Paying Your Way: Physics Isn't Fair

Yesterday, while riding home, I inserted my Scattante into David Byrne's lip:

(At least I'm pretty sure that says "lip.")

As I mentioned yesterday, Byrne has designed some new bike racks for the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and as it happens later that day I found myself in the vicinity of that august institution.  Immediately I remembered the rack, and so I resolved to stick my bike into it.  At first I was skeptical, but as it turns out there are few acts as thrilling as becoming one with a piece of living art created by a true genius of our time.  Of course, I'm not referring to parking my bike in David Byrne's rack; rather, I'm referring to reading Heather Hooters's column in the copy of "Juggs" magazine I found in a nearby wastebasket.  It was only after finishing it (spoiler alert: it was about big breasts) that I got around to parking my bike in the rack.  I certainly can't say it was as exciting as a found copy of "Juggs," but I'm sure the Brooklyn gentry will savor the experience of hitchin' up to Mr. Byrne's latest brainfart when they come down to see "Red Hook Summer" so that their next visit to Fairway will seem more culturally significant.

(By the way, the copy of "Juggs" was deposited into that wastebasket by a man driving a brand-new Hyundai Sonata with the sticker still in the window.  I wouldn't swear it was David Byrne, but it sure looked like him, and the music coming from the car sounded a lot like Brian Eno.)

Meanwhile, as Byrne works tirelessly to gussy up the cycling structure of New York City by means of his prodigious mental flatulence, the next mayoral administration (whoever it turns out to be) will most likely do their best to tear it down--or at least put it in a state of suspended animation:

I was disappointed to see Streetsblog refer to the Robs Fords in the singular, but otherwise I found this to be an edifying yet somewhat depressing read.  On the other hand, this "modest proposal" from some idiot in Chicago, which was forwarded to me by a reader, is just stupid:

(Putz.)

Also, I liked him much better in "Midnight Run:"

 

Sure, it's easy to laugh at idiots like this, but it's only a matter of time before someone succeeds in passing a law requiring cyclists to purchase a gallon of gasoline for every 20 miles traveled.  (The fact that cyclists don't have to pay for gasoline seems to be at the heart of all this resentment.)  But of all the idiotic things said by Dennis Farina's slow-witted cousin in the above video, this was probably the idioticest:

"Wouldn't you say that they're kinda like the one percenters of the commuter class?"

Apparently to work for the Chicago Tribune you don't even have to say things that make any form of sense, even as satire.  Instead, it's sufficient to simply equate something you don't like with something other people don't like, even if the two things have absolutely nothing to do with each other.  It's like saying, "Wouldn't you say that kayakers are kinda like the Nazis of the sea?"  Anyway, you know who are the one percenters of the commuter class?  The one percenters.  Like this guy:


I swear to Lob, if another one of these entitled Wall Street assholes rolls up to me in the bike lane and asks me if I have any fancy mustard I'm going to put my U-lock right in his boeuf bourguignon.

It should be apparent to anybody with even the most meager cognitive ability that cycling is cheaper than driving not because of the laws of man but because of the laws of physics.  Anyway, cyclists do their best to make it expensive anyway, which is why they buy stuff like Butnitz bikes.  Incidentally, I recently visited the Budnitz Twitter where I read this:

You know, those guys in the "matching bike outfits" aren't embarrassed, they're tired.  That's because they probably just got finished riding like nine hundred miles through the Rockies and are rolling home, whereas you're riding your designer city bike to brunch.  They're not racing you.  Thinking you're faster than people who are at rest is the primary symptom of the condition known as "New Cyclist's Exuberance."  If left untreated, it can go on to cause other undesirable forms of behavior, like starting designer bike companies or inventing gratuitous accessories:





Every great inventor has his "Eureka!" moment, and the inventor of the Wingz seatpost rack had his during an ill-fated trip to the grocery store:

"One night I had to make a late-night run to the grocery store, and that's when I bought a 24-pack of water bottles, some cereal, and milk.  And on the way home, every time we'd make a turn all the cargo would just fall off.  So I ended up having to walk the bike home."


Sadly, between admitting that he purchases bottled water and revealing that he rides a Magna, he's just lost every single potential investor in Portland:

(To Portlanders, this is the equivalent of riding around in a Klan outfit.)

Nevertheless, this was his inspiration to invent the perfect seatpost rack:

"So that's when I decided to design my own seatpost rack.  One that could adequately balance larger cargo without causing them to become off-balance and fall off."

Arguably, inventing the perfect seatpost rack is sort of like inventing the perfect suction cup car dashboard pad.  Still, you have to admire him for boldly ignoring the fact that there's already an invention that can "adequately balance larger cargo without causing them to become off-balance and fall off," and it's called "The Box:"

(Modified box with cutouts for additional weight-savings.)

Instead, he went with barbecue-tongs-and-a-bungee:

Though I suppose in a pinch he could use it to take a hot dog off the grill.

Speaking of milk crates, the crate image above comes from a site called "Milkcrate Digest"--which, amazingly, exists:

Since learning about it, I've been elbow-deep in milk crate porn (milk crates are typically only elbow-deep)--and I even found some milk crate pet-portaging porn:

Awww, that dog's wearing a hlellment! ("Hlellment" is Welsh for "helment.")

Hopefully they'll charge him double for the passenger if he rides though Chicago.

Wednesday is the Loneliest Number

So apparently they have this Vuelta thing going on in Spain.  It's basically like a big bike race and some of the people from the Tour de France are in it, but not the funny-looking guy who won it.  (He's too busy smoking and scootering.)  I was curious to see what's been going on at this Vuelta thing, so I went to a website that has stuff about bike racing and found out that Alethandro Valverde is whining because Sky didn't wait for him after he crashed:

“They didn’t have the balls to stop, they chose an unsporting way,” Valverde said at the finish. “Sky formed an echelon and they’re perfectly within their rights to do that. I’m not cross that I lost the lead because of this, but because there was no respect.”

It's enough with the waiting in bike racing already.  The most basic part of bike racing is not falling off the bike.  If you fall off a horse during the Kentucky Derby do the horses stand around grazing until you get back on again?  If you misspell something in a spelling bee, do they wait around while you go find a dictionary?  Do you get a "do-over" if you get a splinter in your inner thigh during the caber toss?  (Actually, I have no idea, maybe you do.)  Anyway, everybody waited around for Valverde for two whole years when he got suspended for cheating, so expecting them to wait again when he falls of his bicycle is a bit much.

Meanwhile, here in New York, it turns out that more people like bike lanes than don't like them:

("Ohmygodshe'snotwearingahlelmentshe'sgoingtodie!!!")

Though that doesn't mean people don't have irritating things to say about them, like this:

Gloria Tingue, 41, an occupational therapist in Brooklyn, said she believed that many bicyclists ignored the city’s traffic rules. “Everyone should be going in the same direction, and if we’re stopping, they should also be stopping and not weaving and bobbing in traffic, because it is a hazard for everyone else,” she said.

I couldn't agree more.  Cyclists should really behave much more responsibly, like drivers do:

Looks like somebody made an "oopsie."  And here's another one:

Oopsie!  Looks like he forgot to stop.

But for the real idiocy, you have to read the reader comments on the article.  Consider this one:

Donald Dal Maso NYC
Yes of course, more bike lanes! But please, lots and lots of public service announcements to educate the rest of us, who don't bike-ride, about how to respect the lanes.

I admit my ignorance and I would like to avoid being screamed at by bike-riders for my lack of alertness and awareness. And of course I don't want to get hit or cause an accident. Something on the order of the seat-belt campaign from years ago is really needed.

Here's a public service announcement:

I'm all for respecting even the most clueless pedestrians, but do we really need public service announcements for concepts this basic?  I'm sickened by all the motor vehicle carnage in the city but even I wouldn't expect the city to issue a public service announcement telling people not to stand around in the middle of the street.  Once we start having public service announcements about not standing around in the bike lane it's only a matter of time before we're inundated by other PSAs like "Don't play in fire!," "Don't eat dead rats!," or "Don't tie yourself to a filing cabinet and jump into the Hudson!"

Anyway, I have a sinking feeling that whoever becomes the next mayor is going to roll up all our spiffy new green bike lanes like one of those "marijuana cigarettes" they talk about in the PSAs and make a big show of smoking them into oblivion.  Then everyone will have to take "Premium Rush" lessons, as in this embarrassing video that was sent to me by some PR firm:



I found certain aspects of this video troubling.  For example, consider this warning:

Isn't pretty much everyone who rides a fixed-gear bike on the street technically an amateur?

Also, I don't think that doing a 180-whatever is a good way to flee an attacker, as the video suggests:

When fleeing an assailant on your fixed-gear bicycle the most effective technique is to simply hurl the bike at him and run.  If you do it properly the assailant will become hopelessly entangled in the bike frame and then lose his fingers in the fixed-gear drivetrain like in those awful photos on Sheldon Brown's site, and your subway train will have almost certainly arrived by the time he manages to escape by gnawing off his own limbs.

(Now that's street smarts.  The city should make a PSA.)

The next lesson in the video is the bunnyhop, which Justin Gordon-Levitt apparently uses to escape a New York City bike cop:

This is highly unrealistic, since if you've ever seen a New York City bike cop you know that all you have to do to escape one is be able to ride a bike in a forward direction without falling down.

It's also at this point that the "superfan" getting the fixie lessons reveals himself to be a total ringer:

(Yeah, like he just learned that.)

By the way, did you know that you too can own a "Premium Rush" bike?

Well you can--and it even comes with a "sticker pack:"

And of course, Affinity will be making a limited edition Metropolitan frameset in pure white, supplied with a sticker pack, so you can customize your ride to mimic the bike in the movie.

Stickers?  Movies?  Mimicry?  This should be a huge success.  I was particularly alarmed by this:

On August 24th, fixie culture, bike messengers, and Hollywood collide with the release of the new movie Premium Rush...  And with any luck, it will inspire people to air up the tires and ride their bikes.

I really, really do not want to share the streets with anybody who is inspired to ride a bicycle by "Premium Rush."  It's been bad enough these past few years sharing the streets with all the idiots who were inspired to ride bicycles by all those insipid "MASHSF" videos.  Fortunately, the typical Nü-Fred generally lasts only two to five years in New York City before downgrading to an easier and more manageable city, at which point they just become San Francisco's or Portland's or Austin's problem.  Or, if they do stay, they eventually become regular Freds and spend all their time on Route 9W playing with Strava.

Anyway, the whole fixie thing was like totally over by the time "Premium Rush" went into pre-production, and anybody with any sense has long moved on to mini bikes:



The biggest problem with riding a mini bike is finding a u-lock for it, though I've had good luck just using a safety pin.

And on the more genteel (and by "genteel" I mean "smug") end of the New York City cycling spectrum, David Byrne has once again honored us with some whimsical bike racks:

Apparently, the idea is to arrange the letters so that they spell out the names of productions, sort of like a marquee:

"I realized that a few very basic shapes — a semi circle, a line, and a V shape — would allow one to make a good percentage of the letters of our alphabet. With help and advice from Dero Bike Racks, we figured out how these components could be easily and quickly swapped out to spell different words. For example, the letters could spell out the productions at BAM or any random message for that matter."

This should be especially entertaining when Stanley Wiggins performs at BAM:

Speaking of alphabet bike racks, the only cycling pick-up line more seductive than "Wanna lock your bike to my cunt?" is "Wanna do hill repeats?"

Hill Repeats - Pershing Hill - m4w - 45 (West New York)
Date: 2012-08-21, 8:14PM EDT

You were wearing a pink jersey and torn shorts. I was riding a bright green bike with an Australia jersey.
I don't want to hit on you, you looked like a decent climber and I want to invite you to join my group for longer rides...
:-)

Wait...  Green bike?  Australia jersey?  Holy crap, it's MC SpandX!

The fact that this video is now three years old underscores just how late "Premium Rush" actually is.  They should give him a show at BAM.

Confusion and Delay: Whither Bike Share?

I wish I was a minimalist.

If I was a minimalist, it would only take me five minutes to pack up my five belongings and leave Brooklyn forever, which is what I wanted to do immediately after I finished watching this:


I realize it's supposed to be all cutesy and tongue-in-cheek, but unfortunately this is what people in Brooklyn are actually like now.  (Which is to say cloyingly cutesy and tongue-in-cheek.  Or, if you prefer, they're like Portlanders with money.)  Also, the above scenario is highly implausible, because it's virtually impossible for even the most clueless transplant to get lost on a bicycle in Brooklyn now.  As long as you enter the borough by bridge, all you have to do is stick to the bike lanes, since the Department of Transportation has taken great pains to make sure to route them through only he most gentrified neighborhoods.  (Bike lane-ing is the new redlining.)  As long as you're going to visit someone like the guy above, all you have to do is stick to the bike lanes and eventually you're going to wind up on his street.  Really, you'd have an easier time getting lost on a carousel.

Meanwhile, if you're looking to take up the sport of Carbon Road Bike Bicycle Cycling, reader Omri the Magnificent (as I've just decided to call him) has forwarded me the definitive guide:

First, you'll need a crabon famre:

Then, you'll need some crabon handling bars to steer it with:

Don't forget the saddle:

By the way, you could save yourself about $560 here by cutting the chamois out of your shorts and gluing a pair of plastic rails to it.

Oh, you'll also need a dork-tastic space helment complete with face shield:

As well as a lock, because of course you're an idiot and you're going to leave this five-figure lump of plastic outside:

When you're all finished, you'll have a $20,000 bike:

By the looks of things, the Stanley Wiggins-inspired British Fred Boom is going to be even dorkier than the American Lance Armstrong-inspired Fred Boom--and at least twice as expensive.  I also imagine there will be a lot of disappointed Brit-Freds in space helmets riding home on Boris Bikes after their $20,000 lumps of crabon get stolen when they lock them up outside.

Fortunately, the face shields will hide their tears.

Speaking of Boris Bikes, you may have heard that our own Bloomie Bikes are being delayed until next year:

As for the reason for the holdup, good luck deciphering all the technical jargon:

“The software doesn’t work,” the mayor said. “Duh.”

I'm glad to see that "Duh" finally qualifies as an official excuse when it comes to municipal matters.  Maybe next year I can just scrawl the word "Duh" on my tax return and enclose forty-seven cents.

In the meantime, if you're visiting New York City and you'd like to have access to a bicycle while you're in town, you can always use something called Splinster:

Let's say you want to experience the thrill of riding around the city on a genuine fixed-gear fixiebike.  Well, just enter the appropriate search parameters and you'll be annoying pedestrians in no time:

You get a bike, the owner gets his weed money, and it would appear that everybody wins.  Then, you get to leave reviews like this:

And like this:

There's even a theft guarantee:

The Spinlister Guarantee

We want you to be comfortable listing your bike on Spinlister. That's why we're guaranteeing your bike's safety on our system. If your bike is damaged or stolen during a rental period and the renter is unable to reimburse you for the fair value of your bike, we'll cover the cost up to $5000. And we'll buy you a cake.

That's why I'm putting my "Beloved" on Splinster:


I bought my "Beloved" for $4,895, conveniently just below Splinster's $5,000 reimbursement ceiling.  Here's the receipt:

The way it's going to work is, you're going to rent my "Beloved."  Then it's going to get "stolen," and you're going to be "unable" to reimburse me.  So, Splinster is going to give me $4,895.

And, for your troubles, I'll give you the cake.

If you're wondering why there isn't more in it for you, it's because I have overhead.  For example, I'm going to need at least a few hundred from that $4,895 in order to buy more "Beloveds" from Performance.  I figure that once I've got five or ten "Beloveds" in circulation I'll be able to retire before New York City finally gets the bike share program up and running.  Then I can finally buy that hoverbike I've always wanted:

The best thing about a hoverbike is it's much harder to get "doored:"


got doored by a runaway taxi - 24 (Upper East Side)
Date: 2012-08-21, 2:37AM EDT

I was riding my bike on 84th on thursday. I was turning onto 3rd ave when a guy opened his door and i ran into it. 

I was shirtless, if you saw this and had the good sense to check the taxi plate. could you let me know?

I got right up, i thought i was fine, but it was just adrenaline. I fucked my shit up. The Taxi drove off. I would like to sue his ass. not in a bad way. But ive payed 150 in co-pays alone. my iPod broke on the door and my bike needs work. 


Plus i had to skip some gigs i was supposed to play since my shoulder is in a sling. actually i might as well put a plug in for the gig ill play this thursday. this is more about the taxi though. 

Left Field Bar. Lower east side. 5 dollar cover. Thursday night, doors at 7. say you're there for Swerve. 


If you saw the Cab. and the long haired shirtless guy getting doored by it....please email me 

That's how you turn a misfortune into an opportunity.

The Indignity of Commuting by Bicycle: Encounters in the Bike Lane

Remember that race walker who got caught taking the EPO?  Yes?  No?  Don't care?  Well, either way, he's now apologizing (probably in hopes that he'll walk on the criminal charges):

"I made a huge error," Alex Schwazer says. "And I can only repeat, I'm sorry."

At a news conference in Bolzano in northern Italy, Schwazer wept and at one point buried his face in his hands. His manager and a lawyer participated in the news conference.

After this moving apology for getting caught engaging in the humiliating act of race walking in the first place, he then went on to address the actual doping:

"I couldn't say no to this decision to do doping for the 2012 Olympics," he said.

He denied getting the performance-enforcer from Michele Ferrari, the Italian doctor who in 2002 was banned by the Italian Cycling

Presumably, after being banned from professional cycling, Michele Ferrari moved on to the only sport that's even dorkier, which is race walking.  Unfortunately though it looks like the authorities are on to him, which means from here he'll probably move on to dog shows.  (I'm not sure how you dope at a dog show, but it probably involves giving Dachshunds Viagra to make them appear longer and harder.)

By the way, race walking may look utterly ridiculous to the uninitiated, but to competitors like Schwazer it's a sport full of beauty and grace:

"The race walk was making me nauseous," he said. 

If it's any consolation, the race walk makes the rest of us nauseous too.

Alas, stories like these can make you lose faith in the integrity of sport, but for every doofus who's putting a glide in his stride and a dip in his hip by artificial means there's an inspiring tale which rekindles your love of humanity.  Consider this man, who has ridden from China to London to see the Olympics:


A ride this "epic" makes those Rapha gentlemen's races look like a bunch of foppish gnats buzzing around a fruit stand, and as they grimace in contrived black and white this guy just smiles beatifically:

So how does he feel after riding for two years and through sixteen countries just to see the Olympics?

So instead he spends most of his time entertaining the ladies of London in his lavishly-appointed human-powered bachelor's pad:

("If this rickshaw's a-rockin', don't come a-knockin'.")

Yes, he's made quite a name for himself in London, and in addition to putting enough notches in his bedpost to make Mario Cipollini blush, he's also gotten to party with many celebrities--including Tour de France winner and Olympic gold medalist Bradley Wiggins:

Actually, that's not Bradley Wiggins.  That is in fact notorious London huckster and master of disguise "Jimmy the Shapeshifter," who over the years has duped hapless tourists into thinking he's everybody from Winston Churchill to Russell Brand:

(Dame Judi Dench?  Look again--that's actually Jimmy!)

