Been There Bombed That: Zoobombs Away!

Oscar Wilde famously said, "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." This is a stupid saying. What about having the tip of your nose crushed in a vice while a Bichon licks the underside of your feet and a loudspeaker blares "Tuts My Barreh?" That's a whole lot worse than either scenario.

Nevertheless, as the Monty Python skit proves, it's very easy to apply Wilde's template to pretty much any subject and sound like you're making sense. For example, I am of the belief that there is only one thing in the world worse than being trendy, and that is not being trendy. In other words, adopting a style, belief, or activity simply because it's fashionable is contemptible, but turning against something you admire or believe in simply because others are now discovering it is deplorable.

I know this because I am one of those deplorable people. Take cyclocross for instance. Not too long ago I couldn't get enough of it, but now that it's the discipline du jour I find myself saying "Ugh, enough already!" as I turn up my nose and pedal away on my artisanal Danish milkman's bike--at least until everyone discovers that and I have to find something even more obscure. Even "Bicycling" is getting into the act, and over the weekend they published this cyclocross guide for total "noobs" by some has-been bike blogger:

WHAT-ever. Bike Snob? Cyclocross?!? What is this, 2007? I don't have time to read this stuff, I'll just go back to painting myself into an increasingly confining corner of cool, thankyouverymuch. And if anyone's interested in my artisanal Danish milkman's bike, it's now for sale. I heard it got mentioned on some bike blog and I no longer want it.

Speaking of stuff that's like so last week/month/year, on Friday I mentioned that the young people are moving to the Portland, and in the comments on the aforelinked article I recently noticed that a commenter has commented the following comment:

April says:

NOVEMBER 4, 2011 AT 2:16 PM

People moving to Portland is super-old news. Seriously? You’re just now writing about it? Also, we do not have jobs. We don’t. Which is part of why the mass migration to Portland has slowed down a lot.

This is good to know, and this joblessness would go a long way towards explaining why people in Portland have so much time to attend facial hair "curation" workshops and to engage in practices such as "Zoobombing." In fact, Zoobombing has become so popular that even the BBC is reporting on the phenomenon:

In this hard-hitting report, a reporter presumably travels all the way from the United Kingdom to Portland, Oregon in order to interview a man in a crooked hat about riding bicycles down a hill:

(Two grown men maintain more-or-less straight faces as they pretend something of cultural significance is happening.)

He also visits the "Zoobomb pile," which I've personally visited and which may be the most depressing and potentially tetanus-inducing landmark in North America. In fact, as they film it you can actually see an older man warning his wife away from it:

("Honey, don't touch, it's filthy" is the phrase most commonly uttered by visitors to Portland.)

And here he is reporting as the Zoobombers prepare the bikes, as though they're rebel freedom fighters in the mountains loading their weapons before a guerilla assault and not white "adults" in varying stages of denial and arrested development:

But we shouldn't be too hard on the Zoobombers. First of all, according to the report, they are "self-policing" as far as safety goes, which would explain why they always wear their helmets while riding public transportation:


Also, it's not like they take this whole thing too seriously or anything:

Incidentally, the rider above also has a $750 titanium mini golf putter and spends two months a year training at altitude for tetherball.

Here, Patricia Krenwinkel and Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme talk about the joys of Zoobombing, life on Spahn Ranch, and the enormous charisma of their misunderstood leader:

And then everybody rides down a hill:

However, the BBC crew is not waiting for them at the bottom of the hill, because they're already off to cover another equally important story, such as a lost cat or a man who's been eating the same thing for lunch for 46 years.

In any case, between cyclocross and Zoobombing and the increasing popularity of Danish milkman bike culture it would appear it's no longer possible to do anything "original" on a bike, which is why I'm just giving up bikes entirely and getting into the artisanal hand-curated cutlery scene, as forwarded by a reader:

If nothing else, this video proves that, in America, an academic degree has very little to do with education. Instead, it serves mainly to saddle you with crushing debt so that you can finally discover that you have an aptitude for manual labor. Given this, it's no wonder most of us have no idea what the hell we're doing in life or what we're good at until we're at least 40. Unfortunately by that time, we've also become grossly over-educated, so while we may finally have honed our latent skills, we're also inclined to make and distribute these sorts of videos.

