Chapeau! And the Eating of Same

Obviously the big story in cycling this past weekend was that Stanley Wiggins won the Tour de France:

(Congratulations Stan!)

The image of the headline above was forwarded to me by a reader, and while its tempting to attribute it to the systematic marginalization of cycling by the American media, the truth is that it's nothing quite so insidious.  No, all it really means is that the people at Yahoo are morons, which they confirmed when they also ran the following article that I stumbled upon this morning:

So what's number two on Yahoo's list of the best "hipster jobs?"  Why, it's becoming a paralegal, of course:

(Paralegal is the Stanley Wiggins of hipster careers.)

Presumably paralegal just edged out dental hygienist, which the crack editorial team at Yahoo must have decided wasn't quite trendy enough.

In any case, between Stanley Wiggins winning the Tour de France and his countryman Mike Cavendish taking the final stage on the Champs-Élysées, it's clear that Great Britain is now basking in a golden age of cycling.  In fact, there are those who have even speculated that the UK will now experience a cycling boom similar to the "Lance Amrstrong effect" we saw over here in Canada's noseless saddle during his seven-year winning streak.  (Though if they do I'd hate to spoil it for them but things go a little bit pear-shaped afterwards.)  At the very least, Wiggins has certainly proven the naysayers wrong, since before the Tour started stupid Internet pundits who know nothing about cycling were writing stuff like this:

The hopes of an entire nation rest on those sideburns, and it will be sad to watch those hopes slowly sink like a bunch of kittens adrift on a pond in a boat made from construction paper.  Of course, if he does win, I'll gladly travel to the UK and publicly eat my hat, but only because that's still vastly preferable to partaking in British cuisine.

Of course, that stupid Internet pundit was me.  Fortunately though I always wear underpants for a hat, and thus plan to exploit a loophole by wearing these:

Now all I need is for someone to send me a first-class ticket to Heathrow and I'll gladly make good on my promise, though I might have a hard time clearing customs with a pair of meat briefs on my head.

Needless to say, I was also wrong when I tipped Dmitriy Fofonov as the overall winner, though he did finish solidly in 63rd place:

And well ahead of his closest rival in the coveted surname-that-sounds-like-wanking competition:

Incidentally, the Tour de France organization may revise the leader's jersey for that competition, since the subtle wadded-up tissue graphic makes it difficult to distinguish from the maillot blanc for the best young rider.

And as for speculation that there is still some residual resentment between Wiggins and his teammate Chris Froome, this photo which was forwarded to me by a reader should put that to rest once and for all:

("Hey guys, get a (F)room(e).")

Speaking of gratuitous crotch references, way back in 2009 the clothing company Outlier sent me a pair of shorts, which I duly tested by going to the beach and pouring Snapple on them:

Well, after three years of occasional use (of the shorts, not my crotch) I emerged from the briny deep this past weekend only to find that a portal had developed dangerously close to my "pants yabbies:"

Shortly after noticing this I became aware of the sound of women laughing:

At first I worried that I might have inadvertently exposed myself to them (no, I was not wearing underpants, jerky or otherwise), but after examining the shorts closer I was satisfied that I had not and that the women were in fact just laughing at my general appearance.  By the way, as you may be aware, Outlier is a clothing company geared towards trendy urbanites who lead active lifesyles:

(The last sound this young man heard before falling to his death was a tearing sound from the crotch of his $175 shorts.)

Now, I don't consider myself a trendy urbanite.  Then again, let's not forget that according to Yahoo this guy is a hipster, so perhaps I should re-evaluate myself:

I also don't consider myself especially active.  I mean, sure, I ride a bike, but so does a Dutch grandmother.  Plus, if I'm riding with any sort of urgency I'm generally doing it while wearing special stretchy pants like any self-deluding Fred.  Otherwise I'm just sort of putzing around, as I was on the day that these shorts developed an unexpected peephole.   And yes, three years is a pretty long time, but I also didn't wear the shorts that often, so I'm not sure what this says about the cost-effectiveness of buying fancy shorts--though one reasonable conclusion would be that I should just bring them down the street to the dry cleaner, have the seam fixed for $5, and shut up about it already.

Also, in fairness to Outlier, the pants they sent me are still intact--though I have no idea how the pair I gave to my former intern, Spencer, are holding up, since after scoring a $200 pair of pants and a Walmart fixie he pretty much disappeared.

