Now I am as cheap as they come, but really duct tape?

Call me what you will but I have no problems admitting I am a bike snob. Now I am not as bad a snob as some of my friends (not naming any names, Scott) but there are some crimes so hideous that they simply cannot be ignored...

My last girlfriend used to always make fun of me because I constantly looked at other bikes whenever we went anywhere. Most of the time she was amused, if not confused, about my behaviour. However, on occasions she would get annoyed with me and call me a bike snob. This happened whenever I would shake my head in disdain and comment about some cheap department store bike that caught my eye. An all too frequently occurrence in this town. Now the bikes that did catch my attention weren't the general run of the mill cheap crappy bikes, but real pieces of works, and I mean absolutely nothing good when I say pieces of work; I will get into that shortly.

I think her annoyance ainly stemmed from the fact she too owned one of these death traps disguised as bikes. Her bike was this ugly blue "mountain bike" that I swear weighed 50 lbs with the tires flat. This was least half her weight and being the determined girl she was she used to lug it around everywhere up and down stairs. I think this was partly pure defiance and partly... well now that I think about it I am pretty sure it was entirely defiance. Anyways one day near the end of our time together she started to see the light when she came into ownership of a nice sub 24 lbs mountain bike. She would still call me a bike snob, but it was always a little less venomous than before.

So that bring me to the atrocity that I saw today. I went to the grocers to buy some food when I spotted this beauty (Pictured right). I got closer, just to be sure it wasn't the drugs, grabbed the handle bars and started to twist. Sure enough they moved and spun in the ever so sticky way only a duct taped handle bar could. YES you read right, the handle bar was taped to the stem; taped, what the hell gives with that? Ya think duct tape is really going to hold the shit together as you hop curbs and launch stairs? I don't think so. Now in my day I have been hard up for cash and have had to resort to some pretty drastic things to keep my bike rolling; i.e. the time spent as a gigolo selling my tender young body to women in their late 40's. But for all my debaucher I never, ever stooped this low. This here is unmentionable, its hideous, it despicable and to me it shows not only a complete lack of respect your bike, but for yourself as well.

Clearly the person is sending out a cry for help...