June Bugs

Volume 4, Issue 5, June 1997

By the middle of 1997, I was no longer pulling full-time work at The Bicycle Trip, but I evidently still had some bile to process. Cue up angry mechanic rant number 11,715.

In other news, this issue was a giant bundle of publishing industry cardinal sins. Black and white cover, for starters. It was stacked full of features that really had nothing at all to do with mountain biking. We were swinging for the lights, but our accuracy was a little questionable. As a result, this issue was a bit of a shitshow. I’ll get into that in the separate notes. Suffice to say, we were fronting hard - on a lot of fronts. In honor of youthful posturing, I have left the word “Peloton” incorrectly spelled in this column, as it appeared in the print issue. P-e-l-e-t-o-n. I spelled it wrong, copy editor didn’t catch it, neither did two other editors, and it survived about four separate proofreads.

We were nowhere near as cool as we thought we were.

Two things: One, june bugs are harmless, and beautiful. Two, the original photo for this column sucked so hard I grind my teeth whenever I see it. Thankfully, that’s not often. Just for the sake of clarity, and in order to grind my teeth some more, it’s reprinted down at the bottom of this…