Cycling in the South Bay

It was with a sense of disbelief, shock, disappointment, and sad-facey-ness all ’round when Specialized’s brand ambassadors were notified that their amazing marketing work for this amazing bicycle brand was no longer needed, wanted, or appreciated, effective immediately.

Ambassador from the Republic of Badass, Sarah Swallow, was informed she’d have to leave The United Kingdom of Specialized immediately, with barely enough time to clean out her panniers, while she was on an incredibly badass bikepacking tour of Baja, a rugged and unknown and remote and risky and amazing and mysterious destination that is otherwise immediately adjacent to San Diego.

Specialized’s Dictator for Life Mike Sinyard brought in new propaganda and defense ministry officials who, after reviewing the ambassadorships, immediately terminated the relationships with a total of 40 nations including Ride-Aroundistan, Unemploydia, Phukinoff Onmybikeico, SocMedistan, the Goofin Republic, Hashtagola, and the Federation of Bikebums, among others.

Specialized’s Vice-Dictator Scott Maguire and its Minister of Propaganda Armin Landgraf issued the following joint statement:

It is with a sense of disbelief that, upon taking the helm, we learned that for the last eight years our glorious nation has been subsidizing brand ambassadors, none of whom has ever done anything remotely noteworty in the world of cycling, to fuck around the globe, diddling off on social media with stupid hashtags like #iamspecialized in the bizarre hope that anyone gives so much as one twisted fuck about their carryings-on, much less that it would ever stimulate someone to go out and buy one of our abusurdly overpiced bicycles.

To the contrary, ever since beginning this stupid endeavor, we’ve been besieged by other similar social media whores who are requesting/proposing/demanding that they too be given a $15,000 bike, salary, and equipment in order TO DO NOTHING.

Our ROI on this “program” called “Seek and Enjoy” has been nonexistent, whereas the money we spent on Peter Sagan quintupled with each rainbow jersey. Going forward we will place our sponsorship dollars on actual athletes winning actual races against other actual, legitimate competitors. How you did at the Gran Fondo (196th overall, 3rd in your age category) will remain a personal high watermark for you but will no longer entitle you to be our employee, spokesperson, or in Shakespeare’s words, “caterpillar of the commonwealth.”

Further, our analysis of “Seek and Enjoy” brand ambassadors revealed that far from creating a cadre of committed customers who wanted to “Fly Like Sarah,” it created a cadre of skeptical cheapskates who, in the words of one ex-customer, said “What the fuck do I need a fancy bike for just to pedal around and be a bike bum? I’m selling all my shit and getting a used Surly.”

This de-motivation of the customer base, as well as the utterly silly notion that customers want to emulate people who don’t do anything of note, along with declining sales, the rise of e-biking, the death of road racing, and the general disgust that more and more people feel about doing exercise, has led us to revoke the credentials of these lazy diplomats, apologize to our loyal customers, and see if we can more effectively promote the lie that in order to enjoy bicycling you need to spend more money.

United Kingdom of Specialized, Edict No. 8,231,211, Public Law 32-981

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