Contrary to what some of you might be thinking, the bandages have nothing to do with liposuction or hair removal/skin graft treatments...

Our resident Zoolander, Dano, tried to erase most of the skin on the right side of his body last weekend. While carving one of the last sweet turns on Highway 84 dropping into Woodside, his front tire blew. Not exactly the kind of thing that you can just ride out when there are cars coming the other way… And while its easy to jump on the “That’s why you shouldn’t ride road bikes” waaahmbulance, I’d like to point out that we loaned a Blur XC carbon to a gal from New york last weekend so that she could explore the trails in Wilder with her hosts, and both she and her host showed up at the office on Monday morning to return the bikes covered in enough gauze bandage to stock a burn ward. At least Dano had a legit excuse.

Anyway, it’s still too early to tell how this wreck will impact his modeling career. Good thing he has this bike sales side job to fall back on for the time being. And thank God he didn’t land on his face! Might be a tough sell getting the lucrative Blackburn trainer box role again though. Condolences, well wishes, “good side” modeling job offers, aloe vera sources and requests for the video of the Specialized ad he’s working on can be sent to dano@santacruzbicycles.com.

That reminds me, I still need to relate some degree of what went down on “moon a Giant day.” But I’m waiting for the prime photo evidence to kick in. Suffice to say, no actual mooning occurred, proving that nobody actually reads this blog. However, the Giants did suffer the misfortune of locating their evening photo shoots right in the same piece of turf where the regular Wednesday night ride assembles. So, no mooning, but I have it on good authority that an uncomfortable amount of heckling went down, and that Giant time trial bikes don’t handle well in the dirt.

Speaking of wreckage, how about this sweetness:

Ever wondered what 400 pounds of weed and a million dollars in cash looked like?

That right there is the haul from Missy Giove’s arrest last week. Call us small time amateurs, but that’s a big chunk of weed. It could easily be argued that Missy was never one to go for anything in half measures, but damn, that’s gonna be hard to chalk up as “personal use.” Scarier still was this mugshot of Missy…:

…where it appears as if she is trying to go for a suburban transgender Keanu Reeves look. Only way tougher than Keanu could ever hope to be.

Anyway, enough ambulance chasing for one day. Tomorrow we’re gonna blow the lid off some more 29er information, and maybe discuss the greater theory in mountain bike advertising that using any visual metaphor involving outer space is, in fact, the kiss of death. Discuss:

See? Space is not an effective selling tool, even when you color it purple...

Finally, the World’s fastest (and most stylish) Irish videographer, John Lawlor, has just shot over the latest goings on from the Syndicate’s weekend in Slovenia. Can’t win every battle:

Santa Cruz Syndicate – Maribor 6/21/2009. Minnaar regains the leaders jersey! from santa cruz bikes on Vimeo.