Cubicles and Cockpits: When Every Day is Bring Your Toys to Work Day

Do you live in or around Minneapolis, Minnesota?  Do you have little or nothing to do tomorrow afternoon?  Would you like an opportunity to tell some smartass bike blogger from New York exactly where he can shove his new book, which Janet Maslin of The New York Times has already called "fucking awesome"?  Well, if you answered, "I can't hear you, I was cleaning my ears with a mini-pump and it got stuck" to any of the following questions, then come here tomorrow and I'll try and help you extract it:

MINNEAPOLIS

Tuesday, March 27

4:00pm ride

Midtown Bike Center by Freewheel Bike

2834 10th Avenue South

Minneapolis, MN 55407

(612) 238-4447

freewheelbike.com

Then it's on to these places on these days, and you can find additional details here:

Wednesday, March 28th:

Madison, WI

Thursday, March 29th:

Chicago, IL

Saturday, March 31st:

Austin, TX

Sunday, April 1st:

Boulder, CO

After that I visit the west coast as well as the New Amsterdam Bike Show, but we can deal with that all later.  And while I'm on the subject of book tours, I should also mention I now have the details concerning my visit to London, and my first transatlantic BRA will take place on Thursday, May 10th starting at 5:30pm (or 17:30 if you're pretentious, European, or in the military) at the following location:

Look Mum, No Hands!

49 Old Street 

London EC1V 9HX

020 7253 1025

And then finally I'll be in Italy for this:

Whew!  I get tired just cutting and pasting it all.  In any case, my tour is generously sponsored in part by Brooks England LTD., and for those of you who have asked the answer is, "Yes, Brooks saddles are in fact edible."  (Assuming of course your name is Bear Grylls.)  Also, I apologize for all the self-promotion, and I can assure you that once all of this is over this blog will revert to its normal and preferred state of being a disembodied presence with no discernible author floating languidly in cyberspace.

Moving on, this past weekend was the Red Hook Crit, and I visited the race for the first time since its inception.  Despite having been misquoted on the matter by some stupid online magazine, I've always liked the Red Hook Crit, and the only reason I'd never actually gone was because it takes place late in the evening.  Sure, I only live a short bike ride away, but the only place I like to be after 9:00pm is on a couch in front of a television.  Of course, now that I have a bakfiets with both a couch and a television on it, I'm finally able to partake in all this "nighlife" I've been hearing so much about.

The race was very well-attended and enjoyable to watch, even if the outcome was decided pretty early in the race.  (Local racer Dan Chabanov rode away by himself for an emphatic win, despite the presence of something like six MASH guys, who are evidently less adept at chasing than they are at branding.)  I will not molest you with pictures of the race because: A) I'm a really crappy photographer; and 2) there are already like a million other pictures on the Internet; but I will say that it basically looked like a whole lot of young white people standing around a cruise ship terminal at night, and it also didn't look anything like this:

In any case, my visit to the races was marred by only one incident.  Right near the venue, we were riding through an intersection with the right-of-way, when an oncoming car ran a stop sign and drove right into our path.  Then, the driver of the car pulled up next to me and rolled down his window.  I was expecting some sort of misguided insult, but amazingly he smiled and asked me directions to the bike race.

Before I knew what I was doing I found myself answering him, and astoundingly he kept pressing me for more details.  ("So, like, is it actually inside the cruise ship terminal?")  Then I remembered he was a complete asshole, and so I cut him off and told him, "You know, next time stop at the stop sign."

You can probably guess his indignant reply: "I did stop at the stop sign."

If you ride a bicycle in America you've almost certainly encountered this sort of brazen dissembly, and while it's stunning to be lied to by the person who just almost ran you over, it's even more disturbing when you stop and think that they have total license to do so.  This is because, if they actually do run you over, they will then tell the police and the insurance company that of course they stopped at the stop sign, and that they didn't see you, and that you "came out of nowhere," and that you were probably riding the wrong way down a one way street because like who do these "bikers" think they are anyway?  And if you're lucky enough to be able to speak after an "accident" like this, good luck trying to get anybody to believe anything to the contrary.  I mean, who do these bikers think they are anyway?

