REI gets roasted for a nonsensical Instagram ad featuring a bike with 2 sets of handlebars -- and blames a Meta AI tool

[jmowreader]

6. The more I look at this picture the funnier it gets

Apparently this bike has no crank arm on the right side, the cassette (the gears on the wheel hub) is on the other side of the bike from the chain, it has both rim and disc brakes, there's no cable running to the back rim brake and you're supposed to stop the bike by grabbing the brake lever and leaning back since the part of the handlebar you'd hold while you're squeezing the brakes is part of the seat. There's a cable running to the front rim brake, which is always good because if your bike has two different kinds of brakes you want both to work. The logo on the downtube is blurry as shit, and there's something written on the chain stay that isn't on the real bike. The bike is WAY too short for the model - a bike's top tube should be one to two inches lower than your inseam, and this one looks like it's about six inches lower than the model's inseam. But it'll stay upright without being held up, which would be pretty cool for waiting at stoplights.

This is the actual bike in question: https://www.rei.com/product/249714/van-rysel-edr-2-af-claris-bike?color=DARK%2520GREY

I'm a'gonna tell y'all exactly what's going on here.

They started out with two pictures: an editorial photo of pro cyclist Amity Rockwell - that seems to be her married name because most of the web pages about her are labeled Amity Gregg - standing on a path in a park buckling her cycling helmet, and a product photo of the bicycle. Apparently Van Rysel couldn't have just loaned the photographer a bicycle to put in the picture. (Just so you know, the shadow is off too...it's at the wrong angle for the bike and Amity doesn't have one.) There are quite a few problems with doing this, and the biggest one is the photo of the bike Van Rysel has (and that was provided to the advertising agency) is of the other side of the bike so the buyer can see the derailleurs.

SO...they flipped part of the bike in the photo, photoshopped around the bottom bracket so it kinda sorta didn't look like the chainwheel was on the wrong side, blurred the logo on the downtube and hoped people who are savvy enough about bikes to want to spend $1200 on one won't notice.