Spooky Cycles- Bikes for People

“Rebellion against a king may be pardoned, or lightly punished, but the man who dares to rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death.” Samuel Adams, 1786

How fitting is it that the revivified Spooky Cycles hails from Pelham Ma, the same town that fostered pre-constitutional revolutionary Daniel Shays?

Shay’s Rebellion was fermented by the agrarian farmers revolt against centralized government, which was run by the traders, and which slighted significantly these producers who had put their lives on the line for the commonwealth, and for the freedom of a yet as un-united nation.

Decades after they had toiled in the trenches against the British these veterans of a very noble struggle were left slighted and besmirched by their debt. They had spent years in bloody battle for not a single months pay, issued only government bonds that had not yet matured. The oppressive chain of debt was turning these free farmers into tenants on their own land, the mounting burdens of interstate and international commerce were driving these hardworking men who valued community and local control to desperate measures.

These veterans donned their revolutionary uniforms and marched in regiments to close the debtors courts. The merchants formed and funded a state-sponsored militia and dispatched it to Western Mass to re-open those courts that had become a hated instrument of oppression and control.

Shays and his men marched on the Arsenal in Springfield, where they were massacred by the commander of the post, but this did not halt the struggle, and the movement toward local control.

These men walked my roads, were hanged in my courthouse and fought for my beliefs. How does re-launching Spooky fit in to all this bluster?

Spooky was a revolutionary bike company. A company that brought values and influences from outside the bike industry to the table, and then set to making the highest quality bikes in the most transparent and sustainable manner.

The bike industry, like the world of pre-constitutional America is dominated by huge mercantile interests to the detriment of the man who desires to produce on his own, to nurture his soul and enrich his community. I fought in the trenches 12 years ago as a kid on the Spooky factory floor. Toiling for later promised dividends.

My bond’s matured. Look out.

“I am mortified beyond expression when I view the clouds that have spread over the brightest morn that ever dawned in any country… What a triumph for the advocates of despotism, to find that we are incapable of governing ourselves and that systems founded on the basis of equal liberty are merely ideal and fallacious.“/ George Washington, 1786

You may have seen this news yesterday on the Staff Blog, well now here is some more information. I cannot wait…