Back when I was a kid, in the middle of the 1980s BMX scene, it was all about the Mushrooms: ribbed, rubbery handlebar grips which had been so overdosed with friction at the factory that just brushing your pinky against one could give you blisters. Combined with the then-fashionable two-finger brake levers, impossibly stiff sticks which had been similarly over-endowed, this time with torque, and you had a disastrous recipe for manual trauma, with top riders ending up as shovel-handed freaks.
I didn’t care. My parents bought me a racing bike: my damn brother got the BMX. Which is why I have a writing job and he spends his days playing cricket – without a bat. Sweet irony, then, in the Aaron Ross Signature Grip from Odyssey, a BMX handgrip that features an embossed QWERTY keyboard. At least it looks like a QWERTY. Look closer and you’ll see Ross’ name spelled out on the top row, along with “Odyssey” where the numbers should be.
I love it because it’s just plain nerdy, and it might be the first ever handlebar grip I actually buy. Around $8 the pair.
Product page [Google via Art of Trackstand]
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