While I was at CES, I missed the whole Rock Racing, King of Pants thing, but Andrew got me up to speed.
Out on a ride, I heard Cipo is signing with Rock and the Pants King, but then again maybe not. During Interbike, I stood with others at Rock’s Lamborghini display and wondered, “what does this have to do with bikes?” Later, I bumped into Frankie Andreu (I did notice he was wearing some really tight pants), talked with him about it, and figured out it was this guy with money throwing it around the sport. I didn’t meet Ball, but did hear all of his primes during the Interbike crit and saw his team pull up in Escalades. Not my thing, but hey he could’ve thrown his money at stripper poles and hip-hop culture.
So, I’m all for bringing rock and roll to the sport, fill the office park crit with fans, but also realize the sport has its traditions. We’ve worked with Hed Cycling on our bike projects – Jet 60s will complete the new race bike – and companies like Hed are what drive this industry and sport. While Ball can pop off all day, it’s what he does and makes some headlines, I’m sure Hed would rather just get back to building wheels.
An interesting footnote to this story, is that Andrew raced with Cipo and Tim Mulrooney from Hed during Rock Racing’s crit – here’s the photo.
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