Naked Truth: What's Everybody Got Against Pants All of a Sudden?

In today's fast-paced world of instant gratification, it's all too easy to make hasty decisions. There's already an RU86 "morning after" smart phone app, and I imagine it won't be long before we're electing our Presidents in the same way we "like" or "dislike" things on The Facing Book. This is why it's more important than ever to bring back the art of good old-fashioned artisanal decision "curation" like we used to use "Back in the Day:"

(Dachshund of Time, aka the Wiener Dog of Human History)

See, "Back in the Day" you didn't just push a button to make a decision. Instead, you withdrew from society for a prolonged period of meditation and reflection. For example, let's say you had to decide on which spurious cure to take for your consumption, or which brand of pennyfarthing bicycle to purchase. Well, you took a leave of absence from your vocation, you left your family in the care of a neighbor or relative, you put on your decision-making hair shirt, and you retreated into your local Deciding Cave for anywhere from a few weeks to a decade. Then you'd reemerge. Of course, by the time you came back that bloodletting or high-wheeler was probably obsolete, but that's precisely why the old-timey method of decision-making was so effective. Just think of all the leechings and faceplants people were spared because they took the time to think things through.

Well, yesterday I announced the finalists in the "There Will Be Action Wipes" contest, and in so doing I presented you with a decision as important as any you're likely to face in your lifetime. Therefore, to turn around and ask you to pick a winner a mere 24 hours later would be to do a disservice to you, the contestants, and indeed our entire society. Instead, I am granting you an additional day to reflect, and to aid in this I am presenting you with a visual aid:

As I mentioned when I launched the contest two years ago or whenever it was, what we're doing is creating a simplified international symbol for cycling akin to the little men's room guy. So, what I've done is created five mock-ups, one for each finalist, which depict the symbol as you'd be likely to encounter it out in the real world. Here they are:

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

I'm sure you'll agree that this puts an entirely new spin on each the finalists. In particular, #4 has phallic implications even on its own, so when placed on a minimalist porta-potty it could easily lead a traveler to believe the structure is actually some sort of public "glory hole." You should take this into account when choosing your favorite, though whether it counts as a positive or a negative depends entirely on how you feel about glory holes.

Context, as they say, is everything.

Speaking of the time-traveling t-shirt-wearing retro-Fred from the planet Tridork, a reader informs me that, astoundingly, "Bicycling" magazine (who have now compiled all of my Giro d'Italia blog posts in one handy link, Lob help you) is continuing to use him in their promotional materials:

I don't know if their use of this image means "Bicycling" are totally in touch or completely out of touch, but either way it's indisputable at this point that the TTTSWRFFTPTD is nothing less than a cycling icon.

Also, I got to use him for one of my Giro blogs.

Anyway, until we have a new international symbol to guide us, in many cities across America and elsewhere cycling remains a daunting process of blindly inserting ourselves into the metaphorical glory hole of fate and hoping that the world isn't in a biting mood. Yesterday I did just that as I left my little bucolic backwater and bicycle cycled into The Big City. On the way there, I passed this "vintage" BMW with two tickets and a party flyer on it:

Even though I know he drives a Jaguar, my first thought was that the car belonged to that idiot John Cassidy from The New Yorker. Not only does he have a confirmed fondness for old cars and street parking, but he's also just the sort of person who'd get so hung over after some douchey dinner that he'd forget to move his car for two successive street cleanings. I guess we'll know for sure when he publishes a screed about the evils of alternate side parking and how it interferes with his drinking regimen.

I also saw a woman portaging two (2) actual human children in a "bake feets:"

I'm still a novice at this point when it comes to child-portaging, so I'm not sure if there's an equivalent of "Cat 6" racing among the sorts of smug people who engage in it. If so, I'm assuming it doesn't work like regular Cat 6 racing and that it's not as simple as just beating other child-portagers to the tops of climbs. Instead, I imagine there's got to be some sort of a handicapping system that would take into account variables such as:

--The age of the child;

--The number of children being portaged;

--The rider's "Smugness Quotient;"

--The child's embarrassment factor.