Anyway, undaunted by my brush with indecent exposure, I returned to the beach the next day with my family in tow and carried all our supplies including chairs and umbrellas by means of a Big Dummy:

We received many comments from bemused onlookers along the way, which annoyed me since we've never received any comments for hauling lots of crap to the beach in a car.  Then again, I've also never felt compelled to post a picture of a carload of crap on the Internet, whereas here I am simultaneously posting a picture of my bike just because it has some stuff strapped to it and then complaining that people noticed it.  Such is the paradoxical nature of smugness.

Also, my "pants yabbies" were showing the whole time, so that could have been the source of at least some of the pointing and laughing.

Speaking of pointing and laughing, another reader forwarded me the following image:

Evidently, it comes from a site called "TriathlonHumor.com," which seems superfluous since all triathlon is inherently humorous.  Consider this video:

I'm sure you'll agree that bike looks fast even standing still--as it will most of the time on the roof of your luxury automobile:

Sure you may suck, but at least all that wind tunnel testing translates directly to fuel cost savings, and you'll amortize the cost of the bike after only 17 years of driving to "training rides."

Of course, the real point of the video is to demonstrate yet another hydration system:

Judging from the sheer number of these drinking contraptions, it would appear that the drive to invent a hydration system that actually allows a triathlete to imbibe without crashing is as compelling as the quest for the perpetual motion machine--and it's no less quixotic.  As for this particular attempt, I'm still not sure how it works, though it seems to collect and save the riders' urine for future consumption:

Between the time saved drinking and the time saved relieving yourself, you're sure to reach your "personal best."

Lastly, when it comes to people who have trouble doing two things at once, Friday's quiz included this video of a cyclist receiving an unjustified ticket, and I'd be amazed if the officer in it could actually talk and scratch his "pants yabbies" at the same time:

A number of viewers have also commented on his resemblance to Sloth from the cinema classic "The Goonies:"

I'm not going to comment on that.  I'm simply going to "put it out there"--kind of like a pair of shorts with a hole in the crotch.

Foiled Again: Truth is Faker than Fiction

Over four years ago, back when this blog was still funny, I made up the following quote:

Give me good books, good conversations, and my Trek Y-Foil, and I shall want for nothing else. –George Plimpton

The quote was part of a post in which I mixed actual cycling-related quotes from notable persons with other quotes which were (I thought) obviously fake.  For example, here's a real quote:

Cycle tracks will abound in Utopia. --H.G. Wells

And here's a fake one:

I’m the paté on the Universal cracker. I’m the grout holding your shower tiles on. I’m out of the saddle, sprinting up that hill and eating glazed donut bracelets off the right arm of Jesus. –Charles Manson

Well, it turns out that the only thing separating fiction from fact is belief seasoned with a dash of ignorance, because the editor of Plimpton's own magazine recently published this:

My predecessor George Plimpton was known for cycling around New York on his Trek Y-foil before it was either cool or safe (before, some would say, it was sane).

There is much that delights me about this.  Firstly, it was never, ever cool to ride a Trek Y-Foil.  Indeed, a Y-Foil is arguably the dorkiest bike it's possible to ride without resorting to an actual recumbent.  Secondly, here is a Y-Foil, which The Great Trek Bicycle Making Company first hocked onto the cycling world like a crabon fribé loogie back in 1998:

(Beam frame, triple chainrings, and Rolfs: you can practically feel the leg hair.)

At which time Plimpton was 71 years old:

(I have no idea how old Plimpton actually was here, but I figure he must have been at least 71, so just picture him on a Y-Foil in a Primal jersey.)

As a participatory sports journalist Plimpton was certainly not averse to a physical challenge, and he did indeed ride a bicycle around Manhattan.  Nevertheless, it's nearly unthinkable that a man so dignified would have chosen a Y-Foil as his ride--though it's certainly tempting to imagine him doing so, which is why I made the joke in the first place.  I like to think of him doing easy laps in Central Park in the company of Salman Rusdie on a Softride as they discuss the state of American letters:

("The Softriding Verses is another personal best for Rushdie."--The New York Times Book Review)

Anyway, when my friend (I do actually have a friend) forwarded me the Paris Review post, my first thought was, "So by some extraordinary coincidence did George Plimpton actually ride a Y-Foil?"  Then I wondered, "Maybe I didn't make up the quote after all and I just think I did because it seems like something I'd come up with."  Finally though, it became clear that somehow the current editor of The Paris Review must have come across my bullshit quote and accepted it as fact.  Furthermore, now that it's actually been published on their website, everyone else will accept it as fact as well, and thanks to a certain popular search engine poor George Plimpton will be forever associated with one of the ugliest and Fredliest bicycles ever made.