Nevertheless, I remained civil throughout this encounter, but he was wearing some stupid aging hipster fedora hat and I hope it's a vintage 19th century job that's slowly giving him mercury poisoning.

Speaking of bicycle cycle racing, this past weekend was the mellifluously-titled Ghent-Wevelgem, and once again Mark "The Man Missile" Cavendish totally Sky-ed it:

A nine-rider group stayed away much of the race, but the real story was a split in the field with about 35 km to go. World champion Mark Cavendish (Sky) was left behind in a chasing group and tried to bridge the gap on his own, but never saw the front of the race again.

Oy.  Next thing you know he's going to have Bradley Wiggins hair:

(Bradley Wiggins models his look on the band Oasis, who have also made a highly successful career of falling well short of people's expectations.)

By the way, if you enjoy following professional bicycle cycling then you probably also enjoy "bike porn," and a reader has recently informed me of a new bike porn subgenre, which is called "workplace bike porn:"

Yes, that's right, it's pictures of awesome bikes in awesome workspaces:

The idea of The Work Cycle is to share showcases of various workspaces to demonstrate how the Work Cycle is being successfully integrated into the daily office grind, both as a form of inspiration, as much as it is a celebration. It’s not just about clever and innovative storage solutions though: bikes propped up wherever they'll fit is just as interesting and arguably an even bigger embrace! We want to see a focus on the whole space and how the Work Cycle fits in. And nothing says we’re bicyclists and proud like a couple of Vélos propped up in the meeting room!

Or, if you prefer, it's an entire website dedicated to the joy of riding a designer bicycle to a designer job.

Now, I'm a strong believer that riding your bike to work can improve not only your day but your life.  In the case of this particular website though I find claims like this to be highly spurious:

Work cyclists rave about good health, freeing up time and the development of the social culture that comes with it. 

Really, is this why the people who work for the companies featured in this site are so happy?  Or could it also have something to do with the fact that they make lots of money working in sun-drenched loft spaces in fashionable neighborhoods making pretty pictures with Apple products all day?  I'd be willing to bet that, at most of the offices pictured here, the guy who rides his vintage road bike to work and his co-worker who commutes via classic Porsche are both equally happy and sickeningly-self-satisfied.  Consider Weiden + Kennedy, the advertising firm in Portland:

Yes, your workday can be this great, too.  All you need is a big salary, a high-end race bike, and an employer who encourages you to work in flip-flops:

But this lifestyle isn't limited to make-believe cities like Portland, OR.  It's also readily available to people in the real world.  For example, you could go to work for Zago in New York City:

I had no idea what Zago was, so I visited their website and I still don't know:


In our interconnected world,branding is the means to bring vision to reality, to communicate and shape meaning, to nurture and preserve interactions. Companies and organizations need to consider the myriad options and shifting array of opportunities that confront their audience. 


Unceasing competition for attention requires choices and behaviors that transform the very nature of communication itself.


In a world where consumption merges with activism and content becomes commitment, our economy is no longer ruled by isolated transactions but is ever more subject to the impact of interactivity.
In this ever-changing environment branding is how relationships are fostered, transformed and improved.


Though I'm assuming what it means is that you show up to a Tribeca loft at about 10:30-ish and lean your vintage bike against an exposed-brick wall:

After which you spend the rest of the day alternately drinking $8 coffees and masturbating in an open-plan workspace.

Oh, and if you work for a company like this in Amsterdam you should have the decency to keep it to yourself.

Dutch people do not get to brag about riding their bikes to work.  That's just sandbagging.

When The Work Cycle features a Subway franchise or a local post office then I'll be impressed.  Until then, it's just another designer circle jerk.  One thing's for sure, though, which is that if we do see some everyday "workplace bike porn" it's sure to include some sweet "cockpit porn," like this example spotted by a reader in Oshkosh, WI:

It's tough to see the details due to the size of the picture, but this appears to be a variation on the famous "puppeteer" setup:

(A Fred who rides a "puppeteer" setup is actually called a "Geppetto.")