That last one seems especially important. A baby or toddler on a bicycle generally looks either happy or asleep, whereas some of these kids I see being portaged in "bake feets" lately are almost in puberty and wear looks of profound and intense embarrassment. You have to figure it's pretty rough to show up at school in mommy's "bake feets" when some of your friends are already arriving on their own "fixies." In any case, I imagine a child portager on a $3,000 "bake feets" carrying two children with a combined age of 26, both of whom are hiding behind their "Harry Potter" novels in shame, has won any child-portaging race before it's even begun.

Anyway, I wasn't portaging a child at the time, so needless to say I totally dominated the woman on the "bake feets." However, no sooner had I begun my descent than I was confronted with a mob of bike rental tourists:

I don't recall seeing this many rental bike tourists on the Manhattan Bridge in years past, but in any case now that the weather is fair they are present in alarming numbers. Inevitably at least one of these riders does something exceedingly stupid and almost crashes me, and this time it was the guy who turned to watch a passing subway train like he was on safari and it was some sort of exotic animal. As he admired the seductive beauty of the D train, he turned right into the guardrail and lost control of his bicycle, though to his credit he was able to correct himself before actually falling off it. Still, if he's so taken with subway trains and bridge views than maybe he should just ride the actual train. I'm sure it's a lot cheaper than renting one of those crappy bikes.

Thanking the Lob above for allowing me to ford the "Big Skanky" without striking a hapless bicycle tourist, I arrived in Manhattan, only to be passed by the rider in the red helmet, who implored me to attend the World Naked Bike Ride on June 11th:

This, to me, is the worst thing about the "bike culture"--their assumption that, just because I'm using a bicycle, I'd also be interested in doing something as ridiculous as riding it naked. If I were using a weed whacker, would some other amateur landscaper tell me I should try edging my lawn without my pants? If I had been buying an avocado in the supermarket, would that woman in front of me have tried to get me to jump naked into a giant bowl of guacamole? Unlikely. Then why tell me I should ride my bike naked? Plus, even if I were actually into riding my bike naked, is it even possible I wouldn't already know about the World Naked Bike Ride? Isn't that like telling someone who's wearing a football jersey, "Hey, you should really check out the Superbowl!" Most distressing, who's so excited about the World Naked Bike Ride that they're riding around telling complete strangers about it?

Well, that guy apparently.

Anyway, at the next light he did that thing fixed-gear riders do where they start weaving like half a block before they get to the intersection and take up two whole lanes of traffic in order to perform the simple act of slowing down. I then found myself contemplating whether it would be too un-PC to start calling such people "skid-tards." Maybe so, but watching these riders bring their bikes to a halt is like watching an old dog who circles a section of floor 47 times before finally lying down.

Then I passed by some sidewalk art:

Naked cycling tip: when taking a break, avoid sitting pantsless on unfinished wooden furniture. Also, be sure to use a pie plate so your, uh, "derailleur" doesn't get stuck in your spokes:

This photo comes via Chris from Electra Bikes who spotted these aftermarket pie plates in a bike shop in Germany, and I'm sure it will please naked cyclists everywhere to know that they're available in both small and large sizes.

10 Items or Less: The Avocado of Death

In today's modern world of today, there are innumerable evils facing our modern society. Nukelear meltdowns, international financiers who grope hotel staff, and a dependence on foreign desserts are just a few of these insidious threats to our very existence. However, when it comes to negative influences, there is one that looms larger than all others:

Minimalism.

Sure, you might think that a movement consisting bunch of rich, iPad-wielding couch surfers with a penchant for borrowing stuff would be relatively benign. Think again--unless you're a minimalist, of course. Minimalists only think once, if at all. They like to keep their heads as empty as their apartments.

The truth is, minimalism is a philosophy of denial, and in this sense it's the Creationism of lifestyles. Creationists deny the mountains of tangible evolutionary evidence we walk on, dig in, and burn in our gas tanks every day in favor of a story they prefer to believe. Similarly, minimalists deny the principles of simple mathematics in favor of a subjective form of accounting that would amaze even a Goldman Sachs executive.

