Hubris Comics

As usual, I seem to be writing a product review for a product that’s no longer in production.

In fact, I’m writing a lament for a dear friend.  My DMR Sidekick 2.

There are different kinds of bicycles for different kinds of people.  Some of my friends, for example, like to ride on really expensive road bikes with ultra lightweight frames and tires so skinny that you measure your contact with the earth in millimeters.  Some people like good, solid old beaters.  Some people like true cruisers which look like art these days.  Some people like Mountain Bikes.

Finding the perfect bike for you means deciding what you want to do with it and riding something that isn’t perfect so you can catch the wishes coming off your lips.  “Man, I wish my knees weren’t coming up so high.  Man, I wish I was on a road with this thing.  Man, I wish the brakes worked.”  That sort of thing.

So.  I was riding an old Trek mountain bike that I bought from a buddy for a hundred bucks.  It was a nice, sturdy machine, but it wasn’t right somehow.  Didn’t feel substantial.  I felt wonky on it.  I also ride an old BMX bike I still have from when I was a kid (People who know me are now scratching their heads.  “I thought that imbecile was still a kid” some think.  Others are thinking “Kid?  That imbecile hasn’t been a kid in thirty years.”  Both are correct, somehow.  I blame the language, or the lack of clever use of it these days)

So, with those two bikes, I learned that I like to ride on dirt.  What’s the next step?  Buy a bike built to rule the dirt.

Cannondale SuperV 400.  Wooooooo.  More than I’d ever sunk on a bike before.  Beefy.  Tough.  And the first time the trail turned to sand, I thought I pulled something.

In fact, the Cannondale is a great bike, just not for around here, and not the way I ride.  It’s built for the way I wish I ride.  It’s built for doing YouTube style drops off of big junk.

So, it’s a little heavy but you could say ‘substantial’, and it’s a little overbuilt but you could say ‘hardily engineered.’  You’d say that stuff if you were writing sales copy, but as is seen by the fact that I still own a 1979 BMX bike that was bought new for me by my daddy… I don’t sell bikes much.

Then one day, I got a commission.  I was to paint a mural at a bike shop.  I’ve put photos of it up on this site.

It may be stupid to basically hand money back to the people who just paid you, but you have to understand- this was a bike shop!  I love the look and feel of bicycles… on dirt.  I coveted a new bike, and I had the whole time I was working on the mural to ask questions… to pin down just what I wanted.

And I did.  I got the perfect bike- for me.  It was the DMR Sidekick 2.

It’s a trials bike- the sort of thing that Ryan Leech jumps up onto things with.  That means it’s the size of a mountain bike but it has the architecture of a BMX bike.  You could, and I did, grab the hydraulic disc brake up front and balance on the front tire. (I also flew right over the front tire a few time, and I also did that silly thing where you ALMOST balance and just step gracelessly off the bike over the handlebars.  Oh, the joy in my heart.)

It was great for playing around.  Hopping side-wise over whatever.  Jumping front-wise over whatever.  It had two chainrings in the front and nine gears in the back, so you could get where you were going before you geared it for horsing around and practicing trackstands.

So- dirt, distance, tricks and fun.  The perfect bike… not for guys what  ride a hundred miles of pavement, but for me the perfect bike. I was in love.

Aaaand then I went to unlock the neighborhood church for the cubscouts one Sunday.  In the time it took to say the pledge of allegiance and come back to the door of the church, my love was gone.  The police say it’s been too long now and it’s likely changed hands, so prosecution for the theft is no longer possible and blah blah blah.

So for a few years that felt like months, I pinched myself thinking I must be dreaming to have gotten into my possession such a fine thing.  It took a month up a scaffold and many hours away from my family, but it was worth it.  And now for a month that’s felt like years, I’ve been without it.

As for the low-life, sonofabitch, good-for-nothing, %$#wipe, low-rent, &%$#wad, nobody &%#$heap bastard that took my bike and obviously wasn’t going to even understand what he had under him other than thinking the seat was awfully low, well, he can die.  Die a long, painful, slow, ugly, mean death.  Him and his dog.  I hope his house burns with all his best friends inside. I don’t suppose his family will hear about it because they’ve likely ignored and laughed at him behind his back for years because he’s been a useless waste of breath upon the earth.  I hope he gets both intestinal parasites and skin disease that eat his bowels and his flesh in a grisly  horrifying manner that leads to his lonely, pathetic demise.  In a greasy puddle behind a dumpster.  And if you think that sounds harsh on my part, I don’t care.

I just want my bike back.  It was perfect, and it was mine.  The thought of it rusting somewhere in the hands of a thief hurts every day.