It really makes you think about the complex relationship between reality and absurdity.  Take religion for example.  Sometime back in the Iron Age some wiseass probably made a joke about milk and meat, and now thousands of years later Jews need to have two dishwashers.

Of course, the real point of the Paris Review post was to introduce an incredibly pretentious bicycle giveaway contest, and here are the rules:

To win the HUB Beater, tell us what you see in this picture:


--in three hundred words or fewer
--in the style of (choose one!) Elizabeth Bishop, Ray Bradbury, Joan Didion, Ernest Hemingway, or P. G. Wodehouse

I wouldn't mind winning a bicycle, but I prefer not to employ the style of any of those authors.  Given my contribution to the magazine as far as my expertise on George Plimpton and his choice of bicycle, I wonder if they'd make an exception in my case and accept Martin Amis instead:

"And then there is the Red Devil, which is nothing, and comes at night.  His red phallus is turgid and purposeful, a rush hour tube train throbbing towards her London Fields.  He rides a Y-Foil.  Wife.  Oil.  Now that's good spondee."

Please send the bicycle right to my $2.5 million Brooklyn brownstone, along with my National Book Award.

Meanwhile, further to yesterday's post, one reader was displeased with my analysis of the "Rêve Tour:"

Tom said...


Ever notice how the TdF doesn't allow women? It's possible, just possible, that you're missing the point. Nice job on the big "FUCK YOU" to female cyclists, though. That must have felt good.


July 17, 2012 2:22 PM

I resent the accusation that I meant to insult female cyclists.  (Though I readily acknowledge I meant to ridicule all amateur cyclists regardless of gender.)  I'm also pretty sure the point of the ride isn't that the Tour de France doesn't allow women, since it also doesn't allow amateurs, which is what all the Rêve Tour participants are.  I do, however, admit that I found the actual point of the ride elusive, though after a good deal of searching I finally managed to figure out what it was:

We hope you'll support Kate, Kym, Heidi, Maria, Kristen and Jennifer in this epic adventure and help them raise $60,000 for Bikes Belong. Thanks to generous support from our industry partners, all of your contributions will go directly to Bikes Belong, helping make bicycling safer in the U.S.

So there you go.  I can get behind that.  (Though not to the point of actually giving any money.)  Presumably Tom can too, and I'm sure he'll be digging deep to make that green bar go up, up, up!

And Tom wasn't the only rider who thought I missed the point:

Anonymous said...


I think the snob is missing the point of epic rides. The confidence and pride one can get from achieving something very few people have is ispiring and makes the rest of the shit life dishes out much easier. Too bad people throw the word 'epic' around too much.


July 18, 2012 8:29 AM

If your bicycle rides make the rest of your life seem easy then either your life is too easy or you're riding a bicycle without a seat.  Anyway, I'm relatively sure the point of "epic" rides is to get free crap and then boast about it publicly while thinly disguising it as an act of charity.  If it wasn't then people would just use their own equipment and resources, but I suppose a ride really doesn't qualify as "epic" if you're not using lots of brand-new high-end equipment and being followed by a professional photographer.

Speaking of the Tour de France, I don't think I'm spoiling anything by mentioning that Fr-a-with-an-umlaut-nk Schleck has failed a drug test and been ejected from the Tour by his team:

Poisoned!?!  Egads!  This can only be the work of Monsieur Punaise, who must have slipped him a bidon spiked with bad spondee.  Incidentally, the drug in question is a diuretic, so clearly his evil scheme was to make Schleck pee-pee himself to death.  As for whether it's actually even possible to pee-pee yourself to death I don't know, but I'd imagine it would either cause extreme hydration, or else your hotel room would fill up with urine during the night and you'd end up drowning in your sleep.  This would never happen to Andy Schleck because he always sleeps in water wings, but as the big brother Fr-a-with-an-umlaut-nk stopped doing that months ago and left his own water wings at home along with this blanket and his Lego Bikini Bottom Undersea Party Building Blocks Set.

