Initially we wanted to run this post out on a thread from the quote “It’s good to be the king,” from Mel Brooks’ “History of the World, Part 1″, but since the only video clips we could find of that featured a pretty gratuitous moment of Mel pantomiming some relatively obvious sex a la croupade, we decided instead to go with the inimitable Bruce Campbell and the final scene from the end of Army of Darkness, one of the greatest films of all time. Unfortunately, it seems that NBC/Universal has nuked almost all the intact slices of that video from the face of the internet, no small feat in of itself, so we had to settle with the almost equally awesome “boomstick” speech, but missed out on the final words of the movie. Shame on you, NBC/Universal…

Anyway, all of this is a lead-in to our Friday salute to our boss, and his new bike. See, when you own the company, you get to do pretty much whatever you want when it comes to bikes. One of the perks. So, on his way out today, Roskopp grunted “Put that picture of my bike up on the blog. How much more does your bike weigh again?” before walking out the door laughing like a mafia don coming home from a group kneecapping. We do as he commands:

in this case, the Bossman’s new bike is a Tallboy, size large. It weighs 23.6 pounds, with pedals. Bossman achieved this via RaceFace Next cranks (apologies for earlier referring to them as XX, but the pic was so blurry I had trouble making out what they were. Now I only have trouble wondering why the Bossman wants a 30 speed bike), XX drivetrain, ti-Eggbeater pedals, Edge carbon seatpost, tubular rims and Geax sew-ups, and some really ugly red foam grips. That’s right. 29″ sew-ups. Only thing more exorbitant would perhaps be having the sew-ups hand sewn with from the intestines of an incredibly lightweight but endangered animal of some sort. Bossman’s new bike is a solid two pounds lighter than the SPX kit Tallboy with Edge rims that I’ve been riding around, and therefore Bossman wins the light bike race which I haven’t been able to afford getting into.

23.6 pounds, with pedals, fully built, 100mm travel, 29″ bike. We live in a time of magic.

However, we need to take a moment to bust on the Bossman’s platinum card dream, if only so we can exorcise some of our seething jealousy, by critiquing his photography (and because he does this to us every time we run the catalog). First, way to take a picture of an $8000 bike, with an iPhone by the looks of things, and out of focus to boot. Smooth. Second, how about trying to align those valve stems for us? Rookie… Third, why can I see the left crankarm? hide that shit behind the seat tube, cranks don’t run at 6 and midnight, that’s on the first page of the handbook for bike industry photo interns, jeez… Fourth, put the chain on the big ring, dammit. You know better than this, man. Fifth, not so sure about seat tilt, but we’ll let you slide for now. Finally, were they out of black grips?

Sigh… What can ya do? Hope the Bossman, and all of you, get some mileage in this weekend. We got weather coming. Buckle up, buttercups!