Substack Reads: Bumps in the bike business, how to live on $466K a year in New York, and everyday cake
Hello and welcome to another edition of Substack Reads! From Aaron Lutze on the bike industry to Lindsey Stanberry’s new series peering into your personal finances to Lev Parikian on bird-watching—we have something here for everyone, and a swath of new writers to find and dig into. We hope you enjoy it!
SPORTS
Being good at riding bikes isn’t enough anymore
Super Rider creator Aaron Lutze writes for Berm-Peak on why athletes need more than just results to land contracts
—
in
After months of athletes being cut from brands and race teams shuttering, it’s time to take a step back and give some serious thought to what really happened.
Over the past few years, there have been some obvious and non-obvious factors that have put us in this situation. On the surface, it seems like we could blame the entire thing on a few overenthusiastic product managers ordering warehouses full of extra bikes and parts to meet the increased demand that we saw during the pandemic.
But this certainly isn’t the first time we’ve experienced bumps in the road economically in the bike industry. Something else is happening in addition to that, which is going to shake up the core foundation of sponsored athletes.
GAMING
What Nintendo’s president told me
Longtime video game reporter Stephen Totilo recalls an interview with the late Satoru Iwata, the revered game-developer-turned-Nintendo-president, who died in 2015
—
in
But during E3 that year, Sony said it was going to make a handheld PlayStation, a PlayStation Portable. It would be a disc-based system. It would be slick and powerful and all the cool things PlayStation was. It would challenge for Nintendo’s handheld turf.
Nintendo’s announcement, months later, that its next portable would be a two-screened machine, seemed feeble. I recall feeling that Nintendo was outgunned.
In 2004, I convinced an editor at the New York Times to let me do the DS story. Their main reporter on the gaming beat wanted to write about the PSP, but I thought Nintendo’s situation was more interesting. Could the former industry leader, the former savior of the business, cook up an idea so crazy it just might work? Or were they done?
I would get the assignment. The story, headlined Taking the Game War to a Second Front, ran on May 13, 2004, on the front page of the paper’s Circuits section. It used two quotes from my 50-minute conversation with Nintendo’s president.
PERSONAL FINANCE
“I crave security and safety”
The founding editor of Refinery29’s Money Diaries launches a new series sharing a sneak peek at someone’s financial life. To kick it off, she looks at the minutiae of a Brooklyn couple’s finances, on a joint $466,000 income
—
in
“In all honesty, I wish we had waited to buy a home. It has been one headache after another, and beyond just the massive cost of a mortgage/taxes/insurance, we also have had to spend tens of thousands in repairs. There’s also a momentum that pulls you into spending more: We have a basement, so we should set it up with a storage system; we should install a closet system; we should get a new couch; we should buy more decor, etc. It’s an expense that never really ends.
I also regret the mindless Amazon spending that I do. Sometimes it’s an Instagram ad that gets me in a moment of boredom; other times it’s just the knowledge that I can get what I want right away without thinking if I actually need it.”
TRENDS
Why are people so obsessed with Stanley tumblers?
From stampedes at Target to resale mania, the Stanley fever is real, says Zivvy News, and asks what brought on the craze for the steel tumblers
—
in
Stores reported seeing customers camping out overnight to ensure they were first in line to get the elusive tumbler. It retails at $49.95 but is already popping up on resale sites for as much as $300.
Stanley is the latest water bottle of choice for influencers. There is overwhelming demand for the oversize cup and not enough of them to go around. The company releases them in limited batches… prompting eager customers to sign up for notifications, and when new colors come out—they quickly vanish from shelves.
NATURE
Those birds aren’t going to watch themselves
The goldcrest, the dunnock, the elusive wren, and even the grumpy pigeon—Lev Parikian finds plenty to appreciate in his second installment on bird-watching
—
in
It’s dark outside. Minus three. A sensible person stays in bed. Why would you abandon the duvet’s cosy embrace? But the pull is strong. Those birds aren’t going to watch themselves.
Hat. Check. Gloves. Check. Layers. Check. Binoculars. Check. Camera. Oh go on then.
On the one hand, I want to live in the moment, experience it to the full and relish its ephemerality, rather than diluting it by recording it for posterity; on the other, my photo library is full of images that recall many such moments, which lurk in the memory bank waiting for the trigger to bring them surging to the top in a Proustian rush. Thanks to photographs, I am that bird-mad 10-year-old feeding a jackdaw by hand, that teenager masking insecurity with a blasé, know-it-all attitude, that 23-year-old, broken by sudden bereavement but, in denial, not yet realising it.
PSYCHOLOGY
The audacity of telling people what to do
The author of the book Permission to Speak and media coach to the stars Samara Bay offers her three pop-up rules for any gathering, in her new Substack
—
in
AKA, anytime we get the chance to speak—even if we don’t feel like we have the power in the room, like maybe we’re asking a question or pitching an idea—it’s actually a chance to lead. And the best leaders invite others into a dreamier version of the world and do it explicitly. So what’s your dream? How are you gonna articulate it?
By the way, if that paragraph made you feel spiky (“oh yeah, sure, I have power”), get curious. Most of us have loooong histories of shortchanging our own leadership-with-a-lower-case-I, which isn’t about title or status but includes things like our relationship to how we envision holding a room in our hands, setting the tone, setting the rules, offering permission or belonging like we have it to give ’cuz maybe we do.
FOOD
Everyday cake
When craving strikes, baker and cookbook author Benjamina Ebuehi reaches for a thick wedge of homemade cake that’s anything but mundane
—
in
This Everyday Cake, named so because it doesn’t require any occasion or reason to be made, is the kind of cake you work your way through over the course of a few days, each time accompanied by a giant mug of tea. It’s the kind of cake you have on hand ‘just in case’ someone pops round or when you crave something homemade that doesn’t require incredible effort. This is a perfectly dense one-bowl cake that stays moist for days thanks to the oil and yoghurt combination. It’s a simple case of adding your wet ingredients to the dry and giving it a good mix. Simples.
Much of the beauty of this cake lies in its flexibility and forgiving nature. Use what you have! Bake it in a round pan, swap out the vanilla for almond extract, grate in a little nutmeg or use olive oil for something a little more fragrant. Most times I’ll eat a slice on its own and I’m always joyfully satisfied. But if you wanted to jazz things up a little you can have it hot with custard or toasted in a pan with salted butter and a drizzle of honey. (Fried cake truly is a thing of wonder.) This may be called the everyday cake, but she is anything but mundane.
Recently launched
Welcome to Substack,
:
Coming soon
Congratulations to the following writers celebrating publication.
announces her third cookbook, I’ll Bring Dessert: launches his book Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture:
New & noteworthy
has live reports from this week’s New Hampshire primaries:Inspired by the writers featured in Substack Reads? Writing on your own Substack is just a few clicks away:
Substack Reads is a weekly roundup of writing, ideas, art, and audio from the world of Substack. Posts are recommended by staff and readers, and curated and edited from Substack’s U.K. outpost by Hannah Ray.
Got a Substack post to recommend? Tell us about it in the comments.
I don't want to receive this...I didn't sign up for it....I read enough...some of which is substack...I fear if I unsubscribe here then I'll not get a couple of things on substack I do want to receive...
Thanks for the kind mention!