Finally, if you're a woman with a bird cage tattoo, there's some guy looking for you:

Bird Cage Ankle Tattoo, Blonde Girl outside Chase Bank - m4w - 24 (Bushwick)
Date: 2012-07-17, 12:40PM EDT
Reply to: [deleted]


You were sitting outside the bank waiting for the bus, sipping on an ice coffee. I asked you to watch my bike while my friend and I went in to use the ATM. When we came out we talked for 10 mins about bike accidents and scars. I think your name was Sylvia? I'm bad with names. You hopped on that bus before I had a chance to give you my number or get yours. If you see this maybe I could give you a bike lesson some time, bu if you don't hopefully I'll see you around the neighborhood...


Peace! 


Just keep in mind that you probably don't want to take bike riding lessons from someone who's covered in accident scars.

Leisure Martyrs: When Vacations Attack

Trend watch!  You know what's hot, hot, hot?  Dastardly schemes involving small pointy things!  First some scalawag put tacks all over the road during the Tour de France, and then some culinary terrorist put schpilkes in a bunch of airline turkey sandwiches:

But don't worry, because Delta Air Lines is on the case:

Delta Air Lines Inc. is trying to figure out how needles got into turkey sandwiches on four flights from Amsterdam to the U.S.

If I were a Delta executive, my first step would be to fire the catering service that is buying its turkeys from Needle Farms.  Then again, the only reason this incident even made the news was because it affected business class passengers:

The sandwiches were prepared in the kitchen of a catering company in Amsterdam, and some were served to business class passengers on Delta flights. After the needles were found, passengers got pizza instead.


Anyone who flies economy knows it's perfectly normal to find sewing needles in your sandwiches.  In fact, sometimes they don't even bother putting food around the needles and they just serve you a sewing kit.  Sure, it's not very tasty, but it will tide you over until the drink service, at which point the flight attendants just pour scalding hot water in your crotch because they're phasing out cups.

Speaking of the Tour de France, last week I got in trouble for including a "spoiler" in a post, and now this morning I've gotten a taste of my own medication.  There I was, scarfing Froot Loops and blissfully unaware of today's Tour de France results, when I started pawing at my smarting phone and did observe the following tweet:

I can't believe "Bicycling" totally spoiled the rest day for me!  You know, I work hard all day preparing airplane food, and when I get home I look forward to plopping down on the couch, cracking open a beer, firing up the DVR, and watching the day's stage.  And as any cycling fan knows, there's nothing more exciting than turning on the TV after a long day and finding out that there's "fuck-all" going on because it's a rest day.  So when you take that away from me I have nothing.  It makes me mad enough to slip some sewing needles into some sandwiches.

Cunts.

Meanwhile, in other Twitter news, one user seems to really want me to follow something called the "#revetour," because she sent me this Tweet:

As well as this one:

As it happens, I have not been following the "#revetour."  I did see something about it at some point, but I ignored it, since when it comes to the Tour de France I'm really only interested in the riders who are awesome at it--you know, the ones who are actually in the race.  I'm not interested in following amateurs who are riding the Tour de France route for the same reason I'm not interested into going to Lincoln Center while the New York Philharmonic is performing Beethoven's Ninth and instead listening to some crappy musicians who are trying to play the same thing on the sidewalk outside.

Nevertheless, after the second Tweet I figured I should at least check it out, so I first set out to get some background on it and here's what I learned:

We’re riding the Tour de France.


Six amateur women including myself. Every last stage of cycling’s most beloved race. Every last kilometer. All 3,479 of them.


There, I said it.


(How do you announce such absurdity?)


What's absurd about it?  It sounds like fun.  More than that, it sounds like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.  Still, I read on:


In July our small team goes to France with Rêve Grand Tours as part of a project imagined and then brought to life by Michael Robertson, the talented photographer behind Velodramatic (and Creative Director for Rêve). The idea, born over a shared dinner while we were both on assignment last December, is simple: give a small group of women the opportunity to take on the biggest cycling challenge in the world, document the process and tell the story. 


With support from a host of generous sponsors, we will be shuttled, sheltered and cared for day by day. The hotels are booked, the transfers are arranged, the pieces are in place.


Sponsors?  Shuttled?  Sheltered?  Cared for day by day?  Outside of the cycling world, that's what's generally known as a "free vacation."

