Of Bikes and Punks
Welcome friends! Together with the new look (brilliant, eh?!), we decided to start writing a Pässilä Trailside blog. The aim of this blog is to let you guys into the thoughts, life, work and rides of our little bike company. Here we go: one-two-three-four!
Bikes and punk rock have nothing in common, right? Yet, that's what we're going to write about first. If you've checked our About us page, you've maybe noticed that we decided to set up a bike company because 'we don't know how to play so a rock band was not an option'. That's right, it really was not an option! Still, all of us shared the common interest for two things ever since we were teenagers: bikes and listening to punk rock.
Why do we want to bring this up then? We've been running Pässilä for a few years now. We've realized that being a part of our company and being a part of a punk rock band may have something in common.
Why do we want to bring this up then? We've been running Pässilä for a few years now. We've realized that being a part of our company and being a part of a punk rock band may have something in common.
To us, our frame models are like songs. When we develop a new model, it starts with an idea by one of us and evolves to a finished product through the creative (and not so creative) work we do together. We like our frames to be simple, raw and effective. Kind of like how the proper punk rock songs are. Like songs for a band, some of our frame models are more popular than others, but all of them are important for us for learning and progress. And it's always exciting and satisfying to play... sorry, to ride a new frame model for the first time.
Our home trails are our rehearsal space. A place that we all know like our pockets and that feels like home. In such a space it's easy to develop the frames because we've ridden there a thousand times. When the frame feels ready on our home trails, it's ready for the other arenas.
A punk rock band is not a band without all the group members. And it's probably a bit more fun to be backstage together with a band than an artist by himself. Likewise, a bike company needs different personalities with varying skills to make it. Some of us can do design work, some know how to bring the design to life, some are awesome bike mechanics, some are skilled in photography and video, some know how to put the complete product to real test in the races and so on.
The most important part of all this is you guys. Without the audience a band is nothing and without the Pässilä riders we are nothing. Seeing the first-ride grin on someone's face or seeing a beautiful dream build that someone has built up of their Pässilä. All this is priceless to us.
We're having fun and constantly getting new exciting experiences together while doing all of this. We like to think that you can feel all of this in the end result when you ride a Pässilä bike. Just like we feel in the songs and live shows of our favorite punk rock bands.
Photo by Natalie Parham (https://unsplash.com/@natalieparham)
