Tongue and Groove: The Future of Bike Construction

There is right now, taking place over the sea, a bicycle racing called "The Touring of France." In this racing, the men winning the race at those moments will be Thomas Voecklers. He wears a Glorious Shirt of Yellow™, and his tongue goes like this:

(via Cycling Inquisition)

I admit I've never been much of a Thomas Voeckler fan in the past. The suitcase of courage; the tortured expressions; the failed breakaways... Really, a Thomas Voeckler ride was exactly like a Lifetime movie special: long, overly melodramatic, and you knew exactly how it would end.

Now, though, I find myself feeling differently. As I mentioned on the Bicycling website, Voeckler has proven himself to be a possible contender for the overall, and suddenly very much I want him to win. Voeckler becoming the first Frenchman since 1826 to win the Tour de France would be a turnaround of profound historical significance. Meanwhile, what do we get if Andy Schleck wins? We'll just see him do more of that that lemon-sucking face he does:

Even a Cadel Evans victory would just encourage more of his trademark "fierce kitten" behavior:

There's only one problem, which is Voeckler himself:

I don't want to lie to the public. Maybe it would be good to say I'm a possible winner of the Tour de France but I'm not interested in that. I don't want to say that I have a chance to win. The Tour has been designed with the last week to be decisive. I'll fight, that's for sure, but let's be honest: I have 0% of chances to win the Tour de France.

O% chance of winning?!? That must be his Frenchness talking. I mean, he's probably right, but clearly he needs to take the American approach by surrendering himself to delusions of grandeur and adopting a grossly swollen sense of self-importance out of all proportion to his natural ability. He could also probably use some American-style motivation:

That oughtta light a fire under his chamois.

Speaking of Andy Schleck, he was recently subject to the extreme indignity of walking through a restaurant while carrying a cup of his own pee-pee:

Then I had another one at the hotel, we hit the restaurant and had to walk through holding a cup of my own urine which I’m sure the people eating dinner really appreciated. Then I woke up and had another test in the morning.

If all that wasn't bad enough, the restaurant also charged Schleck a €150 "corking fee" for bringing his own beverage.

Meanwhile, as the professionals go about their business over in France, many of us do our best to emulate them--though some of us try harder than others. One way to do this is by riding the same bike they do, and a reader has forwarded me this video of somebody who sounds like he's masturbating while reviewing the $15,000 Specialized McFadden Verde:



Yes, that's right: the Specialized MacDonald's Penga costs $15,000. However, the reviewer says it's worth it. Actually, he says he'd pay more than that:

I’m a 44 yr-old, Cat 2 Masters Racer. I can drive a line, bridge a gap and finish mid pack. I looked down at the speedo while jumping between groups and I was going 31.5 mph with a slight sidewind and not at full effort. 15k? Really for that sensation and speed, I’d pay more.

Really, he'd pay more than $15,000 for this bike? Wow. Well, you know when I'll take a single word in this review seriously? When he actually does this and furnishes a receipt to prove it. I'd love to see a bike reviewer willing put his money where his bad metaphor hole is. In fact, I'll even take him at his word if he pays the $15,000 "base price." However, I'm pretty sure that he won't, because even he must realize that $15,000 is a great deal of money, and that in order to spend it on a bike like this you'd have to be completely insane.

Then again, on the Specialized MacPherson Vulva you can bridge gaps between bloated Specialized dealers on demo rides at will. Plus, you apparently don't even have to pedal it:

The ground effects are real. In the various groups I rode with, before punching out of them, I’d roll up on the wheel in front of me without pedaling.

Well, Mark Cavendish is riding one of these, and if the above were true then he'd fire his leadout man Mark Renshaw. HTC doesn't have a sponsor for next year, and I'm sure they could use the money.