This might also explain why so many people also marry later in life now, although it could also have to do with our increasingly poor sense of romantic timing. For example, it may seem obvious, but people generally aren't feeling amorous after they've been doored:


Girl on Bike (hit by car, door) - m4w - 36 (52nd Street)
Date: 2011-11-04, 9:31PM EDT

Reply to:

Very pretty blonde took a dive but got up like a champ and then went your way w bruises. I insisted you exchange numbers with the vehicular non-lookin passenger but shouldve offered mine as well.

Hope you had a better enjoyable night all intact.

However, none of this provides any insight as to why the current fashion appears to be wearing a helmet and two hats:

helmet and 2 hats - m4w (Financial District)
Date: 2011-11-05, 4:47AM EDT
Reply to:

You were with your bike on the sidewalk near J & R music.

We talked about your helmet and hats.

Talked about where I was from.

You said you liked me.

Two sheds I've heard of, but two hats is a new one to me.

Racing Towards Anxiety: Sowing the Seeds of Doubt

This past weekend, the Bicycle Film Festival took place in New York City. If you're unfamiliar with the Bicycle Film Festival, it's kind of like Sundance, only for the sorts of people who wear cycling caps as casual wear and ride brakeless bicycles with perpetually empty CETMA racks. I did not attend the festival, even though (or, more accurately, because) it featured films like that "Racing Towards Red Hook" video, the preview of which is so sublimely absurd as to warrant a second viewing:

expresso: racing towards red hook (trailer) from Jessica Scott on Vimeo.

In addition to the infamous "This ain't no hipster shit" quote, the "Racing Towards Red Hook" preview also features other rhinestones of wisdom, such as this:

"So many people have, like, this type of bike it makes sense to create some sort of sporting event around it."

I couldn't agree more. Given the popularity of fixed-gears it really is about time somebody invented some kind of competition in which these bicycles can be utilized. I think the ideal venue for a bicycle with a single gear ratio and no brakes would be some sort of flat, closed bicycle track, and instead of running lights and getting signatures on manifests or popping wheelies they could simply ride around and around it to see who's the fastest. It could be called a "velo-drome"--"velo" for bike, and "drome" for, well, drome--and if someone were to build some sort of prototype I have no doubt it would attract many fixed-gear cyclists with trendy moustaches:

Sure, it will be underground to begin with, but who knows? Maybe in 50 or 100 years racing bicycles inside of a "velo-drome" could become an olympic sport! I know it seems far-fetched, but hey, we can dream. And it will all have started thanks to the boundless vision of the guy in the Cinelli hat.

(Frank Warren: Non-Hipster and Inventor of the Velodrome)

It's hard to blame him for his exuberance though. After all, who among us has not discovered some new pleasure, and become so excited about it that we mistake this excitement for discovery? I know that was my experience when I tasted chocolate-dipped haggis for the first time. "Have you tried this?!?," I shouted exuberantly as I attempted to foist forkfuls of the stuff onto complete strangers. "It's amazing!" Little did I know artisanal chocolate-dipped haggis trucks have been all the rage in Brooklyn for like months now, and in my enthusiasm I came off as a total foodie "noob." Now, I know better, so I munch my chocolate-dipped haggis while wearing the appropriately fashionable expression of world-weary detachment.

Speaking of bicycle racing, that was one of the things I opted to do this past weekend instead of going to the Cycling Caps and Shants Film Festival. Even though I harbor no illusions as to my ability and enter races with little ambition beyond enjoying myself and not falling down, I'm usually excited before a race. I'm also always just a tiny bit nervous, mostly because I'm anticipating a state of anaerobic distress. Anyway, this was a mountain bike race, and as I stood there resting on my handlebars and awaiting the mad scramble for the holeshot, one of my fellow riders pointed to my arm and asked, "Has that been there from birth?" He was referring to a mole.

"I dunno," I replied.

"Well, you should really get it checked out," he pronounced in a dire tone.

One of my favorite things about bike racing is that, for the duration of the race, you set your troubles aside and focus only on riding your bike. Well, so much for that. Riding my bike was now the last thing on my mind, since apparently I had skin cancer. Basically, his words had the same excitement-quelling effect as slipping on a Larry King mask just before lovemaking. Then, my mind immediately shot to my recent return from Gothenburg, Sweden, when my driver had uttered these chilling words to me:

"You will die very soon. Mark my words. You will die very soon."

