I check a lot of sites every day (mostly BMX and mostly through my RSS). One of my absolute favorite BMX sites has become the Snafu site. I know that sounds weird, but lately it’s been getting updated a lot (~100 times in January) and the site always has something to offer. After the jump, check out 5 of my favorite Snafu moments of the past few months. While nothing may ever top McGoo deep throating a peg and then giving me a shout out, all of these gems are funny in their own right.
1. My first thought when I gazed upon this mess was “wow, what the fuck is that?” I began to read the paragraph below it and came upon this:
“This CNC-machined 6061 T-6 alloy stem is the most attractive model we’ve ever offered, and that’s saying a lot—Morgan’s Captain stem is pretty damn nice.”
What planet does McGoo live on? I am of the opinion that the Morgan Wade stem is definitely one of the ugliest stems ever made (interestingly, none of the 4 major mail orders sell it), but this thing certainly takes the cake. It’s like McGoo looked through Dans’ selection of stems, took notes on which ones were the most popular and then decided to make one that looked absolutely nothing like any of them. Making matters even worse, it weighs in at 10 ounces (basically what every other stem on the market weighs) which makes you wonder why anyone would ever buy this thing.
2. McGoo wrote an inspiring, long winded tirade about how damn great BMX magazines are. Fair enough, I think every BMXer can agree with that sentiment to some extent. However this blog entry is mostly notable for how hypocritical it is. A quick search through every issue of Ride, Dig and Ride UK I have laying around from the past few months turned up zero Snafu ads (sorry, I’m not on the BMX Plus subscriber list). Why do you think the magazines are having so much trouble in the first place? Because brands like Snafu have realized that print ads just aren’t worth it. Sure readership and sales are down and the internet is solely responsible, but the fact that magazines which used to clock in at 200+ pages now struggle to afford 100 pages of content is solely due to a drop in advertising. I can’t fault Snafu for making a sound business decision in a harsh economic climate, but to then praise the same magazines they have financially abandoned is a little silly, isn’t it?
3. This post is from today. The title reads “Dead Sailor Alert” and the body of the post reads “This is why girls shouldn’t ride BMX bikes”. I don’t even know where to begin. First off, the photo used is not of a dead sailor at all. Second, do you really think Snafu can afford to give up any market share, even if it is the tiny percentage of BMXers who are female? I think most of us who ride know at least 1 or 2 girls that ride and it’s pretty astonishing that a brand as troubled as Snafu would want to exclude them from bike riding based solely on their genitals.
4. The following line used to describe these new pedals strikes me as overwhelmingly stupid even by Snafu’s legendary standards:
“Pro’s are becoming disenchanted by the disposable nature of plastic pedals.”
First off, someone go run a survey of every pro street rider in America and I’m sure you will find that the majority of them are running plastic pedals. That trend isn’t going anywhere any time soon, no matter how much Snafu wants you to shell out 80 dollars for their pedals. The most entertaining part about that quote though is how it makes it sound like they just invented metal pedals so that finally riders can throw away their PC’s. Newsflash: Plenty of companies have been making great metal pedals for years and up until 2 years ago, nobody rode plastic pedals. Can you imagine any rider in their right mind trading in their Ruben’s or Jim C’s for a set of Anorexic pedals? You know that this is bad when I’m only going to note in passing how hard they ripped off a name that Demolition already used. Final LOL: In this post McGoo essentially begs Dans to carry these pedals (they don’t).
5. Really almost any time that Snafu posts an opinion about anything it’s funny. Public Enemy the greatest hip hop group of all time? I have some friends from Staten Island that would take issue with that. Fixed gears are gay? I know, but I doubt all the dudes whose photos you used are going to be excited about buying the bunk fixie parts you’re churning out after they read that. Does anyone really believe McGoo would turn this chick down? And my final Snafu LOL moment goes to his appearance on The Big Big BMX Show 6 in which he states “I think a helmet looks absurd on street.” That comment is pretty ballsy coming from someone who has never actually ridden street and seems even more overwhelming when you consider all the riders that have suffered severe brain injuries while riding street – Gary Young, Ian Munro and Alex Platt all come to mind.
Anyway those are just a few of my observations that I’ve had recently while reading the Snafu site. Got any observations of your own? Disagree with me? Anything? Let me know in the comments.