this about ANY futuristic looking design, but I have to say this about the above design: "I saw the funk, and it WUZ GOOD!"
Yeh, I know, me, your fearless Blogger has to eat CROW. Me, your fearless Blogger has to admit this thing. But as I always say "A brotha like me didn't know what he didn't know." To you Bicycle Design Innovators (or so you call yourself)- Please don't email me waxing philisophical again about the value of what you do! Cause...as that song says "This is MY PARTY and I'll cry if I want to!"
Views: 2,483,069
Yall know I love me some Scraper Bikes! I just checked their site and it seems they had...A CONVENTION OF SORTS! I tell you what, these cats, the Trunk BOIZ love what they re doing and they found a way, despite their circumstances to do something BIG! I admire their grit and their hustle. What is more I am hoping the CEO Da Champ is entering into some big time promotion relationships with other companies! Champ, you and your team GET IT! Their are companies out their spending MILLIONS per year advertising and can't (although they desire to)reach that niche you have in your back pocket MAN!
To my readers, I am going to share something with you that that Da Champ, Trunk BOIZ, and I understand that you may not;
1) Pushing your product in Urban Areas requires you to SPEND LESS big time advertising dollars and 'Get Hood' with it like Scraper does it! Aka- a more 'Viral' approach!
2) To my readers in the industry, IF you really wanna penetrate the Urban Bicycle Market, STOP BUILDING BIKES THAT ARE UGLY! Why do you think Scraper is such a popular movement? It is because they took THE JUNK you built, and turned it in to something kids all over the country are doing. They are in Cali and I am in Denver and their is a youngster up the street 'Cruisin on his Scraper Bike!'
3) Partner with Street Promoters, like Da Champ, Trunk Boiz, and Scraper for your 'Viral Marketing'. Not just to go promote, but to consult on your designs. They know what Urban Youth will like and what they won't.
4) This will sound contrary to everything you think you know, however, celebrities aren't the most effective way to promote your products. The most effective way is to design hot products, consistently, that will sell regardless of endorsements. Take some of that endorsement $$$ and stick it into infastructure.
These are just a few ideas, but ideas are the things that GREAT COMPANIES nd GREAT PRODUCTS are made of, no?
The word Provolution is a word that was sometimes used in black churches. It simply means 'Taking the best of the past and bringing it forward into the present and carrying that ideal into the future.' Many other industries do this when designing product. Yet, the bicycle industry seems not to be in step with this. The are many challenges when designing bicyles, but going forward into the future, they are going to have to step up to the plate. There are bicycle design competitions all over the world. I recently saw the 2nd place winner in the Tiawanese design competition held every year. The bike was called 'Wild Buffalo'. This design was HOOTTT! That being said, in the market right now, it was totally impractical for mass production.
If you are wondering where I am going with this, the term Provolution applies. Bringing the best of the past forward into the present requires not that some designer comes up with a new hand brake system, or for design, those things are basic and there are only so many variations of them you can use. The good news is that when one focuses on the young adult, kid and junior bicycle market, kids don't care about innovative design, they care about whether they like their bikes and can they have fun on them! I challenge any of you with children to relay a story to me when you took your child to get a bike and they said "Well mom and\or dad, I really don't like the braking system on this bike and the rear wheel base is 2 inches to short for my taste." I raised two kids and I never heard any of that from them. It is about asthetics to them!
When they look at the bike, will they get excited, or will they say "I wish you would have bought me a video game instead." My next post will deal with the biggest enemy of the bicycle industry today (Video Games and gaming systems). Let those of us who love bicycles and like to design them keep the thought of 'Provolution' on our minds and I promise, the industry will sit up and take notice!
You have got to be kidding me! Check out this trick rider named Aaron Frost. His name is Aaron Frost and he and the man you only know as 'The Fabricator of Funk' used to ride together back in the day. I posted about the 3 trick practices so far;
1) Ghostin- Gained popularity in the Bay Area and basically consists of a person running along side their Adult Trike while it peddles itself...BORING!
2) Drifting- This practice is hot and consists of a number of tricks like prolonged skidding when coming down a hill, and peddling faster than the tire can get it's grip which produces a cool looking-controlled skid! HOOOOTTTTT!
3) Aaron Frost- I don't know what he is doing but for the first time in a LOONNNGGG time people I will give Aaron my "I saw the FUNK, and it was good" Award which is the top honor given to anyone on this site.
These are the types of niche and bicycle sub-cultures which we at Major Taylor will latch onto and bring into the main stream. To all of you bicycle tricj riders and enthusiasts, keep on doin your thang, I am coming to get ya and make you STARS!
WOW! I ran across these bicycles in my search for great bicycle design. The company is called The Little Bike Company and they are based in the U.K. I must say that these bikes for small kids are HOOOTTTTT! 
I like these designs for a number of reasons, but the main reason is their SIMPLICITY! I have been telling yall since the beginning that simplicity is where it is at. Gadgets and all that other stuff really takes away from the greatness of the base design.
There is an emerging market that I spoke about some time back in 'Track Bicycles'. These things hearken back to the days of old when the Safety Bicycle was a new thing and the biggest sports stars, like Major Taylor, were men on bicycles! Track Bicycles are some of the most elegant machinery you will ever see folks.