Sweet merciful Lob! It now became clear that he had put a curse on me and manifest a malignant mole upon my person.

A few rows ahead of me, a rider was wearing some sort of yellow LiveStrong helmet and glasses combo, and I resolved to push my way up to him and rub my moley arm all over his head and face in the hopes that his accessories might serve as a curative. Unfortunately, before I could get to him the race began, and like pretty much everybody else who was there that day he rode away from me rather easily.

Needless to say, I continued to reflect on this throughout the race, and at one point it occurred to me that perhaps it had been my fellow rider's plan to "psyche me out" all along by effectively transforming my race into a real-life "Seinfeld" episode. Furthermore, maybe I wasn't his only victim. For all I know, he could had been going from rider to rider and sowing seeds of doubt and fear in each one of them. "Hmmm, do you have a family history of glaucoma?," he might have asked as he peered into someone's eyes. "Did you just go to the bathroom again? Frequent urination can be a sign of adult onset diabetes."

In any case, if his intention was to undermine me he needn't have bothered, since in a race you can always count on me to undermine myself--and as usual, I did a commendable job of it. As for the mole, I suppose it couldn't hurt to go to the doctor, though I think I'll just take a picture of it and put it up on Twitter or Facebook instead. [Is my mole dangerous? If "yes," click the "Like" button!] Yes, here in HMO-merica, we're big believers in the power of amateur Internet diagnosis-by-consensus. Stuff like hands-on treatment and "universal health care" is for Canadians and communists.

Anyway, given my poor performance, I briefly flirted with retiring from cycling and taking up something less tiring. But what? For a moment, I considered origami:

But then I realized that the "origami culture" is probably just as cliquey and judgmental as the "bike culture." Consider the following:

Highlights of the exhibition included folded-paper versions of an Academy Award statuette, a miniature Buddha and a 15-foot Tyrannosaurus rex constructed by a group of students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. All were completed without the aid of scissors or glue.

“We’re purists,” said Wendy Weiss, 44, of Holyoke, Mass.

Clearly scissors and glue are the brakes and derailleurs of the crafting world, and just like fixed-gear riders the scissorless-and-glueless set are way too self-righteous about not using them.

I suppose I could always sandbag as a Cat 6 racer, but frankly I don't think I could afford the equipment. As we saw last week, Cat 6-style flat-bar road bikes are becoming very exotic, and via the Twitter I've learned that cyclocross bikes are following suit:

2010 Stevens Team Cyclocross Bike (santa clara)
Date: 2011-06-24, 3:04PM PDT
Reply to: [deleted]

2010 52 cm Stevens Team Cyclocross Bike

* Sram Red Components
* Custom built Velocity wheels with Challenge Parigi-Roubaix 700x28 Tires
* Ritchie WCS Flat bars, Seat Post and Stem
* Fizik Arione Saddle
* Speedplay Stainless Zero pedals

8 months old and ridden less than 1000 miles

Over 4500.00 invested with receipts.

Great straight bar road bike. World class Cyclocross frame . Just a tad too big for me.
Best fit probably 5'7"-5'10". Weighs just under 17 LBS. Outstanding frame and components for the serious biker.

Serious inquires please call Joe @ 408-621-[deleted]


Good thing he kept the receipts. I hear shame is tax deductible now.

Wednesday on Tuesday: The System Shall Set You Free

Everybody's familiar with the expression, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." This is certainly true when it comes to money managers like Martin J. Erzinger, whose luxury automobile alone renders him nearly impervious to justice. All it takes is a simple phone call from a Pizza Hut parking lot for Mercedes roadside assistance to dispatch a forensics team that removes all traces of your victim's DNA from the vehicle's bumper and transfers it to a nearby Hyundai. Not only that, but a Mercedes will even wake you up if you fall asleep at the wheel, though this feature either doesn't work very well, or Erzinger is lying, or, even more likely, both:

Court records say prosecutors expressed skepticism to Milo at a suggestion by Erzinger's defense attorneys that Erzinger might have unknowingly suffered from sleep apnea, and that might have made him caused him to fall asleep at the wheel and hit Milo.

