Yehuda in 2008 with headwind versus Yehuda in 2011 with tailwind
Rick Smith has laid down his pen indefinitely, and his comic strip, Yehuda Moon & The Kickstand Cyclery, is no more. Smith's comic strip covered the tough-but-rewarding life of bike store owner / cycling activist / tilter-at-windmills Yehuda Moon and other friends, including former owner (but now a ghost) Fred Banks; unibrow co-owner / mechanic Joe King, Amish fixie-rider Sister Sprocket; sometime employee, engineer, mother Thistle Gin and many others. From its start in 2008 until just last month Smith dedicated a lot of free time over three and a half years to making a successful comic, if not financially, at least culturally. Ultimately, however, Smith found it too tough to make the comic financially sustainable, and drawing and writing, in addition to holding down other jobs, became too much.
Yehuda was loved by many people, whether they worked in the bike industry, cycling advocacy or just liked to ride their bike. Having spent time Inside the interesting and imaginative world of the Kickstand Cyclery where an Amish community built exclusive frames for Yehuda's shop, where a ninja existed that threw sharpened chainrings, and where Yehuda instigated many projects of DIY bike lanes, bike share and racks, there were a lot of aspects that rang true to the issues faced by both bike stores and advocates trying to gain a toe-hold for bikes in a continent dominated by automobiles.