Consider that "15 things" guy:

He arrived at his number by arbitrarily omitting stuff (like his toiletry kit), as well as by bundling other stuff together (like his electronics and various chargers) and counting them as one thing. It's that last form of fictional counting--bundling stuff together--that's the most insidious. For example, bundling a bunch of subprime mortgages together and selling them was what caused the financial crisis. Even worse, bundling items together is wreaking havoc at our supermarket checkout counters, as I learned this past weekend:

The above was the scene I encountered in a Brooklyn supermarket at the so-called "10 items or less" register. As you can see, there are ten items of fruit on the conveyor belt alone--and that's not counting what the cashier has already bagged!

At first I puzzled over how someone could commit a civil violation so egregious, but then I realized that this twisted minimalist counting style is now trickling down to the rest of society, and that the woman purchasing all this stuff has probably deluded herself into thinking that all those avocados are one item. (In fairness to her, the juice wasn't hers--it belonged to the gentleman with the giant fanny pack waiting behind her.)

A mortgage crisis is one thing, but glutted supermarket checkout lines are something else altogether, and the consequences of the latter are potentially far worse. Not only does it cause delay, but allowing people to purchase multiple avocados via express lane while simultaneously inconveniencing purchasers of other items could lead to an "avocado bubble" that could burst with tragic consequences--and I don't want to be around when the guacamole hits the fan.

In any case, I've never shied away from social protest, and you can be sure I did my part by sighing impatiently in a barely audible fashion.

Speaking of counting stuff, Transportation Nation is attempting to quantify the New York City bicycle crackdown, and to this end they're creating a bike ticket map to show which neighborhoods in have been most cracked down-upon. Here's how the map looks so far:

(Each red mark represents an extremely indignant white person.)

As you can see, ticketing seems to be heaviest in parts of the city inhabited by the sorts of whiny people whose biggest problem in life is having to wait behind other people buying too many avocados in supermarkets. Non-coincidentally, these are also exactly the sorts of people who send out press releases to local news websites when they get tickets for running red lights on their Dutch bikes, and who ultimately report this information to crowdsourcing projects run by smug transportation websites. The result of this project is what may be the most obvious map ever created, though I am admittedly intrigued by the outliers, such as this one:

I can only assume this represents a roadie on his way to or from the evening races at Floyd Bennett Field (the big beige blob in the middle of the image), and I must say that surviving the wild ride down Flatbush Avenue only to get a ticket just as you've reached the safety of the Gateway National Recreation Area is like winning the World Rib Eating Championship and then choking to death on a maraschino cherry as you enjoy a celebratory cocktail.

Meanwhile, drivers are constantly finding bold new ways to obstruct bike lanes. For awhile, it looked like the protected ones were posing a bit of a challenge, but I'm pleased to report that one motor vehicle owner has finally cracked the problem of how to block them by simply placing his car diagonally across the controversial Prospect Park West bike lane:

I'm not sure what they were actually doing, but they are taking rope out of the trunk so it's possible that they were tying the car back together. The blanket would also indicate they needed to do some work on the underside of the vehicle:

Perhaps by parking the car partially on the curb they afforded themselves easier access:

As for why they wouldn't simply work on the car in the empty parking space right next to them, my best guess is that the green surface offers better contrast for finding those pesky nuts and bolts that are so easy to lose while performing repairs.

Really, the only thing I'm sure of is there's not a cop in New York City who would even think of giving them a ticket, and I also wouldn't be surprised if the so-called "Neighbors for Better Bike Lanes" emerged from their brownstones and served them lunch.

Finally, as I mentioned last week, I am now resolved to bring the "There Will Be Action Wipes" contest to a conclusion:

To this end, I have chosen five finalists, and I'm not exaggerating when I say it was by far the hardest thing I've ever done. (Harder even than having to wait multiple minutes behind a woman buying too many avocados.) The most difficult part was having to exclude the submissions that were brilliant yet not in keeping with the goal of the contest, which was to create an international symbol for cycling. Therefore, as much as I loved this one:


And this one:

(Erik K)

And this one:

They were a bit too detailed for simple signage. (Sure, the submission above is a sign, but it doesn't work for, say, an airport terminal, or a dedicated cyclist restroom were such a thing to come into existence.) The same thing goes for this one:


I also was forced to exclude symbols that were signworthy but did not include the time-traveling t-shirt-wearing retro-Fred from the planet Tridork:


Or that took excessive liberties with his bicycle:
Again, I can't say emphatically enough that it pained me deeply to exclude all the submissions above, as well as many other exquisite renderings I also received. So, finally, I've narrowed the submissions down to these five (5) finalists, in no particular order:

I have my favorite, but I'm not saying which. In the coming days I'll most likely put these to a vote, but in the meantime I invite you to reflect upon them and consider which you'd most like to represent you in a municipal setting.

