GM-Specialized spoof fools some, not others

In cahoots with three other bike bloggers I posted a story to BikeBiz.com last night, a couple of minutes into April 1st.

The piece was headlined ‘GM takes Specialized back into all-American ownership.’

Some may have smelled a rat but their doubts might have been squashed by the brilliant hijacking of the San Jose Business Journal by Fritz. A lot of blogs posted the ‘news’, some were incredulous, others fell for it hook, line and sinker.

The piece was forwarded to lots of industry types. I sent out a BikeBiz newsflash at 12.05am and, almost immediately, started getting ‘wow, this is big news’ emails from industry bigwigs.


Bicycleretailer.com wasn’t fooled but, deliciously, Bike Europe was. Their story has now been taken down but I can see from Google (which itself had an April 1st prank) that for a wee while it read:

Bike Europe - News: Car Maker Buys Specialized Bicycles

With Specialized General Motors intends to create: New transportation choices … Car Maker Buys Specialized Bicycles. DETROIT, USA - The world’s largest …

This spoof was cooked up by Fritz, Tim, Arleigh and myself. [UPDATE: SGB Update swallowed the bait also!]

The BBC ran the penguin spoof at the top of the site (it’s funny and must have taken a lot of CGI work) and MotorTrader of the UK tried its hand at a bicycle-related spoof (all about a new MG Rover bicycle made in China), but let itself down with the spokesperson’s name, April Furst. Puh-lease! Not that our Flora Lopi was much better.

Want to wrap your alu frame in carbon-fibre? It loses weight in the process, spoofs Bikeradar.com.

Sadly, there can be no more spoofs from Sheldon Brown but here’s one of his best, The RealMan Saddle.