Booze For Bikes (or is that bikes for booze?)

Maverick Offers Free Bikes to Beer Lovers

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By Andrew Juskaitis

Drink enough of ‘the good stuff’ and win one of these.

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Just stopped by the offices of Maverick American to say hi to the guys and ran into resident marketing guru, Steven Elmes. To be totally honest, I was officially on the Maverick premises to visit with our resident mad engineer/tester Mark Rhomberg who inhabits a small corner of the spacious 5000 square foot facility (complete with 1 acre backyard dirt jumping area) . On my way through the Maverick assembly area I ran into Elmes and his beautiful assortment of freshly painted Maverick frames.

As he briefly showed me a few of the latest paint schemes Maverick is offering (my favorite was the woodland camo’) he also handed me promo card describing Maverick’s latest promotion. Unlike most promos which reward consumers for saving-up box tops or trimming coupons, Maverick has teamed-up with Colorado based Oskar Blues Brewery to offer a most unique offer. Here’s the deal: be the first to recycle 3501 cans of Oskar Blues Brewery’s Dale’s Pale Ale cans and you can score one of three ML-7 bikes that Maverick is giving away.

With the offer expiring on October 31 of next year, that means you’ll have to drink about a twelver a day to satisfy the requirements, but I’m guessing there are more than a few of you out there up for the challenge (or willing to have more than few blow-out beer bashes to catch-up on your recycling needs).

Why 3501 cans? Because, according to Elmes, “that’s how many cans it takes to fill a pallet. It seemed like a good number to us.”

In case you were trying to run the numbers for yourself, a can of Dale’s is about $1. The bike will retail for around $4995-–in econ class we were told this could be considered a “good deal.” To find out more check out www.maverickamerican.com or www.dalespaleale.com in the near future for further details.

Germans rejoice! SRAM triggers are now legal in the homeland.

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Meanwhile, back in Deutschland…
Just 48 hours from the August 28 opening of this year’s Eurobike trade show, Shimano lawyers filed an injunction against the SRAM corporation forbidding the manufacturer from exhibiting and distributing its new trigger-shifter line in Germany. Caught by surprise, SRAM scrambled to amend its ’04 catalogs and pull all of its trigger-shifter technology from its display at the trade show in Friedrichshafen, Germany.

For almost three long months SRAM waited with bated breath to see if the German court would interpret its trigger shifter as being an infringement on Shimano’s RapidFire Plus patents. If so, SRAM would not allowed to sell its trigger shifter in Germany (a significant market for the manufacturer).

We just received this especially one-sided update from SRAM regarding the matter:

On November 13, 2003, the Munich District Court set aside Shimano’s preliminary injunction against SRAM’s X-series trigger shifters. This was done through a standard opposition brought by SRAM. Shimano’s action now stands overturned and anyone in Germany is again free to purchase, assemble, use, advertise, ride or race with SRAM X-series trigger shifters.Shimano obtained the preliminary injunction through a legal tactic that initially excluded SRAM’s ability to present our case before the court made their decision. In our opinion it is not surprising that Shimano chose this course of action, which proved to be disruptive to the market. It is consistent with Shimano’s behavior to limit choice in the market and force the use of their products.SRAM’s policy is to take responsibility for our products. That includes indemnifying customers in the event that a court awards patent damages due to the use of a SRAM product. As we have publicly stated and committed to this policy, Shimano’s attempts to intimidate our customers can only be seen as harassment and attempting to limit choice.We presume that Shimano will continue a legal action against SRAM products, but now it will be done through the process of an open trial in which SRAM has equal opportunity to present our opinions. We hope that Shimano will stop attacking customers and focus their talent and resources on competition and growing the bike industry as a whole.SRAM appreciates our customer’s business and also their support of X-series trigger design. SRAM will continue to design innovative performance products that provide customer choice.

VeloNews contacted Shimano’s Chris DiStefano to refute any of the comments made in this particular press release, but he limited his response to “Sorry, no comment from Shimano.”

Finally, received this letter from Steven Sheffield of Salt Lake City, Utah who keenly noticed that Oval Concepts was successful in getting its JetStream fork approved by the UCI after it was initially banned when team Saeco ran it during the Giro. Hopefully this will give those manufacturers fighting to get disc brakes legalized on ‘cross bikes a bit of hope.

Dear VeloNews;
Hey, look … the system works!!! Oval Concepts didn’t play by the rules when outfitting the Saeco team’s time trial bikes with their Jetstream Aero forks during the Giro d’Italia, and got spanked when notified that the forks were banned as new technology … but instead of whinging about it for months on end, they submitted their designs for approval, and wonder of wonders, the UCI granted their request!So much for everyone’s comments that the UCI is trying to keep American technology and innovation out of road racing (and cyclo-cross) … because theOval Concept forks are certainly one of the most innovative designs I’ve seen being introduced in a while.Steven L. Sheffield
Salt Lake City

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