This Just In: Leave-Taking and Decision-Making

Firstly, I should let you know that after today, I will be taking a short leave from this blog. This means I will not be posting here again until Monday, May 23rd, at which point I will resume regular updates. However, please note that I will continue to update my daily Bicycling.com Giro d'Italia blog during this time. Also, rest assured I will not be using this leave frivolously, and among other things I plan to finally complete my search for some lugged spokes for my artisanal porteur bike. (It's gonna be total "NAHBS bait.")

Secondly, in yesterday's post I mentioned I will be at the Göteborg Cycel Festival on June 11th, and a number of people subsequently pointed out that I misspelled the city name "Göteborg" by somehow sticking a gratuitous "r" in there. I have since corrected it, and I apologize for the error. At least one person wondered why I didn't just use the anglicized name "Gothenburg," though I think the answer to that is pretty obvious: I wanted to use the umlauts. Also, by way of an excuse, please keep in mind that I'm a product of the American education system. Our schools have only been racially integrated since like 1998, and you can still get sent to the principal's office for implying we may be descended from monkeys, or that condoms are not heathen devil bags. So if you think we actually learn how to spell the names of cities in other countries you're crazy--and also a godless communist, at least according to what I learned in social studies.

Still, I feel terrible, and so as a punishment-slash-learning exercise I made myself write "Göteborg" correctly 100 times. Sadly, though, my attention span is just as tiny as it was in ninth grade, and I kind of got carried away thanks to the umlauts:

As you can see, I can't spell or draw, which is why I eventually became a bike blogger. For further punishment, I assigned myself a five-page report on Göteborg, which I plan to cut and paste entirely from Wikipedia.

Speaking of international incidents, I got one of those spammy scam emails this morning, and I noticed that the scammers are now using some sort of key word technology to customize their missives:

I'm sorry for this odd request because it might get to you too urgent
but it's because of the situation of things right now, I am stuck in
Cardiff,Wales where i came to purchase some bicycle. I was robbed at
the park of the hotel where I stayed,all cash,credit card and cell
were stolen away from me but luckily for me i still have my passports
with me.

I've been to the embassy and the Police here but they're not helping
issues at all and my flight leaves today but i am having problems
settling the hotel bills and the hotel manager won't let me leave
until i settle the bills.

I need a quick loan?? promise to refund it back once i get home.

I knew immediately this was fake for one simple reason:

It's Cardiff, Whales. Duh.

Nevertheless, I was intrigued by the "some bicycle" part. Does the scammer mean "some bicycle" as in "I have to go to Cardiff to pick up some bicycle I just bought on Craigslist?" Or does he actually mean multiple bicycles, as in "Me want to buy some bicycle?" This is an important distinction, because if it's the latter than I'm pretty sure the scammer is my 9th grade English teacher and I should probably report him to the authorities.

Meanwhile, here in Canada's fannypack, a reader informs me that New York City's affable neighbor Philadelphia is like totally stepping up their bicycle enforcement just like we are (they're so cyuuute! I just want to pinch that little Liberty Bell of theirs):

The main difference though is that the police are apparently making a point of ticketing motorists and cyclists--and they're not calling the cyclists "jerks:"

Police officers on bikes and one patrol car will circulate through Center City between 12-4pm educating pedestrians, motorists and bicyclists about the rules of the road and enforcing traffic laws. Brochures have been developed tailored to each user that summarize the rules and will be handed out to walkers, motorists and cyclists. Motorists and cyclists who put others in danger will be ticketed.

I like the part about ticketing "cyclists who put others in danger." If that were actually the basis for ticketing it would be almost impossible to get one while cycling. This is the fundamental irony of American cycling--maintaining the pretense that bicycles and cars are the same and should thus be subject to the same punitive schedule.