And if "cockpit porn" isn't hard enough for you, how about some "freak bike porn?"

(Forwarded by yet another reader.)

How do you sell a piece of history?

Calling for Backup: Raising the Bar

There's much in my life for for which I am thankful for, not least of whom is my impeckable grammor and spealing ability. (Seriously, you can't peck it.) There's also my hundreds of dollars, my 17 children, my luxurious apartment-shaped home complete with separate kitchen and bathroom (most people in New York are forced to prepare their meals and "make" in the same room)--and, most recently, this, which I picked up this past weekend and around which I'm still trying to wrap my feeble mind:

(Engin builds nice bikes so you don't have to.)

I'm tempted take this bike and live out the rest of my days in the woods as a mountain bicycle cycling minimalist, except I have the outdoor survival skills of a Fabergé egg and would likely perish within a New York fortnight. (One (1) New York fortnight = three hundred (300) New York minutes, or roughly nineteen (19) Portland seconds.)

Still, as fortunate as I know I am, I can't help but get angry when "society" keeps stealing all that I hold sacred and then trying to sell it back to me. You know how it is--just when you find a lifestyle that you think makes you special, someone comes along and commercializes it, and next thing you know you look like everybody else at the mall. Honestly, they do it with everything, and since starting this blog I've witnessed the appropriation of all sorts of formerly-edgy "cultures," among them:

--Fixed-gear culture;

--Axe culture

--Minimalist culture (otherwise known as "poverty")

--Mayo culture

And of course my beloved Culture Club culture.

Yes, one day riding a track bike while covered in tattoos, sporting a genital piercing the size of a Cannondale downtube, and eating a tub of artisanal aioli makes you unique, and the next day you look just like every other dad in Park Slope. (And two days later you just like every fourth grader in Park Slope.) However, despite all this, I thought there was still one subcultural habitat that would remain free from commercial exploitation and unsullied by the filthy conformist hands of the mainstream, and that culture was "cockpit culture:"

Come what may, I once thought foolishly, "curating" your own wildly baroque bicycle cockpit with whatever random objects you had at your disposal would remain the the domain of the unreservedly creative, the borderline insane, and of course the "domestically challenged" (or what we used to call "homeless"). Well, I was wrong. Now even "cockpit culture" is for sale, thanks to a company in (where else?) Portland called "Back-Up Barz," to which I was alerted by a reader named Christie:

"Back in the day," if you wanted a cockpit that allowed you to sit upright, you got yourself some PVC piping, some duct tape, and a few hose clamps, and you unleashed your inner Rube Goldberg. Now, you just switch off your brain, open your wallet, and buy some "Back-Up Barz"--which, I might add, are simply vertically-mounted aero bars. It's worth noting, though, that of all the ways in which you can attain an upright position on a bicycle, almost nobody seems to do the logical thing, which is to ride a bicycle with an upright position in the first place. For example, there's a certain company with an ad in the right-hand margin of this very blog and with a name that rhymes with "Rivendell" (because their name is Rivendell) that will gladly help you attain an on-the-bike position similar to that of a begging dog. Instead, though, it would appear that people prefer to look to solutions such as this:

From an evolutionary perspective, it's fascinating what's happening to the drop handlebar. Once upon a time, riders would move back and forth between the drops and the tops as conditions warranted. Then came integrated shifting, which compelled them to spend more time on their brake hoods, and then they lowered their bars to compensate. Consequently, insofar as recreational cycling is concerned, it would appear that the drops have become essentially vestigial, and are either disappearing altogether:

Or else are allowed to remain, but only as sort of a ceremonial adornment, long-ago forsaken thanks to the application of cockpitular stepstools like "Back-Up Barz:"

Which I'll allow are sort of "retro-chic" in that they evoke those rideable fans from the 1980s:

