In our June edition:

Parks in peril, tandem bikes, cereal in space, and the king of bank robberies.

A NOTE FROM OUR EDITORS

Welcome to the new monthly home for our original long-form reporting. Expect the same deep looks into unconventional business stories, with a little more room to breathe and a little more illustrative eye candy from The Hustle’s Olivia Heller.

If you don’t like it, the harshest punishment you can inflict on us is forwarding this email to everyone you know and letting them cast their shame on us.

Katherine WONDERED...

Are small amusement parks all doomed?

Survival is a struggle in the shadow of Disney and Universal.

It’s a glorious time to sit atop the amusement park business. It’s a difficult time to sit anywhere else. We looked into the often un-fun economics of an industry built on fun.

Dive in | 5 min read

Illustration of the front wheel of a tandem bike

MARK INVESTIGATED...

Can tandem bikes survive in an antisocial world?

Is anyone buying the whimsical bikes? A devoted set is still building them.

We went inside one of the last small businesses churning out tandem bikes and found a small group of diehards trying to prop up a dwindling industry.

Dive in | 6 min read

Illustration of a suited-up astronaut holding a spoon

In case you missed it, KATHERINE ASKED...

What happens when your product goes into space?

Cereal maker Goldy’s found out when 110 servings of its lavender strawberry seed cereal boarded Artemis II. It brought a wave of the unexpected (space groupies?!) for the small business.

Dive in | 1 min read

Finally, Zachary revisited an infamous figure...

Meet the bank robber who accounted for 80% (!) of all US heists during his active years

It was 150 years ago when a brazen crew pulled off the multimillion-dollar Northampton Bank robbery, which long stood as the largest in US history. The man who devised it, George Leonidas Leslie, stole at least $7m (~$200m today) in total. We traced his prolific, if ignominious, career.

Dive in | 6 min read

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SPECIAL: Who's still buying tandem bikes?