This isn't to say that following someone's vacation can't be interesting or entertaining.  For example, I enjoy the Anthony Bourdain show "No Reservations," and those episodes are basically vacations.  All he's really doing is flying to exotic locations and stuffing his face.  The crucial difference though is that while normal people enjoy their vacations, cyclists formulate contrived narratives in which they struggle to conquer their vacations:

At night I put my headphones in and close my eyes and set negativity to the side. In it's place I invoke gratitude, compassion, kindness. In the van during the transfer I read your emails, tweets and Facebook messages and think about what this means to all of you in an attempt to figure out what it all means to me. I spent the first 10 or 20k of every ride repeating optimistic thoughts to myself, bringing good energy to the table. Trying to ride from a place of joy instead of a frustration. Trying to hold this in my heart in a special way because the time is flying by and there is going to be a day that I wake up and think, "Did that really happen?"

This is precisely when I switch off.  Why does she need to "figure out what it all means" to her?  It means you're going on an awesome bike vacation!  What cyclist wouldn't want to ride around France for three weeks for free?  Is the challenge really "trying to ride from a place of joy instead of a frustration?"  Or is it simply finding the time to do it in the first place?  Even I, someone who ostensibly writes about bikes for a living, and for whom a "hard day's work" means having to censor naked ladies on recumbent bikes, am lucky if I can find three hours a week to ride a road bike, much less three whole weeks in a row.  Meanwhile, professional bike vacationers just insult you by taking a cycling dream scenario and then telling you how awful it is:

These days do not come without consequences. I'm tired and torn up: saddles sores, cramped feet, permanently numb fingers. That's just the daily stuff. You ride until it all goes away, replaced by a middle ground of calm and determination. Pain is just a sensation, like love or happiness or anything else. Experience it, ride through it, ride past it.

This is like starving to death while listening to someone talk about how they're struggling to finish an entire turkey.  (That's a sewing needle-free turkey, I should add.)  And it's not like they're required to enjoy all of it.  Sure, there's such a thing as too much turkey, just like there's such a thing as too much cycling.  But you know what you do when you have "saddle sores," "cramped feet," and "permanently numb fingers?"  You quit!  Just stop it already!  You're not in the real Tour de France!  "Stoepid Week," "#revetour," every Rapha ride ever... How many leisure martyrs does one sport need?

Then again, I suppose I'm a bit of a hypocrite, because I was thumbing through the journal I kept on my last vacation when I read this:

These days do not come without consequences.  I'm sunburned and sick from margaritas and dark and stormys.  There's sand in my crotch and my Ray-Bans are digging into my temples.  That's just the daily stuff.  You sunbathe until it all goes away, replaced by a middle ground of swimming and napping.  Luxury is just a sensation, like love or happiness or anything else.  Experience it, sleep through it, use sunscreen.

Of course, package vacations can be rough, and shortly after that I was arrested for trying to buy a small quantity of "Wednesday weed" from one of the resort employees and subsequently spent the next 14 months in a local prison that made the prison in "Papillon" look like a Sandals®.  But I'm not one to complain.

But whether it's riding around France for three weeks or lounging on the golden sands of an exotic island somewhere, it's important to stay hydrated.  That's why there's Flexline Hydration, as forwarded to me by a reader:

(If video does not play, watch it here.)

Flexline uses Sexually Suggestive Technology (SST®) to keep you hydrated during your workout, and it's easy to use.  Simply brush your hair aside, place the nozzle in your mouth, and suck gently:

When not in use, the Flexline's rigid shaft just sort of hovers in front of your face, and the nozzle occasionally grazes your slightly-parted lips:

But Flexline isn't just for runners.  It's also great for cyclists.  Just lean forward and get to work:

Other hydration systems are difficult to use while riding.  Either they require lots of groping and feeling around, or else they just hang there flaccidly over your shoulder.  The Flexline, however, is always ready for action:

So when you're thirsty you can just bring it to your mouth:

And you can keep it there while you work the controls with both hands:

Best of all, the patented Autofellatio Technology keeps the fluid source between your legs, while the extra-long shaft provides a turgid yet flexible conduit to the mouth:

Finally, a hydration system that's convenient to use with your H-Zontal bike:



As I always say: stay hydrated and prone, because upright and thirsty is no way to go through life.

Tacking it On: Sabotage!

In an incident that will be forever known as "Tackgate," or "Puncturegate," or perhaps even "Prickgate," a number of Tour de France riders--most notably Cadel Evans--fell victim to a saboteur or saboteurs who strew ("strew" is pretentious for "threw") tacks at the summit of the climb on yesterday's stage 14.  Here's what Evans's tire looked like afterwards:



And here's what it looked like when Jim Ochowicz tried to give Evans a wheel change, as captured by Cycling Inquisition:



By the way, the above video is completely unedited, and they just so happened to be listening to the theme music from "The Benny Hill Show" in the BMC team car at top volume at the time of the incident.

