If At First You Don't Succeed.

It's far too early to give up on the idea of dragging my dog around with a fishing pole. I have too much invested. V2 is curing.



Same deal, different sleeve, different pole . . .



What's even more different this time, though, is that I saved the warranty card. Here's to hoping I don't havta go all ballistic when the claims process turns contentious . . .



I tried to do some online research on fishing rod strength, but I quickly fell asleep. All I know is that the last rod was very obviously a cheap turd and I knew there had to be a better rod out there and I went to a big box outdoor hunting-fishing-type store and looked at the massive rack of rods and applied my keen eye and superior analytical skills and then I picked out one that was on sale for 50% off.

But I will say this. I have zero interest in hunting or fishing which is not to say that either are bad things, just not my things. And it's quite an experience walking into a store that is built around catering to a group of highly emotional nerds when you have abosolutely no emotional attachment to that particular group of nerds. I saw some rods that cost $400. At a big box discount store. That means there must be guys out there building custom ones for two grand. For a damn fishing pole. Holy living hell.

And it was like looking in the mirror, because the non-bikey fisherman who walks into the equivalent big-box bike store (which doesn't yet exist because we're niche compared to the big-time business of fishing, but let's just say REI for purposes of discussion) and sees a $1500 road bike and says WTF, for a damn bike? And then extrapolates that there must be specialty guys out there building $15K bikes, which is true, and leaves with his head spinning.

We would both say that things have gotten a little out of hand in terms of the marketing tail wagging the consumer dog.

Holy krap, I've gotten carried away, what am I doing. Please disregard. I've got my eye on a coupla carbon fiber bottle cages to help lighten up the karate monkey. Those are pretty much the last thing I need, though, so after that, I'd like to talk to you about how crazy the whole bike business has become.