In any event, since we clearly can't beat Erzinger, we must join him instead, and as I was perusing this profile of him I had an idea:

While Erzinger isn't a very good driver, I have no doubt he's a talented money manager, which is why he manages $1 billion and has a "minimum net worth requirement" of $5 million:

Assets Under Management: $1 billion

Minimum Fee for Initial Meeting: None required

Minimum Net Worth Requirement: $5 million

Assuming there are 500,000 people who are very angry about this whole hit-and-run thing, all we'd have to do is put up $10 apiece, form some entity called something like "All You Haters Suck My Balls Enterprises," and then hire Erzinger to manage it for us. With his financial aplomb, I'm sure in five or ten years we'd have a vast fortune--certainly enough that buying a gaundy vehicle such as a Cadillac Escalade or a Lincoln Navigator would barely register as a blip on our financial statements.

Once we'd secured an appropriate corporate vehicle, then a duly appointed "All You Haters Suck My Balls Enterprises" officer would simply fire it up and then "accidentally" (but not-quite-fatally) run into Erzinger while he was playing golf.

While this may seem like primitive "eye for an eye" justice, the truth is it's far from it. The DA has dropped felony charges against Erzinger because such a charge would "have some pretty serious job implications" for him and "justice in this case includes restitution and the ability to pay it." (In other words, money is apparently justice, and the DA claims he wants Erzinger to be able to keep his job so he can pay Milo as much "justice" as possible.) Clearly then, the DA would also drop any felony charges against "All You Haters Suck My Balls Enterprises" for the same reason, reducing them to a misdemeanor count of "using an inappropriate driver on the green." This would insure that we would be able to pay restitution to Erzinger--who would consequently be further bolstered in his ability to pay restitution to Milo. In the end, everybody wins (though some of them will also permanently limp), and best of all it only cost us ten bucks to run some guy down.

Maybe the legal system isn't so broken after all.

Of course, the big question is this: "What should we do with all the extra money?" Certainly even after legal fees and restitution to the victim and repairs to the AYHSMBE Lincoln Navigator there would still be many millions of dollars left over. Well, ITTET, I would recommend being prudent and investing that money in gold and/or Chris King headsets. Sure, it's not as much fun as cashing out and buying a ski house in Vail where you can kill and maim with impunity, but at the very least I'm sure AYHSMBE would be able to pay its shareholders handsome quarterly dividends in the form of wheels of finest horsehair:

Now that's a horse of a different colorway. When I wrote about Cyclocross 2.0 awhile back, I knew things were getting expensive, but even I never dreamed that cyclocross would involve this sort of exotica or that horsehair would become the next crabon weave--though I don't mean to be a "neigh"sayer, since I'm sure these wheels will look absolutely fabulous with your Rapha mink stole-and-muff set.

Actually, what I'd like to know is what happens to the rest of the equine, and I can't help wondering if horse steaks will soon be sizzling on those Coleman PerfectFlows. If so, I'm sure the more serious Cyclocross 2.0ers will be fretting about how much they can have. Fortunately, the good people at BikeRadar have also provided this handy conversion chart:

Calorie Counting

To get your portion sizes right you need to know how many calories you’re using.

1 Determine your base metabolic rate (BMR). Men: BMR = 66 + (6.23 x weight in lb) + (12.7 x height in inches) – (6.8 x age in years). Women: BMR = 655 + (4.35 x weight in lb) + (4.7 x height in inches) – (4.7 x age in years).

2 Multiply your BMR by the level of activity closest to what you do. Sedentary (little or no exercise): BMR x 1.2. Lightly active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days a week): BMR x 1.375. Moderately active (moderate exercise/ sports 3-5 days a week): BMR x 1.55. Very active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days a week): BMR x 1.725. Extra active (very hard exercise/sports every day and physical job): BMR x 1.9.

I have no idea what any of that means.

Speaking of training advice, I was stunned when a reader emailed me recently and asked me for some--though it wasn't exactly the sort of thing you'd ask Chris Carmichael:

I'm a first year racer and after racing road this past summer I'm now on to cross. I'm not the fastest, but overall I'm pretty pleased with my results, but now I'm looking to improve some of my finishes. To do this I have gotten more consistent with my training, and I've seemed to feel a Little improvement. I do have one area of my fitness I'm not so sure of. I'm pretty much a daily pot smoker, not a full on stoner but a couple bowls a day without any tobacco of any kind. Does this significantly affect my VO2 max? Pot can't be as bad as tobacco right? How much would quiting affect my fitness (even though I know I won't)?

