A Sobering Post

With a Happy Ending

Hello, everyone.

It would be a disservice to MTBeer readers if I didn’t mention the current news about the craft beer industry having its moment with regard to sexism within its ranks. This hit my newsfeed the other day and since this is a newsletter, in part, about beer, specifically featuring independent craft beer, it’s necessary that I share it:

https://vinepair.com/articles/sexism-assault-beer-industry-ratmagnet/

To be completely frank/honest, this is no surprise. I have never-ending respect to the women speaking out and naming names. To that, if you’re thinking about whether it’s true/evidence, etc, read the article, in its entirety, and you’ll learn the statistics on that kind of thinking versus facts. Also, multiple sources are providing/backing up with details in some cases.

While I’m at it, YT made a super duper high end video to announce the Return of the Goat, their Capra bike. In addition to the violence portrayed from the outset—do we need such guns/imagery to premier a bike?—when you get to the 11:55 mark, ask yourself if what’s on the screen isn’t yet another example of the normalization of violence against women? Is this film an example of hypermasculinity?

While we’re sobering up, here’s a new video on bikepacking Escalante. It is nice to see a video that isn’t all cheers and #hashtag lifeisgood. What’s more, I wonder if there isn’t a question in here about water resources, drought, climate change in the American West?

I like happy endings from time to time, which also means I do like not always having everything be a Hallmark card. Here’s a happy ending, of sort, with Hans Rey releasing on YouTube the 1993 classic MTB movie called Tread. Check out the latest high end mountain bikes of that era, the clothing, the lingo, and all the various locations it was filmed around the world. Who remembers watching it back then?!

If you’re into independent writing/journalism, you might consider signing up/subscribing to MTBeer. I promise you that I have no allegiance to any industry executives or any editors. Here at MTBeer, I try to keep it real, as they say. Violence of any kind—physical, emotional, psychological, etc.—damages/kills the human spirit. It exists within our mountain biking and beer brewing/drinking communities. There’s always more work to be done.

Peace,

James/Jim/Jimmy