By the way, even if you wanted to use the drops with your "Back-Up Barz," you'd be well advised not to, since in lowering yourself you're liable to get your head stuck between them and choke to death. You probably shouldn't try sprinting on them either, though presumably their spokesmodel is a professional and thus is able to pull it off:

In "Spinal Tap," Rob Reiner famously asked Nigel Tufnel why he didn't simply make "10" one louder. "Back-Up Barz," raises (pun fully intended) a similar question, this being: "Why not put the tops where the 'Back-Up Barz' are and the drops where the tops are?" Well, because "Back-Up Barz" also allow for the application of an unprecedented number of gadgets and gew-gaws:

I'm not sure why the faces of the gadgets are facing away from the rider, but presumably that's so you can read them while you're head is trapped between the "Back-Up Barz." In particular, the smartphone is crucial, since as you suffocate you may be able to dial "9-1-1" with your tongue.

Certainly though, if you're being strangled by your handlebars, it can be tremendously difficult to whistle the theme from "Chariots of Fire:"

Player Piano Player - w4m (Chelsea)

Date: 2011-09-25, 6:50PM EDT

Reply to:

The last time I saw you you were riding your bike hands-free, holding a Citarella bag, whistling "Chariots of Fire".

You were the best thing about the 5am, 5-course, all-dessert dinner. I thought you were hired to play the piano; turns out the piano played itself, and you are a lawyer at a firm where you're not allowed to wear sandals.

September 25th, 5am-7am, Le Grand Fooding Exquisite Corpse, W 21st St.

I was the curly-haired girl sitting at the end of the table who talked to you about women who don't know they're pregnant until they give birth.

Oh, right, that law firm. I know it well. It's right next to the medical office where they don't let the doctors smoke in the examination room.

It's a wonder then that, despite our abundance of whistling gourmands on bikes, New York is only the 29th mostest bike-friendliest city in the world--this according to Copenhagenzine, which is of course the Standard & Poor's of smugness:

If only we could put as much effort into our cycling infrastructure as we put into our mayonnaise shops, then maybe one day we'd rival Guadalajara.

Subjective Realities: Lifestyles of the Dandy and Eccentric

In yesterday's post, entitled "America: The Wonderful World of Tube-Shaped Meats and Canned Cheeses," I posted the following picture:

And then made the following flippant remark:

I'm not one for fawning over bicycles, but I do believe that our bikes communicate with us, and what this bike is saying is, "You're an idiot."

Subsequently, a commenter made the following observation:

Bobby said...

Saying these woodland downhilling fixie hipsters are idiots because they burn through tires is a lot like saying rally car drivers are idiots because they damage their vehicles. Burnt tires don't detract from the physicality of the riders, the art in the way in which they've chosen to connect to their machines, and the rush of participating in risk-taking behavior. No, not idiots...

August 9, 2011 3:48 PM

I've never been one to shy away from intelligent discourse--provided of course that such discourse centers around an elementary subject, such as which packaged snack food is more delicious, or who was the best blonde on "Three's Company." (I gotta go with Terri on that one, she had a career and thus was the most empowering.) Beyond that, I'm hopelessly out of my depth.

Nevetheless, Bobby's comment made me think. (It also made me drool, because I drool when I think. Also, I have trouble thinking and typing at the same ditniewfnnn.) Mostly, what I thought was that the hillbombers are nothing like rally car drivers, since rally car drivers use specialized equipment on closed courses and the hillbombers use the most ill-suited equipment possible on public roads. Actually, in my opinion, the hillbombers are more like unlicensed drivers in Formula One cars with no brakes who are rallying in a national park. At best, maybe they're the guy in your neighborhood with the flat-brim hat and the Honda Civic who's into "drifting" and winds up in the New York Post because he slammed into a gas station at 4am.

Still, I do think Bobby makes an interesting point, which is that when it comes to sporting endeavors "idiotic" is highly subjective, and that one person's pastime is another person's idiocy. I mean, there are people out there who believe that anybody who rides a bike is an idiot. (These people are called "Americans.") So why is whip-skidding down a mountain idiotic, but barreling down one on a full-suspension bicycle is not? (Depending on whether or not you think downhill mountain biking is idiotic, which is a whole other debate.)

