Recycled Cycling: What's Happening to my Special Purpose?

Last week, I mentioned the possibility of doing some PSAs in order to promote safe, cellphone-free driving. Well, thanks to the visual magic of the incomparable Erik K, that possibility has become a reality:

If you are the proprietor of a blog or website, I implore you to join the fight against driving while distracted by posting this image. Sure, I've taken on causes, promoted them, and then abandoned them before, but this one's different. This campaign will save lives and not just lifestyles, and by ungluing cellphones from the sides of drivers' heads we can benefit all cyclists, not just messengers. Because when you're driving, the only thing that should be stuck to your head is your gooey, gelled-up hair. (And I shouldn't even have to mention driving drunk. When you're driving, the only thing that should be plastered is your hair to your scalp.) So help spread the word!

Of course, not all campaigns are of the guileless, public service variety. Most want to sell you something. And that's fine with me. I don't go in for that stop shopping nonsense, and I'm no enemy of giant corporations. In fact, you can find me most days riding the IOJB around town and sipping either an Orange Julius (a fine IDQ product) or a deliciously frothy Starbucks beverage. You'll know it's me because I'll be wearing either my moisture-wicking chicken suit with a KFC bucket for a helmet (on which I've written "Fried Chicken Is Delicious!" with a magic marker), or else on really hot days just a pair of Mickey Mouse ears, and I'll also be singing songs from the hit Broadway Disney musical, "The Lion King."

Still, even a pandering corpo-whore such as I can sometimes be shocked at peoples' willingness to be rolling advertisements. I was thumbing through trackosaurusrex recently to see if fixed-gear freestyling has progressed past wheelies, barspins, and skidding yet (it hasn't) when I saw this:


Nike Windrunner Ride L.A. from Veesh on Vimeo.

I guess this happened over a week ago now, but word travels slowly to the East Coast. At any rate, it would appear that Nike has harnessed the irresistible lure of the free windbreaker in order to get a bunch of people to ride around Los Angeles on fixed-gear bicycles and make a free commercial for them. It's like a Critical Mass of consumerism!

Like many people, I just assumed that when Nike ended its relationship with the Great Trek Bicycle Making Company last year, they were leaving cycling altogether. And even though Nike said that Nike Cycling would continue to offer products into 2008, judging from their website the Nike Cycling line consists entirely of these two items:

However, judging from the Nike Windrunner ride, they've actually managed to stay in cycling, only in a much smarter way. Now, they no longer need to spend extra money on costly things like making cycling products and buying ad space for those products. Instead, they can simply take some of the non-cycling products they've already got lying around and then get a bunch of people to ride their bikes in them. Also, they've wisely chosen to focus on fixed-gear cyclists, who not only readily accept fashion over function but who also live to make videos of themselves wearing those fashions. This is a vastly more intelligent approach than Nike's previous one, which basically involved selling cycling-specific products (like their rebranded DMT cycling shoes) to bike racers who are notoriously fickle and who occasionally demand irritating things like performance.

See, no company with any sense would ever sell something as specialized as a cycling shoe. You can't wear those things anywhere off the bike, and you definitely won't find a bunch of kids who don't ride bikes deciding that carbon-soled road shoes are cool and wearing them to the mall. So making something like that is not good business. But what is good business is taking a windbreaker you've been making for 30 years, getting a bunch of people to make a free commercial for it, and then maybe--just maybe--if that pays off making it "cycling specific" by putting a bike-related logo on it.

Because why should something be purpose-built when it can be re-purposed? It may not be cheaper for you, but it's definitely cheaper for them. And isn't helping people sell you stuff what cycling's all about?