More about that in another post! In other Marshall Taylor News, I am almost done with the design of my new website which will be found, when launched, at www.lemajor.com. Le Major, is French for The Major! This website will be a monster yall! Talk at ya soon.
Things that make you go HMMMM? Check the video out and then the bike designs!
Hubless what?
People, IF you are SO IN LOVE with cycling that you buy Bicycle Furniture..2 words "GET SOME HELP!"
WOW!(And I don't say that in a complimentary way!)
And you thought the Old High Wheels from the late 1800s were DANGEROUS!
As has become my custom here on this bike blog, I will answers some questions that my readers have posed to me. Please understand that I am not trying to be rude or arrogant, but why ask me a question if you do not want the answers people? HERE WE GO;
Questions
"If you want your blog to be successful, why aren't you posting everyday?"
Answer
What is your definition of success and are you comparing this to other blogs? Listen Matt, my definition of success is doing what I want to do on my blog the way I want to do it. If you even do a light search across the 3 big search engines, you will find that all of those other bloggers are posting the same stuff and their is VERY LITTLE originality! Outside of Urban Velo and Bicycle Design Blogspot, everyone else is, well, the same! I am not trying to be different for the sake of being different, but because I am myself, an original in my own right, my blog has to reflect who I am.
Question:
"You seem to be all over the place with your posts, I thought this was a bike design blog?"
Answer:
I have alot of differing interests! But I encourage you to at least go to the bottom of my blog, read past title posts and I know you will find a consistent theme.
Question:
"Why don't you have a widget for readers to subscribe?"
Answer:
I want people to come back to my blog because they want to! I am not going to send someone my posts if they aren't in the mood to read them. Don't you get enough junk in your inbox? Besides, the truth is people put this widget on their sites to show off how many subscribers they have and it has no practical purpose other than that! Yes you could argue it is important for traffic, yes you can argue it shows you have a following...but I am only interested in people who have the love and conviction to visit my site because they like what I do, not because they came across it, subscribed and have to be reminded to read!
Question:
"What do you have against products that are already on the market?"
Answer:
NOTHING! As a recreational bicycle designer myself, I am just sad that the folks who ride these bikes are settling for what is there instead of demanding something better. If folks didn't demand WHAT THEY BELIEVE to be better during this last Presidentional Election, would Obama have won the presidency?
Question:
"I like the bikes I saw at Target and think they are nice!"
Answer:
Joel my friend, you do because you just don't know any better! Poor guy.
Question:
"You suck!"
Answer:
Indeed I may, indeed I may! But I am going to suck SOOO BAADDD that you are going to run out to the store in the future, see my FUNK and give me your $$$- Count on it!
Monkey Lectric www.monkeylectric.com is doing big things for bikes people. I posted a few times about a company called Scaper bikes www.scraperbikes.net a few times and if you go 2 posts down from this one you can view a youtube video that was a HUGE viral marketing success from Scraper. Scraper Bikes and Monkey Lectric are 2 opposite ends of the creative spectrum. Why do I say that? Scraper Bikes is:
- Very low tech yet SUPER CREATIVE! An example of what ANYONE can do if they just FREE THEIR MINDS and use what is available to them instead of believing they have to have alot of money to launch something big.
- Monkey Lectric id VERY HIGH TECH and also SUPER CREATIVE. By the technology they are demonstrating, it had to cost A MINT to develop this concept and I am sure they are wise enough to apply for at least a Design Patent. Bicycle lights aren't a new concept by any stretch of the imagination but what they are doing is FREAKISH and original.
- Scraper is something for the average person who wants to personalize their rims while Monkey is something you got to spend some CREAM on.
- 'Scraper Bikes by Day' 'Monkey Lectric by night'.
All in all, their are huge opportunities for bike companies who are original and have a love for what they are doing. Major Taylor was a bicycle racer and VERY ORIGINAL in his day! Enjoy!
What has this got to do with bicycle design? Hmmmm...Nothing, but this is Wolverine from the movie x-men...I MEAN ITS' Wolverine yall! The name Wolverine sounds like an interesting concept for a bicycle design don't ya think? Look at his hair...I could do something with that!!!!!!Hello head tubing. Enjoy.
Sorry I have been away for a minute yall. But I am still working on giving this blog a new look. I have searched through literally HUNDREDS of template and I like the 'Newspaper Look' you now see! I came across a cycling club called American Wheelman. As you remember from a prior post, this organization is the descendant of the League of American Wheelman which regulated the sport of Bicycle Racing in its' heydat of the late 1890s. They gave up control of the league when a rival league was formed by disgruntled racers headed up by bicycle racer Floyd McFarland, who also happened to be Major Taylor's fiercest rival on the bicycle track. Below are vintage pictures from back in the day and, of course, with comments from your fearless blogger- ME!
Now this design is HOOOOTTTTT! High arching tubing.....R U KIDDING ME?
A mix of early bicycle models!
Little girl on an early tricycle model- Chillin!
She straight ganstar ain't she?
FOLLOW THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD! Ain't this a Munchskin from the Wizard of Oz?
Dang girl- That corsett looks like it is SQUASHING YOU- BREATHE HONEY!
HOT Name..but..the look...uuuhhhh
Rover-1885
And you ride something similar to this TODAY!
Lawson Model-1879
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