Now, this may peg me as a "square" or "narc," but I'd say that being "a daily pot smoker" who consumes a "couple bowls a day" is pretty much the definition of "full on stoner." Is it possible to smoke more pot? Yes. Does smoking a couple bowls a day every day mean you're pretty much stoned all the time anyway? Also yes.

This is not to say I begrudge his lifestyle choice. Similarly, I do not begrudge the lifestyle choice of the anal-retentive bike racer, either. However, they're also mutually exclusive, and for most people there's not much to grapple with since choosing one tends to conveniently eliminate the other. You may have heard the old saying: "Strong, light, cheap: pick two." Similarly, when it comes to the "Wednesday Weed" and bike racing, a good rule of thumb is: "Smoking pot all day, winning bike races: pick one." The truth is that it's almost impossible to successfully be two totally different things at once--this sweet bicycle which was forwarded to me by a reader being a notable exception:

Rat Bike - $40 (Sun Prairie)
Date: 2010-11-08, 10:48AM CST
Reply to: [deleted]

Get some street cred with this bad boy. Tribute to old school west coast motorcycles. Still has functional shifters, 3 rings up front and 7 in back. Front shock. Rear brakes. If you see this bike chained up it is for your protection, not to keep it from being stolen! $40 obo.

In any case, I explained to the aspiring racer that it really doesn't matter anyway, since he's consuming a banned substance on a daily basis so any results he gets are technically invalid, which I think like totally blew his mind.

Of course, while the "Wednesday Weed" may not produce bike racing results, it can produce some florid poetry, which I suspect may be the case here:

You have a weak handshake. - w4m - 206 (The impossible address. )
Date: 2010-11-09, 1:15AM EST

I stood in your garden,
I was wearing your t-shirt with no pants on,
my legs exposed to that below average summer night.
I could see the goosebumps running down the length of your forearms,
you seemed to have something on your mind.

I saw your eyes shifting towards my legs,
bruised and cut from a recent bike accident.
"C'est quoi ça?"
You pointed at some specific scars,
still fresh and raw.

"C'est rien!"
You put your shoulder around me,
I started crying.
"Pourquoi?"
You asked while trying to see my tears.

Those scars are still raw,
even months after not spending time with you.
You were everything in a man I could want,
but,
I wasn't your woman.

Speaking of pantslessness and of horsehair (as I was earlier), it remains to be seen whether the trend will trickle down to the "fixie" scene, though one reader has forwarded me the following Craigslist post which indicates that they may be more interested in clear coats made from a shot of ejaculate:

Fixed gear wheelset, Origin8 SS bike, carbon fiber cranks, track bars (Neenah)
Date: 2010-11-07, 10:14AM CST
Reply to: [deleted]

I have a set of EighthInch Tessa wheels that are ready to bolt on and go. Comes with matching EighthInch cog(16T) and lockring already installed and CST white tires and tubes. The hubs and spokes are black and non-machined gold rims. These wheels are spotless and spin true. Normally these run $140 and then $35 for the cog and lockring and $40 for the tubes and tires. All for a whooping $150!

EighthInch gold trackbars. These are brand new never been mounted. I was going to strip the gold anodizing but I just want chrome track bars instead. $20

FSA Pro Team Issue carbon crankset with bottom bracket. These had the decals removed and have some scratches and whatnot from everyday riding but are still in great working condition. With a light sanding and a shot of come clear coat these would look brand new. The bottom bracket is sealed bearing 68mm English threaded(ISO) Shimano unit purchased this past summer from Cranked. $75

Origin8 Cutler single speed bike. I used this as my around town bike with my son. This normally runs $240 from Cranked. 700c wheelset with a freewheel. $150

I've got more stuff like cranks, road bars, aero brake levers, frames...etc. Everything is located in Neenah. Trades welcomed also.

If you ever walk into one of those track bike boutiques and an employee says, "Here, let me clear coat that for you," you should probably refuse.