Bike Snob - Anonymous [70]
On election day, my stomach churned with fear as I prepared to address the auditorium. I had drafted an ambitious campaign speech with the help of Mrs. Orlovsky, who, despite having fled communist Russia, fully endorsed my quasi-socialist cleanup program. (In fact, now that I think about it, perhaps Mrs. Orlovsky herself had Stalinist ambitions and hoped to install me as a puppet.) Writing the speech had been the easy part. Now I had to read it to the whole class, which was the hard part. I had been dreading this moment for days.
Among my opponents was one of the popular Leibowitz twins. I couldn’t tell you which one—actually, given the farcical nature of the election, it might very well have been both of them. In any event, whether it was just a singular Leibowitz or the plural Leibowi, whoever spoke before me delivered quite an impressive speech. The Leibowitz administration, he or they assured us, would see to it that a soda fountain was installed in the cafeteria immediately. Furthermore, if elected, President Leibowitz would organize a class trip to Six Flags Great Adventure. The speech may even have contained a promise to push the start of the school day ahead to 10:30 so everyone could stay home and watch The Great Space Coaster, though I can’t remember for sure. After the Great Adventure thing I just stopped keeping track.
While the audacity of these promises was shocking, each one was met with tremendous applause. I knew right then that the election was over. Until that moment Craig Ferber had probably been the most popular kid in the school, due almost entirely to the fact that he had the exact same jacket Michael Jackson had worn in the “Beat It” video. But as the Leibowitz speech went on, you could see him slowly deflate and sink deeper and deeper into his red pleather. A new regime, political and social, was at hand.
As you can imagine, the student body was not impressed with my speech. I might as well have been reading the ingredients on a box of frozen peas. After all, what fifth grader wants to pick up litter when they can create it at Great Adventure instead? Despite the fact that the promises in the Leibowitz speech were beyond ludicrous and my own were perfectly reasonable (if more than a bit dorky) my loss was a fait accompli—which somehow stung even worse since I hadn’t even wanted to be president in the first place.
Once you’ve experienced something like this it’s hard not to notice that the pattern keeps playing itself out again and again. Charismatic people promise stuff, and hopeful people give them whatever the charismatic people claim they need in order to deliver it. You’d think that sort of thing wouldn’t fly after the fifth grade, but it actually soars even higher as we all get older. Sometimes it’s a movie that a studio bills as a hit before it even comes out so that they’ll make millions of dollars before everyone realizes how crappy it is. Sometimes it’s a bank that offers a loan so attractive on the surface that you don’t realize what you got into until the lead balloon drops on your head a few years later. Sometimes it’s a bike company or publication telling you a new wheelset or shifter or coaching system is all you need to close the gap between you and Carlos Sastre. And sometimes it’s just a fad, a look comprised of meaningless logos and attractive “colorways” which you adopt first and ask questions about later—if you ever question it at all.
Cycling’s not for everybody, but at the same time there are a lot of people who don’t realize that cycling is for them. And even though bikes are highly fashionable and more companies are selling more stuff than ever, these people may never find it. In fact, all the selling and posturing