None of this is to say I have any issue with Specialized spending a bunch of money to develop a bike that may offer their pro riders a slight advantage. I also have no problem with them trying to sell the bike to the general public since, hey, they might as well, right? I even believe that you might ride the Specialized Malcolm McLaren Venti Soy Latte and think, "Holy shit, this thing feels fast." Still, it's important to maintain some perspective, and if you want to spend $15,000 to experience what it's like being a pro bike racer, then spend $2,000 on a Scattante and the rest on a Toyota Corolla. Make sure the interior's in decent shape too, because you're going to be living in it.

By contrast, paying $6,000 to stick a walnut between your legs seems like a bargain, and according to another reader you can now do just that:


Really, who hasn't been stoned on the sofa and wondered, "Dude, what if the coffee table was a fixie?"

The build quality—custom made in American Black Walnut with aluminum and titanium metal parts—seems exquisite. So simple and beautiful. I'm sure Steve Jobs is ordering one right now.

Right. I'd wager that Steve Jobs is probably a little more concerned with his health right now than he is with riding around on his living room furniture like an idiot.

Of course, if you do opt for the walnut fixie over the Specialized McMuffin Henge, just make sure you don't spoil its minimalist woodgrain Jobsian lines with a plastic water bottle. Instead, you should probably just drink out of a coconut. And speaking of coconuts, yet another reader informs me that the time-traveling t-shirt-wearing retro-Fred from the planet Tridork Bret wholeheartedly endorses coconut water:

By the way, if you're wondering about Bret's odd riding position, he's just using the old "one-cheek" sitting technique. It relieves pressure from the perineum while simultaneously sparing you the indignity of a noseless saddle.

Anyway, nobody with any sense would buy a walnut bicycle, since everybody knows that the alternative frame material of choice is bamboo. Until now, if you wanted a sweet bamboo bike, you had to ride something that was lashed together like Tom Hanks's escape raft in "Castaway." Now, though, yet another reader tells me you can simply grow the bike into its final shape:


That's right, no more joining:

Mr Vittouris, 25, was originally planning to use processed bamboo fibre to make the vehicle. But harvesting, weaving and compressing the bamboo tends to be energy and labour intensive. ''I thought, why not just grow the vehicle into the shape that's required in the first place,'' he said. And that's what he did, literally growing the bamboo vehicle, called Ajiro, by molding bamboo onto a skeleton frame, a process called arborsculpture.

In other words, "arborsculpture" is to bamboo what "monocoque" is to crabon. This could spell trouble for today's artisanal bamboo bike fabricators:

While his bamboo vehicle would be quite expensive initially, eventually he hoped it could be mass-produced, or rather mass-grown. ''It may be possible to plant a field of vehicles.''

Watch out, Craig Calfee, you're about to be replaced by a trellis.

In Denial: Living the Dream

(Irony.)

For what seems like thousands of years now, New York City has been a frigid perdition of white. Buffeted by a barrage of blizzards and ticket blitzes (as opposed to ticket blintzes, which are delicious) cycling life here has been as miserable as it has been alliterative. In fact, it's been so miserable that for the last few weeks I've had one of those new Mission Workshop designer hobo's bindles propped up next to my front door, and I have been waiting for that final straw that will send my bindle, my €20,000 fixie, and me permanently decamping for the secure paradise on Earth that is Beaverton, OR.

But then, a meh-racle! Suddenly, the snows did cease, and the temperatures did rise, and now the forecast now looks like this:

Sure, Monday the 21st looks kind of crappy, but as you can see things improve once again the following day:

This has transformed my bindle of despair into a man-purse of joy. In fact, like an overzealous groundhog or a hapless Cat 4 who misreads the lap cards and celebrates victory with five more to go, and even though we'll almost certainly get "Hot Karled" again by more foul weather soon, for my own mental health I've decided that it's already spring and Lob damn it I'm behaving accordingly:



Some people may need loud guitar noise produced by people with beards to get excited, but I find it's Lou Rawls who really makes me want to tear winter a new ****. Really "feeling" the multimedia presentation of that video, too:

That pussy's like, "Fuck winter."