What's even more ironic is that a poor student like me who can't even spell rite actually published a book, but isn't that what makes America grate? In fact, my publisher, Chronicle Books, is now publishing more bicycle-themed titles, and I just received a couple of them in the mail. One of these is "I Love My Bike" by Matt Finkle & Brittain Sullivan, and while I apologize for my poor photography I can assure you the book itself boasts top-shelf aesthetics. (Sure, I could learn how to take better pictures, but I didn't become a bike blogger to work.) It's also pretty much exactly what I imagine the Bard College yearbook must look like:

"I Love My Bike" is a series of portraits of people with their bikes, and it's sort of a "who's who" of hipster transplants who have moved from "uncool" cities to "cool" ones:

There's also the requisite Ironic Hipster Nudity (IHN):


As well as a little bit of Fred content, if you're into that sort of thing:

Again, please don't think the poor photos are indicative of the book, and I can assure you that the book inspired the disembodied hand model above to not only say, "Bike, bike, bike!" repeatedly but also to slobber all over most of the photos. I will say I was sort of offended that nobody asked me to be in the book, and while my "fixie" is not even remotely "tight" enough, I would have at least liked a shot at being the token Fred--though from the looks of that last photo the guy they did find totally nailed it.

Meanwhile, a reader has forwarded me a MSN photo gallery of celebrities on bikes, complete with snarky commentary. While some of the images are truly ridiculous, I thought some of the commentary was unwarranted. Consider this one:

"Matthew Broderick embraces the nerdy dad look as he bikes around New York."

"Nerdy dad look" seems a little unfair, he just looks like a regular guy on a bike to me. Sure, he's riding off the sidewalk, and I suppose he does look a little nonplussed, but if you had to endure people shouting "Hey, Ferris!" at you for 25 years you'd be pretty ornery too. And somehow, Matthew Broderick is a nerd, yet they're OK with Ewan McGregor, who looks like he just got dropped from the tweed ride:

"Could anything be cuter than a well-dressed Ewan McGregor biking with an adorable little poodle in his basket? We think not."

Go figure.

Still, it's easy for the media to point and laugh at celebrities on bicycles, since here in Mexico's mullet we're supposed to travel in ludicrously expensive automobiles once we've attained a certain level of success. Or, if you do ride a bike, you've at least got to be unbearably smug about it, as in this video which was forwarded to me by another reader:

My favorite moment is either 1:27, when the guy with no lights gets so overcome with smugness that he goes all Leonardo-DiCaprio-on-the-bow-of-the-Titanic with an "epic" doucheclamation point:

Or 1:46, where the Freds look like they're about to cry:

Anyway, be sure to donate to People for Bikes, so they can make more cutesy videos.

Lastly, before I take my leave for the week, I should share with you some more submissions to the "There Will Be Action Wipes" contest:

Please keep in mind that I'm no longer accepting submissions, and when I return I will set about choosing the winners--though, as you can see, I've got my work "curated" out for me. Here's a lovely collage from Rantwick:


Here's a symbol that evokes mysticism, and comes from an unlikely source:


Bike Snob, please wade with me through this, my magnum opus:

* Triangular schematic evokes triathleticism, triathletic food pyramid (beginning at the top: drink, bar, wafer, cube, shot, and gel)

* Cephalic ovoid approximates ideal airfoil shape of polystyrene/cranial composite while simultaneously symbolizing the Interstellar Tridorkian Fred Delivery Device (ITFDD or, colloquially, "Subaru Baja") beaming the retro-Fred and his alien ferrous alloy technology to earth

The broad strokes of this work may also be interpreted by the casual observer as representative of Tridorkian reproductive apparatus, specially evolved to withstand grueling half-centuries astride a Selle Italia Turbo saddle. Due to the time-travelling nature of the Tridorkian people, this motif also informs the symbology of the Illuminati.


Thank you for your consideration.

Noam Chomsky

I'm pretty sure it's actually him, too.

Here's one that's far more prosaic, though no less delightful:


Bold. Simple. Classic.

Here's one that the submitter was considerate enough to furnish in both "NSFW:"


And Larry King-ified form:




And here's one based on the infamous "trrainright.com" advertisement in Bicycling:



Which is a work of unparalleled subtlety:


I hope to have acquired some sort of handle on the submissions when I return next week.