Well, after giving it about 19 seconds of thought, I came up with a criterion (not a criterium) for what constitutes silly recreational cycling behavior--at least for me. It's not meant to be a judgment; rather, it's my own personal way of qualifying my own opinions. Basically, my criterion for silly cycling is this:

If it's a type of riding that is already well-established, only you're using the wrong bike for it, then it's silly.

See? Simple. For example:

--Doing tricks on BMX bikes=not silly. Doing tricks on fixed-gear bikes=silly.

--Commuting on commuter bikes=not silly. Commuting on custom titanium bikes=silly.

--Riding downhill fast on bikes with brakes=not silly. Riding downhill fast on bikes with no brakes=silly.

Sure, I know what you're thinking: "Who's to say what's the 'wrong' bike? What about my rad-tastic mountain-bike-trail-on-a-cyclocross-bike 'epic,' or my compulsion to be the token singlespeeder at any competitive cycling event?" Well, rest assured I don't mean using a bike that's perhaps not optimal--I mean, we all enjoy a challenge. Still, I do think there's a point at which the bike you're using is just wrong, and one of the signs of this is when you like riding bikes downhill but your tire frequently explodes in high-speed situations, leaving you with no other means of slowing the bike:

Of course, it's human nature to want to do things "wrong." We are genetically programmed to disregard sound advice from more experienced people and instead repeat their mistakes. This is why, despite all our nifty technology, our collective consciousness is only slightly more elevated than it was thousands of years ago. Basically, the human condition consists of doing really stupid stuff over and over again, and as such our advancement is barely perceptible. It's sort of an "intellectual creep." I guess that's what happens when you have to spread a learning curve over billions of people. Anyway, "intellectual creep" is why we're all still looting and killing each other, and it's also why it will take these hillbombers years before one of them realizes, "Hey, why don't we try this on road bikes?"

Anyway, if the hillbombing bike is saying "You're an idiot," what is this bike saying?



The above bicycle was photographed by a reader in (I shouldn't even have to bother typing the next word) Portland. I suspect it actually fell from the future through a wormhole in time, and that it's actually the Flying Pigeon Coquettish Hilpstress's bike 20 years from now--you know, when she has 19 cats, her apartment has gone from "shabby chic" to just plain shabby, and she is officially eccentric.

Still, I have no idea what the bike is saying, for it speaks of a lifestyle I'm simply not equipped to envision:

I mean, I know abstractly that people in Portland lead the kind of lifestyles that require them to carry bird cages and tattered paperbacks and whimsical tapestries and multiple yoga mats and plastic bags full of fanzines and a whole lot of what at least appears to be burlap, but I can't imagine what it would actually be like to be such a person in the same way I'll never truly understand what it feels like to, say, be a dolphin, or to be sand on a beach. Like, what does this person actually think about in the morning? Do they soberly and rationally think, "OK, better load up the Peugeot with delightful bric-a-brac since I have a hard day of reading, stretching, sack racing, and general pretending ahead of me"? Or is it simply instinctual and mindless animal behavior, like the way magpies steal shiny things?



Honestly, it's impossible for me to say, though I do suspect the New York City equivalent of this person is the "dandy" who has his dandying supplies delivered by bicycle, a service of which I was informed by another reader:



This is terrific news if you ever find yourself on a naked ride that gets harassed by the cops, because with a simple phone call you can place an order and transform it into a tweed ride. Still this operation clearly has no credibility, since no self-respecting dandy would either ride or accept a delivery from what at least appears to be an ill-fitting "vintage"-styled Huffy.



Also, how would you know that your toe finally poked through your sock if you were at work? Presumably you'd be wearing your shoes, so you really wouldn't have any idea. Or do dandies tend to work shoeless? For that matter, do dandies even work? I thought they just spent their days at roll-top desks writing letters to relatives on expensive stationary asking them for advances on their trusts.