Of course, now that it's spring and the streets are largely free of snowdrifts and members of the citizenry huddled in the slit bellies of stray pitbulls in a desperate attempt to stay warm, that means I can once again ride a bicycle with skinny tires. Therefore, I decided to treat myself to a brand-new road bike complete with all the features and buzzwords of today--that means things like crabon, and BB30, and ceramics. So I did what the pros do when they need new bikes, which is visit Craigslist. "Spare no expense and gimme the best you got!," I told my indifferent desk lamp since there was nobody else to talk to. Finally, I found what I was looking for:


It had everything:

One thing confused me though: When exactly did road bike cockpits get all gigantic? And why are the bars so high? Is this what Rivendells will look like in the year 2160 when Grant Petersen a cyborg?

This would not do. What's the point of all that delightful ceramic and crabon gewgawgery if you're going to ride it sitting bolt-upright with your arms stretched out in front of you like you're some Fred-tastic puppeteer or an old-timey sleepwalker?


Anyway, I asked my desk lamp if I should still buy it and I interpreted its complete lack of any response as an emphatic "No," and so I ultimately decided to stick with my own bike. Instead, I'd spend the money I saved on an "epic," like the Rapha ones I'd seen on the Internet--you know, the kind of ride that's so long and intense you've got to stop once in awhile and stare pensively at your "bidon," like this:

On group rides everywhere roadies speak in hushed tones about a rider so transcendently Fredly that he can will Cytomax from the bottle to his lips simply by staring at the nozzle through his precision optics. This is that Fred:

Next, I set about choosing a destination for my "epic," and I ultimately decided on Baffin Island, mostly because it has a mountain on it called Mount Odin, and really, what could be more "epic" than climbing Mount Odin?

(With a compact crank this climb should not pose much difficulty.)

Also, Iqaluit is widely known as the Portland of Nunavut, and I figured it would be a good place to stop and take pictures of myself insouciantly "enjoying" an espresso in a café in the gentrified part of town:

Unfortunately, though, two things forced me to abandon my plans. Firstly, it turns out that, even though companies like Best Made Co. and Base Camp X will sell you designer axes and $1,300 fire pits, they will not as of yet sell you an artisanal seal club. (I had no intention of actually clubbing any seals, but I figured if I was going to "make the scene" in Iqaluit I should at least look the part.)

Secondly, I consulted a popular search engine for cycling directions to Baffin Island and the thing came up bubkes:

So there goes that.

Speaking of Best Made Co., you'll no doubt be excited to learn that they are hiring! There's only one problem, though, which is that they won't pay you:

Nevertheless, despite the lack of compensation, apparently their employees never want to leave:

Our internships are un-paid but are flexible and stimulating, so much so that we often find most of our interns never want to leave.

I guess if you're a liberal arts graduate with an ample trust fund then dealing with tedious matters like depositing paychecks and filing an income tax return are really little more than inconveniences anyway. (Not to mention more work for daddy's accountants.) Incidentally, you'll note in the above photo that Taylor the Unpaid Intern is making a rope ladder:

I'm sure you can climb that with total confidence, though I wonder if it will be offered for sale or if Taylor will keep it and use it to climb down from the roof of her parents' Hamptons home this summer after sneaking an American Spirit.

Also, speaking of abandoning "epic" cycling plans, Lance Armstrong has announced that he is retiring:

Honestly, this announcement seems entirely gratuitous--it's like Larry King announcing that he's old. I thought everybody already knew Armstrong was retiring after the Tour Down Under, and the only logical explanation I can come up with that he didn't like getting upstaged by Hosni Mubarak. In any case, now that he's re-re-retired, maybe he can spend more time puttering around in the garage, like in this video sent to me by my associate at rubbery light concern Knog:



Lastly, a reader in San Francisco has sent me this photo of a bicycle u-locked to a garbage can:

I think that's how messengers announce they're retiring.