Even after spending half my life as a professional bike rider I still feel overwhelmed when I walk into a bicycle shop. Such an overload of technology, sizes, springy things I don’t understand, and a dizzying array of prices. On one level I think it’s all pretty amazing. I can nerd out with the best of them on all the cool new gadgets and spaceship bikes. On another level I find it all a bit discouraging. I have to say that most of my best memories about bicycles stem from the simplicity of the bike ride. There really is something special about riding a bike… I’ve spent far too much time trying to figure out what exactly it is. Your body powering you, the natural balance, the peacefulness, and the forgetting of everything that complicates life…. some combination of those things and probably more….
I truly want Fairdale to bring some of those irreplaceable moments I’ve been given to other people. As the “bike guy” amongst my group of friends I was always asked for bike buying advice. I never had a good answer. I couldn’t recommend the performance first designed BMX bikes I made my living on to a friend who wanted to ride to work, nor could I suggest that my friend who wanted to ride around the lake buy a race inspired road bike. To be honest my favorite bike to ride was a 1950’s basket bike I’d found in a dumpster. It’d been mistreated and abused for years but still happily rolled along, broadcasting smiles through me every time I rode it. I could hardly suggest to my friends that they go searching through dumpsters for their dream bike! It seemed to me that so many bikes were simply caught up in the technology race, dorky, or not durable.
Fairdale bikes all are designed to keep it simple. Of course we understand that different riders have different demands for their bikes and different concepts of what simple is. And… as our line grows you’ll see we also understand and enjoy pushing the limits of bikes. Our near 30 years of BMX roots shine here because you could hardly argue any bike is more simple then a single speed steel BMX bike, yet few can perform on such a high level. Those are good sensibilities to hold on to. Don’t complicate things where you don’t need to.
We’re starting a new R+D Section of the website so that you can see what we’re up to. We have some fun ideas planned that will be both good fun and educational for us, maybe for you to! Click HERE to check out Janice & her Weekender.