In any case, this deplorable tacking is obviously the work of notorious villain Monsieur Punaise, and once French authorities apprehend him perhaps they can come to New York and help us with our own tack problem, since the NYPD certainly aren't interested:

Which is hardly surprising, since the NYPD is very concerned about squirrels all of a sudden:

“We have more important things to worry about, like people getting shot and squirrels getting run over,” said one cop. “A flat tire is not the crime of the century.”

Despite the fact that I myself have been the victim of the Central Park Tacker in seasons past (this has been going on for years, as the Post fails to point out), I would agree it's a good thing that law enforcement is finally looking out for the squirrels, especially given the problems that plague their communities in large cities all over the world:

People use the word "squirrely" to describe skittish and erratic behavior, but before the crack epidemic squirrels were actually sluggish and docile creatures whose only indulgence was a little bit of "Wednesday weed" from time to time:



Now even crack isn't enough for them, and in recent months they've taken to breaking into shopping malls and stealing bath salts from The Body Shop.

Anyway, nobody benefitted more from Tackgate than Bradley Wiggins, who has subsequently been dubbed "Le Gentleman" by the French:

In fact, "Le Gentleman" is already running with his new sobriquet and has purchased a custom car to match:

Calling it "Le Car" is a bit audacious, but getting it in yellow before he's even won the Tour is downright tacky.  And if all that weren't enough, he's now calling other riders "uncouth" to boot

Wiggins was not impressed with Rolland afterwards “I just thought it was a little uncouth at the time, the stage was gone. We had been up the final climb which was very tough, no one went away, the stage was over for GC riders.”

Just last week "cunts" were rushing out of this guy's mouth like it was a burning gynecologist's office, and now he's using SAT words to call other people rude.  At this point I'm beginning to suspect it may be Wiggins himself who orchestrated the tack attack in order to rehabilitate his public image.  Or, the other possibility is it was last-placed team Argos-Shimano, whose budget is so low that they can't afford GPS and instead use paper maps.  The likely explanation in that case is that they were marking key moments on the day's route map with thumbtacks and then the directeur sportif dropped the box out the window by accident.


Speaking of the Tour de France team classification, the first-placed team is supposed to wear yellow helmets, so it's only fair that the last-placed team should have to wear these helments with the integrated lanterne rouge:

I mentioned these helments awhile back and I still can't believe people gave the "inventors" $68,000:

It seems to me that you have helments, and you have bike lights, and therefore there's no real need to transform your head into a great big search light of dorkiness.  I'd much rather make my head look like it's being swallowed by a satanic platypus, which I now can thanks to this Cyclehawk hat I received from Kevin "Squid" Bolger, the patron of the New York City messenger community and all-around stand-up guy:

You can support the New York Bicycle Messenger Foundation by buying a hat from their eBay store.  Or, you can give some Kickstarter design douches money to turn you into a rolling R2-D2, it's completely up to you.

Meanwhile, in other urban cycling news, a reader tells me that one person broke a leg and an undisclosed number of fixies were destroyed when a car plowed through the bike rack at Zeitgeist in San Francisco's Mission District:

Officer F. Landis was the first to arrive at the scene, which was so grisly that a local hipster administered last rites to a 3Rensho with his iPhone:

If you don't have the Vatican's Last Rites "app" on your iPhone or Android device you really should download it immediately since you never know when you're going to have to prepare someone's soul for the afterlife.  And thanks to the patented "Point and Anoint" technology it's both accurate and easy to use.  In fact, it's so easy that it requires no formal Catholic training whatsoever, hence the Vatican's controversial marketing slogan:

It's all part of the Vatican's plan to make Catholicism the Apple of faiths.  I suspect they'll be successful too, since things are getting downright Biblical out there.  Consider this image that was forwarded to me by another reader:

I don't know if this guy is riding a fixed-gear, but he's certainly in a Zen-like state, right down to the headphones:

The Helment Nanzis are saying, "Where's his helmet?"  The commuter dorks are saying, "Where are his fenders?"  And the amphibious vehicle enthusiasts are saying, "Where are his pontoons?"  As for me, I mostly just enjoyed the picture, though I was rather annoyed by the incessant pop-up ads:

Insert your own pontoon joke here: ______________: