Feeling Oathy: The Importance of Being Artisan

Yesterday evening, I engaged in some deep soul-searching, by which I mean I watched my favorite cable TV programs on my DVR while drinking wine from a box. (And none of that store-bought boxed wine for me, either--I pour the dregs from wine bottles into a shoebox lined with Saran wrap and consume the contents once a month.) One of these shows is "Bored to Death," which does for Brooklyn what "Portlandia" does for Portland (only a bit more deftly and urbanely), and which has been featuring an entertaining subplot about an "artisanal" restaurant. This got me thinking about the whole "artisanal" craze, and why I find it so irritating.

Then, suddenly it hit me: it's because I'm jealous! I mean, why should all these new Nü-Artisans get all the credit? Sure, their beards are a bit fluffier, and their flannels a bit more artfully distressed, and their sun-drenched quasi-industrial workspaces photograph well, but other than that they're not doing anything the rest of us aren't doing. Aren't we all "artisans?" Don't we all fill the world with functional beauty and value in our own way? Don't we all deserve fawning articles and black-and-white Internet mini-documentaries? It's simply not fair.

And that's when I decided it's time to take this faux-nomenon by its exquisitely-wrought hand-crafted "pants yabbies." We are the 99%, and it's time to #OccupyArtisanal and stop letting the utterly pretentious 1% hog all the attention. But in order to do that, we need to beat them at their own game. For example, I've been making the mistake of thinking I'm just a lazy person who writes goofy bike shit all day while sitting around in his underpants, when in reality I'm an authentic Brooklyn Nü-Artisan carefully selecting words by hand which I then sculpt meticalously maticulosly real careful-like into one-of-a-kind velo-sophical vignettes.

Go ahead-try it with your own vocation! I guarantee you'll find it easy to masturbate your job description into something that throbs with pretense. Then, you can join me in taking the "Artisan's Oath:"

--I am the Campbellian hero in my own endless narrative.

--The way I go about my job and the way I dress while doing it is far more important than the finished product.

--Whenever possible, I will engage a fellow artisan to document my process.

It's as simple as that. I strongly believe that if we all adopt this credo we can lift America out of the economic doldrums and restore it to its former greatness. You see, the reason American ingenuity is just a quaint memory is that all those hardworking people simply did their jobs without mythologizing themselves. Instead, they just Got On With It--and that's like totally BO-ring. Sure, eventually they figured out they needed to farm the mythologizing out to advertising agencies so that they could Sell More Stuff, but by then it was too late, and we had to pay the advertising agencies so much to do it that we had to get people in other countries to do our Getting On With It for us. That's why it's vital that we all discover our inner pitchman and bring both manufacturing and bullshit back to America where it belongs.

Now read that all again while you listen to this:

Lob bless us everyone, and remember: Be your own bullshit artist artisan!

Speaking of American ingenuity and artisanship, another term that gets bandied about all too much these days is "YouTube Sensation." However, the Überhood assembly video is one that I feel more than lives up to the moniker. Let's watch it again, because it's worth it:



The Überhood people have a video hit on their hands, and that's because it's rare you come across something that works on so many levels, almost all of which are sexually suggestive. The words "Swing up the shaft of your Überhood until it is vertical" are potent enough alone, but when you pair it with an image like this the results are practically explosive:

(Überhood shaft finding its target.)

I was sad to see that the Überhoods had disabled the comment feature for the video, but while they may silence our voices, they cannot quell our delight.

As for the contraption itself, sadly it has been panned by the Phoenix Sun Times:

Not to be deterred, the company have gone back to the drawing board, and are now set to announce the release of the "Überhood 2.0:"

Just integrate some sort of electronic opening system into that, make another dirty video, and I think they've got themselves a real winner.

Speaking of electronics, yesterday I mentioned Campagnolo's electronic shifting system. Like it or not, I think we all have to agree that electronic shifting is here to stay, and that means it's only a matter of time before people start jumping on "vintage" electronic shifters in order to gain "street cred." That's why you might want to nab yourself an old Mektronic system while they're still affordable:

Don't be daunted by the fact that the group is only "partially working," since Mavic designed them to only work partially straight from the factory. That's not a defect--it's a feature. In fact, "partially working" is sort of the electronic equivalent of friction shifting, and the true e-retrogrouch prides himself on not needing any of that over-simplified "fully working" stuff. And even if it doesn't work at all and you can only use one gear combo, you still come out ahead, because the hot irony setup for this year's Singlespeed Cyclocross World Championship is undoubtedly going to be non-working Mektronic.

As for me, I'll pass on the new stuff and on the Mavic stuff. Even Mavic Zap is too refined for my taste. In fact, few people know that Thomas Edison actually developed the first-ever electric shifting group, and I've been hard at work piecing a full Edison group together on eBay. For example, right now I've got my eyes on this NOS Edison shifter:

The light action of the modern electronic groups may appeal to some people, but I prefer more positive feedback from my shifters. In particular, when I shift I like to hear metallic squeaking, a thunk, and then this.

Once I get my hands on a shifter, I'll then begin the search for an Edison electric derailleur:


As you can see, the Edisons were made from lightweight cast iron (the crabon of its day) and featured detailing that puts any Campagnolo component to shame. Equally lightweight and elegant was the battery pack:

Riders would get up to 17 minutes of ride time on a single charge, and once the batteries were depleted all you had to do was find an old mill and hook your bike up to it:

Three days later you'd be fully charged and ready to ride again--that's assuming you weren't too tired from all the wood chopping you had to do to earn your room and board, or you hadn't run afoul of the mill owner by playing "footsie" with his daughter under the dinner table.

Of course, Edison groups are particularly sensitive to water intrusion, by which I mean one single drop of water is enough to fry the rider to death. Given this, the only concession to modernity I will make on this build is the retrofitting of an Überhood. That should keep everything sufficiently dry.

Moving on from component geekery, I neglected to mention that Tour de France winner Alberto Contador has gotten married, and I wish he and his bride, Macarena Pescador, my belated congratulations. I was sorry that I couldn't attend the wedding, though the pictures reveal that Alberto wore a truly "epic" tie:

Though Macarena opted for decidedly more informal attire and went with a purple scarf and puffy coat:

While "frenemy" and best man Andy Schleck looked ravishing in an elegant white gown:

Needless to say, Alberto and Macarena were married in strict accordance with Jewish law, though the ketubah is only binding pending the results of the post-nuptial doping control.

Lastly, I also mentioned recumbents yesterday, and I'm pleased to announce that renowned saddle maker Brooks is finally acknowledging the recumbist by introducing a recumbent-specific model of its venerable B-17 saddle:


At $2,000 the saddle is surprisingly affordable, though the price balloons significantly when you factor in that recommended 55 gallon steel drum of Proofide.

Must-Haves: 'Bents and Button-Shifting

Every so often, a reader raises a point in the comments that I feel warrants further discussion. After all, we are cyclists, and unlike users of other forms of transportation we are constantly looking inward in order to better understand ourselves. This is because, unlike, say, the bus passenger or the roller-skier, we know that the unexamined life is not worth living. Also, we're profoundly smug and self-absorbed, and we all operate under the delusion that what we're doing is special. There's a fine line between introspection and masturbation, and we cross it with every pedal stroke.

Anyway, the comment I felt warranted further discussion was this one:

Anonymous said...

why is the cycling community so resistant to recumbent frames? They’ve been around for almost 100 years now! Safer (you can put STRONG brakes on them w/o risking headers); faster (one won Paris-Brest-Paris in 1933, causing them to be outlawed for “bicycle” racing!); much more comfortable (no penis paralysis, neck strain, etc.). I’d love to have some of the innovations on this wish list added to my Easy Racers Gold Rush Replica, on which I’ve been putting thousands of miles a year on for some time now.

November 7, 2011 10:19 PM

First of all, I'd like to preface this by saying that I for one have nothing whatsoever against recumbents and that I embrace recumbent riders as I do all of my fellow cyclists. (And by "embrace" I mean I air-hug them and then retreat to the restroom where I sanitize myself compulsively with Purell hand sanitizer and Action Wipes.) Moreover, I feel strongly that people should ride in whatever orientation they so choose, be it horizontally, vertically, or in some kind of gravity-defying gyroscoping manner. Do I find recumbents frightening? Sure I do. Is it because as they approach it looks like the rider may kick me in the face? It is. Does this discrimination make me a bad cyclist? It does not--being really slow and falling down a lot is what makes me a bad cyclist. Being afraid of recumbents just makes me a bad person, and there's a difference.

What I do object to, though, is when recumbent riders (or indeed any type of riders) try to proselytize. I don't mean the "Try it, you may like it" kind; I mean the "How dare you fools not adopt my inherently superior machine?" kind.

For this reason, there is much to address in this comment, but I might as well start with the supposed issue of "penis paralysis." Of course, as we all know, the supposed "impotency epidemic" among upright cyclists is a massive conspiracy engineered by the automotive industry (in order to discourage bicycle commuting) and by the bicycle saddle industry (in order to sell so-called "anatomic" saddles with weird shapes and creepy cutouts). Sure, it's possible to set up your bike in such a way that it will cause "penis paralysis," but it's also possible to set up your office chair this way too, and I don't hear anybody saying that we should all be working in La-Z-Boys.

Most importantly, what about the great many cyclists who don't even have penises in the first place? That's right, mister recumbent apologist, I'm talking about people with vaginas--you know, those things that look like anatomical saddle cut-outs. What's the matter, women can't ride bikes? I would then put it to you that you are a sexist, or what at Bard they might call a "Euro-phallocentric womyn-hating genderizationalist." Now sit in the corner and stare at a Georgia O'Keefe painting until you've learned something.

As far as the thing about a recumbent winning Paris-Brest-Paris in 1933 and then being outlawed, this would appear to allude to "The Recumbent's Darkest Day," which is when recumbents were banned from UCI racing. I'm not sure why this applies, since if your goal is to ride the fastest form of two-wheel transit you might as well ride a motorcycle. Moreover, the upright bikes most of us ride to work aren't UCI legal either anyway. And as for being banned for their "superiority" for racing, then how come it's more than 70 years later and recumbent riders still haven't banded together and created a race more compelling and dramatic than the Tour de France? It wouldn't even be all that hard--with all the doping scandals and allegations of UCI corruption, professional cycling is pretty much just propped up on toothpicks at this point anyway. Mainstream approval and legitimacy is there for the taking, and griping about a ban this old is like having an oblong ball and, instead of playing football, just complaining that they won't let you play baseball with it.

But really, there's one simple reason for the cycling world's "resistance" (as the commenter calls it) to the recumbent, and it is perfectly expressed in this film about revered San Francisco messenger Dogpaw, which I have featured on this blog before and which is undoubtedly the greatest messenger-themed documentary of all time as well as a poignant homage to the upright bicycle:

You see, upright bicycles are much easier to carry up steps:

(Yes, that's an upright bicycle hidden in Dogpaw's hair.)

And that's pretty much it. See, simple? The upright position and lofty vantage point is just a bonus:

As is the conduciveness to giving and receiving "high fives:"

So let us all, recumbent, non-recumbent, and even people who ride both (these people are called "bi-cumbent") ride together in mutual respect for our chosen orientation, and even give each other high-fives as conditions warrant--though I suppose an upright rider technically has to "low-five" a recumbent rider.

Speaking of technology, did you know that Campagnolo are still in business? Well, they are. Not only that, but they've finally introduced their own electronic groupset:

(Isn't that cute? Electronic shifting, just like Shimano.)

The Campagnolo system is called "EPS," which stands for "Electronic Power Shift." It was originally called "Electronic Precision Power Shift," but they had to omit the second "P" for two reasons: 1) It wasn't very precise; and 2) they received a cease-and-desist letter from actor Omar Epps:

("Not on my Rolex watch, Campy.")

Of course, the big difference between Shimano and Campagnolo is in their "corporate culture." At Shimano they use "research and development," whereas at Campagnolo they use the "freak occurrence" method:

Perhaps the most revelatory: In 2005 the group was ready to be put into production but a freak occurrence stopped everything. Cars with team bikes were driving home from the Giro d'Italia and encountered a powerful rainstorm. The combination of the sheer volume of water and the 150kph speed the cars were traveling at was enough to drive water into the electronics. The systems quit. And even though the systems began working again a day or so later, Campy decided it needed to rework the sealing.

So basically, the only thing that kept Campagnolo from trying to sell this crap to you in 2005 was a rainstorm. Wow. You'd think they might have accounted for the fact that it might get wet beforehand. Sure, bikes never get wet, but did it not even occur to anybody at any point to give it a little spritz before rolling it out? This is not expensive testing we're talking about--all you need is a garden hose and an adjustable nozzle. We're talking like $40 bucks at the Home Depot, tops. And how bad were these seals that it took them another six years to make them work?

Still, it was only a matter of time, since as soon as people touch electronic shifting they simply must have it:

The market is still dominated by mechanical shifting, but people have heard of electronic shifting. They may have touched it, or one of their buddies has it. Maybe they know it took all three spots on the Tour de France podium this year.

Some people may find Tour de France results impressive, but not me. I mean, Schleck genitals took two of three spots on the Tour de France podium this year, and a lot of people may have touched that too, but it doesn't mean I want it on my bike:

(No, thanks.)

Of course, if you're a Campagnolo fan, you'll want to know that this group retains their trademark Italian "passion" and "soul," and inasmuch as both of these words are cycling euphemisms for "quirky" it certainly does. For instance, instead of just popping the battery out and putting it on a charger, you actually have to wheel the the whole bike to an outlet:

The battery is not removable from the bike: To charge the system, you must run a lead to the bicycle.

Brilliant. Now you'll either have to store your bike near an outlet or else run extension cords all over your house. But at least there's a snazzy "EPS Interface:"

A quick push of one of the mode buttons and the EPS Interface (which can be attached to the stem, or to the brake housing) indicates battery charge with a green/yellow/red system. When 6% charge remains, there is an additional acoustic warning.

Presumably, it's Campagnolo's answer to "Siri:"

("My pocket watch says it's time for a charge.")

The cease-and-desist letter for that feature is still pending.

Been There Bombed That: Zoobombs Away!

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

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

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

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

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

April says:

NOVEMBER 4, 2011 AT 2:16 PM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

And then everybody rides down a hill:

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

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

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

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


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

Reply to:

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

Hope you had a better enjoyable night all intact.

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

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

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

We talked about your helmet and hats.

Talked about where I was from.

You said you liked me.

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

BSNYC Friday Bake Sale and Power Lunch!

In New York City cycling circles, many people dream of a return to the "golden age" of cyclesport. You know, when Madison Square Garden was a hotbed of bicycle racing, and the only Knickerbockers you were likely to find in there were the old-timey pants. To this end, a "famed architect" has unveiled his plans for the New York Velodrome, which would be part of a proposed "cycling center" in Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx:

Now, I'm not an architect, but I do see one glaring design flaw in this rendering, which is this: there is a ridiculously huge number of people in there! Don't get me wrong--I love the idea of a cycling center--but there's no way that many people are going to show up to watch six-day bike races. Sure, it's tempting to think that in a few years big companies will be wooing their clients with courtside velodrome seats, but I don't really see it happening. I mean, you can't even count on the "hipsters" anymore! Until recently, they at least would have pretended that they were dying to watch track racing. Now, though, if you went to Williamsburg and tried to drum up an audience, you'd probably meet with a lot of replies like this:

"Oooh, this is awkward. Yeah, we're all pretending to be into cyclocross now, sorry."

Hey, I like the idea of six-day races in New York City, but I'm just being realistic. Mainstream tastes are a little different these days, and I'm sure if you got Danny MacAskill in there hucking his bike off the rafters and onto people's heads you'd fill the place to capacity. I can imagine MacAskill ping-ponging all over a quasi-industrial stage set, and one of the "obstacles" could be David Blaine, who's suspended from the ceiling inside the trunk of a '98 Toyota Camry where he's been starving himself for months. The show will be a huck-tastic spectacular and an off-Broadway sensation.

Or, maybe the cycling center could host a thrilling speed-skater-vs-cycling match-up:

SpEeDsKaTeR verses CyCliSt - m4w - 100 (prospect park)
Date: 2011-11-02, 3:10PM EDT
Reply to:

we where chasing each other around the park. i was skating. you are lovely. you disappeared. you rode a mountain bike.

hope you had a good time.

maybe you'll get this...

I'm sorry I wasn't in the park that day because that must have been one of the most dork-tastic Cat 6 races of the year.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, a reader informs me that an "Occupy" protester in Oakland did some property damage with a U-lock:

This of course raises a compelling question full of all sorts of socio-political implications, and that question is this:

"So who's watching his bike?"

Think about it.

And while you're in a thinking mood, you might also ponder the implications of "changing youth migration patterns," to which I was alerted by another reader:

Yes, as far as young people are concerned, New York is "out," and Portland is "in." This is hardly surprising, and it's hard to imagine why any sensible young person would even want to move here in the first place. Indeed, over the years I've seen them come and I've seen them go [cue wistful music], and sooner or later everyone who moves here reaches a breaking point. This point is different from person to person, and it's always interesting to see what that point is. For example, I know one person who decided to leave New York after a wet rat crawled out of his toilet. In a normal city, people would have asked him how that even happens. In New York, all people wanted to know was, "So what are you going to do with your apartment?"

(By the way, the apartment's been fantastic--I just keep chicken wire over the bowl. Can't believe he left town, what a sucker.)

Now, I'm pleased to present you with a quiz. As always, study the item, think, and click on your answer. If you're right you'll be exuberant, and if you're wrong you'll see equilibrists.

Thanks very much for reading, ride safe, and ride safely.

--Wildcat Rock Machine

1) "NFBHU" stands for:

--Nü-Fred Bike Hate Unit

--Non-Fat Bacon Ham Union

--Nothing Feels Better [Than] Human Unity

--No Foolin' Bikers Hate Underpants

2) This product is called:

--The Uberhood
--The Cockpit Parasol

--The Dumb-Brella

--A pair of revealing short-shorts

(Seriously, Fizik? Riders looking for their "inner animals.")

3) Saddle manufacturer Fizik believes all humans fit into one of three animal-themed taintal categories. What are they?

--Lizards, birds, and cats

--Snakes, chameleons, and bulls

--Chinchillas, koalas, and platypuses

--Cattle, locusts, and vermin

4) Modern bicycle messengers carry:

--Important documents
--Portfolios
--Blueprints
--Just like, you know, their own random stuff




5) Fill in the blank: "Fuck that hipster shit we ________________!"

--"Ride fixed gears"
--"Ride unicycles"
--"Ride pennyfarthings"
--"Engage in intellectual and recreational pursuits we find interesting regardless of whether or not they are regarded as trendy or popular."




6) Under which circumstances should you always wear a helment in New York City?

--When riding a bicycle
--When joining the Occupy Wall Street protests
--When riding a horse
--After some guy punches you in the head for your parking space

***Special Sub-Canadian History-Themed Bonus Question!***

(An Oregonian Hitchhiker Whale attempts to "fin" a ride to Seattle.)

Oregon, the place where they have Portland, became a US state in what year?

--1859
--1876
--1901
--Statehood still pending

The Indignity of Commuting by Bicycle: The Power of One

In life, some people are "ahead of the curve." Others just wish they were "ahead of the curve," and in their attempts to be that way they wind up "jumping the gun" and failing spectacularly. I belong in the latter category. For example, I was the first person on my block to get a Zune, and as soon as I did I threw my iPod in the Gowanus. Also, thinking eyelid tattoos would become the new knuckle tattoos I got a pair of eyeballs tattooed there, and now flight attendants keep bothering me on planes while I'm napping because they think I'm awake. And most recently, I've been declaring the whole "fixie" thing dead, when in reality it is still very much alive.

Not only that, but it's also continuing to poison society and turn the entire world against us.

I realized this recently when I was riding in Manhattan during rush hour in one of our fancy new bike lanes. Next to me, pointedly not using the bike lane, was a Nü-Fred on a shiny Pista. Generally, you can tell a Nü-Fred not only by the shininess of his Pista, but also by the fit of his clothes and bags.

See, when "urban cyclists" first get started, they wear clothes that are somewhat baggy, and they let their brand-new messenger bags hang low with a bit of slack in the strap. Over time, though, the clothes get tighter, the bag straps get cinched up, and within six months to a year they're wearing skin-tight pants, form-fitting shirts, and wear their empty messenger bags "slammed" right up against the backs of their heads like reverse dickeys. Essentially, these sorts of people look like they've been through the dryer one too many times, and everything appears faded and shrunk. This particular rider, on the other hand, had not yet seen his first laundry cycle, and it wouldn't have surprised me to see Old Navy tags still on his clothes.

Anyway, I don't have a problem with people who choose not to use the bike lane, or who ride Pistas, or who shop at Old Navy for that matter. However, what this Nü-Fred was also doing was running all the lights, and this being rush hour it meant that the crosswalks were pretty crowded. I made no attempt to keep up with him, but I kept him in my sights for awhile, during which I probably watched him ride against the light through three or four crosswalks. Furthermore, at each of these crosswalks, I'd estimate that at least five pedestrians looked at him like they wished he'd get run over by a truck--and this wasn't even in the most crowded part of town.

Basically then, a single hapless Nü-Fred (though I suppose calling a Nü-Fred "hapless" is redundant, since the haplessness is implied) has the power to turn five New Yorkers against cyclists every single block. This means that, in the course of a 20 block journey during peak hours, one (1) Nü-Fred will make one hundred (100) New Yorkers hate cyclists. (If you'd like, we can refer to this 20-block 100-person figure as one (1) "Nü-Fred Bike Hate Unit," or NFBHU.)

Of course, it's impossible to say with any certainty how many Nü-Freds there are in New York (at least without subpoenaing Bianchi, Specialized, and Felt and forcing them to disclose their regional "urban fixie" sales records). What we can determine though is how many NFBHUs it would take to turn each one of New York City's eight million people against cyclists, and the answer is this:

80,000 NFBUs.

Really, if you think about it, that''s not all that much. All it would take to would be for some evil anti-bike mastermind to unleash 80,000 Nü-Freds on the streets of New York and in a single weekday morning the entire populace would turn against us. By week's end, bicycles would probably be illegal, they'd turn the bike lanes into free car parking, and without cyclists to preoccupy them the police would then be free to focus the entirety of their efforts on beating Occupy Wall Street protesters, harassing food trucks, and insulting the poor while they defend their right to break the law.

And by the same token MetroCard, with 6,200 people a day riding bikes over the Williamsburg Bridge, I don't think it's unrealistic at all to say that at least half of them are probably Nü-Freds. That means 3,100 people on bikes a day are probably pissing other people the fuck off. Actually, they're pissing 310,000 people the fuck off, according to my own crackpot NFBHU formula.

I realize at this point that I've typed a lot of words without including a single picture, so in an effort to make up for this editorial oversight I present you with the following:

I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Of course, we have to keep any mass Nü-Fred indictment in perspective. For example, in the past 24 hours I was nearly "right-hooked" (or, technically, "left-hooked" given the peculiarities of New York City traffic patters) by at least three drivers, and of these three drivers at least one of them looked at me as he did it as if to say, "Yeah? And what are you going to do about it?"

These weren't the sorts of "right hooks" that result from trying to beat cars through the intersection. These were simply people flooring the accelerator to pass me and then turning sharply in front of me. All too often, this sort of thing results in death, and as we all know, when it does the police are disinclined to do anything about it.

On the other hand, even if the evil bike-hating mastermind were to unleash 80,000 Nü-Freds upon the unsuspecting populace of New York City, while they'd make the entire population hate cycling, they'd be highly unlikely to actually kill anybody. Bad cyclists are mostly just annoying, but bad drivers are deadly.

