Schlaflos im Sattel 2026

So this is the story of my bass – and I have no idea how to tell it, but I want to tell it. Mainly because it came to life thanks to an awesome human being by name of Michael Bonney Why is there a charity page for him? Well he had an accident he is not able to walk anymore and that is all we need to know of that status. Michael used to work for Orange Mountain Bikes  and meeting him at Eurobike was usually the highlight of that bike show for me – most of the time the only reason to go! He was and is one hell of a crumpy bastard with an opinion. There is two things that Michael and I love: Orange Bikes and The Cure – yes that band with the awesome hair and spooky MTV videos. My main focus when it comes to The Cure is the bass work of Simon Gallup who happens to be a friend of Michael. I hope by know where this is heading … ! So when talking about bikes was not that much fun anymore between Michael and me we occasionally talked about Bass playing. Which was kind of odd because I think Michael never played the bass – did you Michael? – and neither could I. Still it was obvious that it was a nice topic to talk about and it cheered him up – as far as I could tell through the facebook chat filter.

Now enter the second awesome human being, meet Jens Ritter of Deidesheim Germany and if you check him out the interwebs will tell you he is one of the best instrument builder in the world. The internet never lies you know. I know Jens for 10 years and the only reason why I wanted to play bass was a: the hot girls you attract and b: owning a Ritter one day.

So let’s cut a few steps in the process of how this all fell together – one day Jens and I started talking and it must have been a day that I also talked to Michael and it was clear: I wanted to have a Orange-Simon-Michael-Bass – what ever that means.

One of the main inspiration was Simon’s picture on the Wikipedia page where he is playing a Fender P Bass with the Orange logo sticker.

So that was the way my bass should look like! Yeah right – those of you who ever wanted anything custom build know how that goes. All the options kill you and in the end the whole process goes out of hand anyway. I wanted it black, then white, oh wait how about sky blue? Sticker on the bass? you don’t put a fucking sticker on a Ritter! Okay paintjob, spray it … don’t know why don’t we paint it orange …? There never was an Orange Ritter. But I want the Orange Logo somewhere …

So this is the beast played by my friend Jannis who happens to know how to play and who had no cable at home so we couldn’t listen to it! 🙂

So the only nerdy wish that wasn’t fulfilled yet was the Orange logo, but again that solution came easy and I have to thank Jens for allowing me to „officially“ name the bass „The Oranger“ which he usually only does with his Royal Series and he also let me have the back plate so I could engrave it the way I wanted to. And voilà there is the Orange Logo. I’m simply too much of a chicken for a tattoo so this is the second best place to have it.

I never owned anything that made me more proud! Thank you Jens for the art and the craft, thank you Michael for the inspiration. Love you both! Yes even you Michael!

phaty

P.S.: THE ORANGER is not a RITTER Model now it is just his name give by me – so no you can’t have it.

P.P.S.: If you need a new bike (you know you need one!) get an Orange – now also available in Germany @ Velo Veritas Neustadt/Weinstraße