Equally vexing is the mystery of this cockpit, which was forwarded to me by yet another reader:





I don't know what purpose this structure serves, but I do know PVC is the crabon of the DIY cockpit enthusiast.

Transcendence: Where There's a Quill There's a Way

In yesterday's post, I included a picture of a woman in Portland whose "coin slot" was obscured by a copy of the book "Ceremony" by Leslie Marmon Silko. Here in New York, however, the weather is far less conducive to paperback portaging or exposing the small of your back. Indeed, the only "coin slot"-spotting to be done around here these days is this:

Notice that the meter is enshrouded in ice, due to the freezing rain that is falling upon this miserable metropolis even as I type. The sidewalks are faring no better than the parking meters, either, and as I set out this morning to procure diapers for my helper monkey, Vito, I derned near slipped and busted my "coin slot:"

There would have been small change everywhere. I really should put some tampons on my shoes like the mountain climbers do.

With walking this treacherous, and conditions generally this unpleasant, even the most smug and dedicated commuter could be forgiven for leaving his or her bicycle at home and instead dreaming of better days while rubbing thighs with the rest of humanity on the subway. Hopefully these better days are not far away, either. As it happens, today was "The Groundhog's Day," a holiday that commemorates the day almost 20 years ago now on which the groundhogs of the world rose up against their human oppressors and emerged from the resulting bloodbath as the supreme beings on the planet Earth. Of course, before our groundhog overlords start getting drunk and throwing bottles at us, they like to tell us whether or not we will have an early spring, and this year it seems that two out of three "groundhogs of record" agree that we will:

Puxata Punksa Pennsylvania Phil:

Early spring? Yes!

Staten Island Chuck:

Early spring? Yes!

Cincinnati Frank:

Early spring? Unnnnnnnghhhhhhhh...

By the way, if you ever encounter Cincinnati Frank while you're out on a ride and he tries to "prognosticate" on your head, you might want to defend yourself with a "vintage" French Velo Dog revolver:

I was informed of the above by a reader, who mentioned it subsequent to Jeff Underwood's somewhat distorted claims about cockpit-mounted turrets or whatever it was he was talking about. It seems to me that vintage bicycle-themed firearms are ripe for hipster appropriation, and are the perfect accessory to complement that French porteur bike and that artisanal axe. It's only a matter of time before someone in Portland starts fabricating a modern version to market to the "bike culture," though obviously it will have to have a bottle opener on it since apparently bottle openers are the new "lawyer lips."

Fun legal fact: If Clarence Darrow sees his shadow there will be six more weeks of jury deliberation.

Speaking of prognostications, I'm what they call a "realist," and as such I don't buy into pagan myths about rodents seeing their shadows, or lightning happening when Thor Hushovd does intervals, or "evolution." (All Lob-fearing Crustaceanians know that the Almighty Lobster created the Earth in two and a half minutes while watching "Three's Company" and killing time during the commercials. A-meh.) I do, however, believe in the Lone Wolf, and a reader recently sent me actual video he captured of the Lone Wolf himself in full flight astride his White Lotus of Truth:



Notice how our cinematographer struggles valiantly to get on his wheel, though of course he cannot, since even Fabian Cancellara couldn't hope to catch him. The Lone Wolf's minute man is the speed of light, and he runs with the power of a billion Gruber Assists. To actually ride on his wheel would be like staring into the "Coin Slot" of the Universe and suddenly grasping all its secrets. Also, if he sees his shadow, it means six more weeks of suspension for Alberto Contador.

Certainly then the time-traveling t-shirt-wearing retro-Fred from the planet Tridork is like unto the Lone Wolf as the snowflake is to the Antarctic ice shelf, and ubiquity cannot compete with omniscience and omnipotence. (Omnipotence comes from riding a bicycle with a poorly-positioned saddle.) Still, the retro-Fred is a compelling figure nonetheless, and the proprietor of the esteemed blog Cycling Inquisition has actually uncovered the man behind the camera in front of which the retro-Fred posed:

He is Ljupco Smokovski of Macedonia, he is the Annie Liebovitz of stock Fred photography, and he likes hats. He is also not a prognosticator of anything, because oddly he casts no shadow whatsoever.

Speaking of miserable weather, it seems that "NYC's Direct Action Environmental Organization," Times Up!, as they put it, "gathered on the Williamsburg and Manhattan Bridges to give cyclists 'Token Tickets of Love' for braving both the weather and antagonistic conditions to ride their bikes to and from work:"



I think I'd rather be stopped by the NYPD than accosted by a bunch of self-satisfied smug-mongers handing out "love tickets" or repurposed chocolate Hanukkah gelt or whatever it was they were doing. I didn't cross the Big Skanky on Monday, but I imagine if I had and had run into this scene it would have felt like what Cincinnati Frank was doing to that other dog's head. This is of course the same organization that held the "funeral" for that Williamsburg bike lane:



And who gives fake tickets to drivers in the bike lane while dressed as clowns:

If acting like a total buffoon had the power to transform society than Ernest P. Worrell would have won the Nobel Prize by making movies like "Ernest Goes to Somalia." If Time's Up! are looking to land a cameo in the next installment of the "Scary Movie" franchise then they should keep up the good work, but if they're looking to change the world they might want to try a different approach. Anwar El Sadat, Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther King were from different cultures and fought for different causes, but they all had one thing in common: not one of them wore clown pants.

Anyway, thanks, Times Up!, for ensuring that when police and irate motorists see me riding in the city they'll think of annoying clowns. That ought to put me on the receiving end of some real respect.

Speaking of respect, I have immense respect for the people of Norway, who may very well be the most innovative cockpit curators in all the world. For example, you may recall the amazing "puppeteer" setup that was the catalyst for the "Cockie" awards. Well, further to yesterday's post concerning the "Quillinator," another reader in Norway informs me that it is not in fact "the one, the ONLY," as Soma claims:


Note how the curator has modified a threadless stem to accept a quill of truly Rivendellian proportions:

Clearly when it comes to cockpits, Norwegians are simply operating on another level--and it's at least three feet higher than their saddles.

The Vexed Files: Time Travelers and Lotus-Eaters

If, by no fault of your own, you live in either the UK or Australia (or a non-North American UK Commonwealth nation, such as Tuvulu, which I understand has a very vibrant "bike culture") I'm pleased to let you know that the Hardie Grant edition of my book (I forget the title--"Bike" something, I think) should be available from your bookseller of choice as of like yesterday. Also, if you live in Australia and listen to the radio, you may have heard my Australian radio debut on the ABC Radio National show "Life Matters." (I did the interview last night, but due to the time difference I believe people in Australia were actually hearing me two Wednesdays from now.) In any case, if you missed it, you can listen to it here; or, if you don't care, you can watch this instead.

Meanwhile, closer to (my) home, today is Election Day, and like any civic-minded person I woke up early and visited my local polling place. I must say that, for a so-called "democracy," our electoral system is a disgrace. For example, the ballot I was given was inordinately confusing--I mean, I couldn't even find the part where you vote for President! Obama's name was nowhere on the ballot--it was just a bunch of nobodies and weird offices nobody's ever heard of, like "Governor." But I couldn't find Arnold Schwarzenegger's name either, even though he's the Governor of America (Canada's food-besmirched bib), so in the end I just voted "C" for everything, like I did on the SATs. (Unless I saw a picture of a pot leaf, then I voted for that.) Then, just when I thought I was done, I turned the form over to the other side where there were supposed to be a bunch of "propositions" and saw this:

Like seriously, WTF? I should just find myself a nice dictatorship to move to and be done with it.