I know this because last time I was in London he convinced me he was the Queen and I gave him fifty bucks for what turned out to be a false knighthood.

Anyway, from London, Chen Guan Ming is off to Portland, OR, where he'll simply ride up alongside local cyclists and laugh at them:

For any Portlanders who don't speak Mandarin, chances are what he's saying is, "Ooh, you sell soup from a bike.  Well I rode 37,000 miles just to watch beach volleyball."  Ultimately though he'll probably stay there and open a shop, and before you know it rickshaws will be the new cargo bike.

Meanwhile, in other Olympic news, Slate is answering questions nobody is asking:

What are those solid-looking wheels track cyclists use? Why don’t all cyclists use them?

Um, what do you mean, "Why don't all cyclists use them?"  Of course they do!  Disc wheels are perfect for casual riding:

Especially when you get them for free:

Notes:

I build this bike almost entirely for free. Wheels free, Frame free, Cranks Free...only paid for the seat post, stem, bars, and grips. BOOSH!!

"Boosh?"  Isn't that French for "mouth?"  While it's tempting to conclude statements you've made on the Internet with doucheclamation points such as "BOOM!" or "BOOSH!," it's generally gratuitous, since readers can almost always tell what you've written is fatuous or inane even without them.

Anyway, while people have been riding slowly around the city on disc wheels for years now, last night I discovered that the new fashion trend in urban cycling is the sequined cape:

By the way, before you jump to any conclusions, what you're mistaking for a Really Shitty Photograph is actually Art. BOOSH!!!

Speaking of doucheclamation points, a Harvard windshield decal comes across as a doucheclamation point after a driver overtakes you and then cuts you off in the bike lane:

Though that's nothing compared to getting hit by a driver on a protected bike path, as a reader spotted on the bikeway approach to the 59th Street/Queensboro/Ed Koch/Etc. bridge in Queens this morning:

In a sane world a person who drives onto a bikeway and hits a cyclist would be arrested, but I'm sure in this case the only thing the cop gave him was directions.  

And yesterday, another reader was actually hit from behind when a driver decided he'd rather use the bike lane than wait in traffic.  Here is the aftermath:

Fortunately a police officer arrived on the scene and meted out quick justice by telling the victim that there would be no investigation because he wasn't killed, and that he would not be ticketing the driver because he didn't actually witness the incident.  Instead, after nearly murdering somebody, the driver and his voluminous man-breasts were simply sent on their way.

By the way, presumably the police officer was joking when he said there would be no investigation because the cyclist wasn't killed, because we all know that even if he had been killed there would be no investigation either.

Anyway, as you ply the bike lanes of New York, keep any eye out for "Tits" McGee, his accomplice Officer Pants Yabbies, and the Blue Delivery Van of Death (actually, all delivery vans are vans of death):

Also watch out for Scandinavians in Ray Bans:

Two Worlds Collide - w4m - 32 (wburg bridge)

Date: 2012-08-09, 11:33AM EDT

Reply to: [deleted]

You: Slicked back scandinavian with the ray bans, a dandyish black bike and a seriously insufficient sense of safety

Me: Girl you crashed the fuck into 

Get at me. Let's hit up the ATM. We can do this the hard way, or the easy way. 

You broke my finger and my bike a little THE FUCK. I HATE YOU! DON'T BE AN ASSHOLE WITH YOUR BIKE. 

I wonder what happens when the police arrive on the scene of a bike-on-bike collision.  On one hand, they must want to ignore the victim, but on the other hand they must want to punish the scofflaw cyclist brutally and out of all proportion to his crime.  They must experience a mental grinding of gears akin to shifting a car without using a clutch, followed by complete cognitive breakdown.  

Or, more likely, they just ticket both cyclists.  Because that would make a lot more sense.