Speaking of elections, I recently announced the winners of The First (And Last) Annual BSNYC/RTMS Cockpit of the Year Awards (or "Cockies"), sponsored by the Just Coffee Cooperative, and the results are already causing controversy. I recently received an email from the "Boston Bike Drummer," who had this to say:

Dear BikeSnob,

I am extremely disappointed with your decision to remove my bicycle, the one with the bucket drum from the running for best "Freestyle" Cockpit setup, and have expressed my discontent on my own bike blog. I ask that my cockpit be reconsidered. Here's a much better photo of my cockpit.

Sincerely, Boston Bike Drummer.

The cockpit to which he is referring is this one:

And was in fact submitted by the very same person who submitted the profoundly vexing "???," which ultimately took second place:

In my defense, the reason I ultimately eliminated the "Boston Bike Drummer's" percussive cockpit was that I didn't think it was fair to allow a submitter to field two finalists, and I ultimately decided that "???" was the more compelling submission. And while the "Boston Bike Drummer" does make a compelling case, I ultimately stand by my decision--though the results might have been different had he submitted this video:



Or maybe not. Either way, the only thing it's safe to say at this point is that democracy doesn't work.



Meanwhile, on a more positive note, I was amazed to learn that the "Cockies" actually made the news--albeit in Bozeman, MT:

I was moved by Mr. Haraldson's kind words, especially after being taken to task by the "Boston Bike Drummer," and had I known he held me in such high esteem I almost certainly would have rigged the election so that he won first prize, so desperate am I for approbation. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this article though is that the Bozeman Daily Chronicle would run it at all, and clearly there must be very little happening in Bozeman. Honestly, this is one step up from "Local Supermarket Receives New Shipment of Prunes." Fortunately though (at least from a news perspective) there seems to be a lot more going on today, for not only do they have an election to cover, but ace reporter Daniel Person has also gotten the sensational "scoop" on a possible brucellosis outbreak:

In fact, it would appear that brucellosis is spread by elk, which means that if the owner of the "Antlers Sur L'Herbe" bike hasn't been wearing latex gloves while riding he could be in serious trouble. In any case, I trust the Bozeman Daily Chronicle will keep us apprised, and I'm proud to at least be tangentially involved in a possible pandemic.

Meanwhile, you may have heard about that supposed time traveler who was spotted yakking on a cellphone in a Charlie Chaplin movie from 1928:



Since this video surfaced, people have been offering numerous explanations. Some say she was using an old-timey hearing aid; other say she was hiding from the camera; still others say she was scratching a brucellosis-induced ear itch contracted from her pet elk. I, however, think it's very likely she is actually a time traveler. In fact, a reader recently forwarded me a photo from the New York Times that inadvertently reveals a nonplussed bicycle commuter emerging from the particle accelerator at CERN:

One moment you're salmoning down a New York street, and the next you're sucked through a wormhole and pop out of a tube somewhere near Geneva, Switzerland. As scientists continue to play around with particle accelerators like a bunch of "hipsters" customizing their "fixies" these kinds of accidents are only going to become more common, and I'm relatively certain that's what happened to the cellphone lady too. It also explains why Fire is Aerospoke 2.0:



By the way, you'll notice that since the wheels were Ksyriums the filmmakers had to add the fire; if they had been R-Sys wheels they would have exploded all by themselves.

Speaking of unsolved mysteries, not too long ago I posted this picture of Canadian cyclist Tara Whitten, which was forwarded to me by a reader:

While it seemed clear to me that she was kneeling in obeisance before the Holy of Holies, the Lotus of the Lone Wolf, some readers suggested it was not in fact the "Tarck" of the Covenant since the decals didn't match. However, I've subsequently received the following photo, which proves conclusively that the Lone Wolf's steed has indeed undergone a ritual re-decaling:

Incidentally, the reader who sent me this photo was visiting the United States (or Canada's flabby jowl) from Poland for the first time in his life, only to encounter the Lone Wolf himself. That's like going to the Apple store to buy your first iPod and getting served by Steve Jobs, or like buying a LeMond directly from Greg LeMond. (Though The Great Trek Bicycle Making Company claims that last one wasn't all that rare.)

He must have traveled via CERN.