From all of this, I can only draw one conclusion, which is that New Yorkers have zero tolerance for annoyance, but they're perfectly fine with death.

Anyway, as I crossed the Manhattan Bridge, I found that I was "commuter salmoning" in that I was leaving Manhattan while everybody else was heading into town. Cyclist after cyclist streamed past me. I saw a number "fixies," and I saw a number the fixed-gear's heir apparent, the cyclocross bike. But I also saw folding bikes, and old three speeds, and beat-up mountain bikes, and cobbled-together pieces of junk, and all the rest of it. They were piloted by men and women, young and old. It was, to be sure, a pleasing sight, though I couldn't help noticing something amusing:

Of all of these riders on this fair and sunny day, it was only the ones on fixed-gears who had their necks and faces bundled up with designer bike scarves like it was 20 degrees.

I also made a point to give a friendly wave to the "Pedestrian Safety Managers"--or at least I would have if they weren't all so busy with their cellphones. I suppose that would account for the presence of pedestrians on the bike side of the bridge.

As for "helments," I didn't notice who wore them and who didn't.

I only noticed when people opted to put them on places other than their heads.

Radical! Consultancy is the New Counterculture

Rain. It's wet, it's cold, and increasingly, it's filled with flesh-burning acids. For centuries, cyclists have had only two choices when it rains: get wet, or take the bus. But not anymore! Because now, there's Überhood (forwarded by a reader):



No, "Überhood" isn't the new name for Williamsburg, Brookyn, nor is it a Klan-inspired "hoodie" for the fixie set. Überhood is actually the innovative new cockpit-mounted umbrella system with which I can find no design flaws whatsoever, and which not only protects you from driving rain, but also from the hated sun, which has the power turn your forearms to bacon and give you melanoma armwarmers in short order.

So how much would you pay for a bike-specific umbrella that will either poke out your eye during mounting or dismounting, turn inside out with the first gust of wind, or else just blow away entirely? No dollars? Negative six dollars? Go fuck yourself? Well, if you act now, you can have the Überbrella Eye Removal System for only $79!

Plus, for a limited time, we'll also throw in this Certificate of Idiocy!

That should look great on your wall, especially because it features a simple design you can still appreciate without any depth perception because you're now forced to wear an eyepatch.

Speaking of commuting by bicycle, if you use either the Brooklyn or Manhattan Bridge, you've no doubt encountered the "Pedestrian Safety Managers," who the Department of Transportation has been forced to deploy because, unlike animals, human beings in New York are completely incapable of reading signage. Well, muckraking local news blog Gothamist has an interview with one of the safety managers, and the big revelation is that apparently bike messengers are jerks:

How do tourists respond to cyclists?

"The tourists are very polite, very kind. They listen to what we're out here to do—to help the public, help the pedestrians and the cyclists get along."

"Those messengers, they don't care. They're kicking tourists. I'm seeing it."

In case you don't know, a "bicycle messenger" is an artisanal delivery person who transports items and correspondence by bicycle. If it helps, think of him or her as sort of a "human email." Needless to say, there's no actual demand for bicycle delivery anymore (excluding food and marijuana of course), so any messenger companies that still exist serve only to "consult" for television shows and Hollywood films, or to else to model boutique cycling apparel. What this means is that, if you actually see an actual messenger delivering an actual package, he or she is probably just showing an actor how it was done in the 1980s, or else delivering marijuana. Or, it's also possible he's being filmed or photographed by someone on a scooter, so that the results can be uploaded onto the Internet as a form of "bicycle culture." (Which is simply a euphemism for any cycling-themed "viral advertising.")

This is not to say that messengers don't work hard--in fact I just noticed a video on Prolly's Purple Bikey Blog which shows just how arduous it is to be a rolling Zoolander:

Content: Fergus EP2 from cadence studios on Vimeo.

Now that nobody needs messengers to deliver packages, it would appear that they mostly just carry their extensive wardrobes.

Speaking of consulting, Klaus of Cycling Inquisition informs me that Paul Rudd will be riding a bike in an upcoming Judd Apatow film:

And clearly they've hired a top-tier Fred consultant, because there's going to be some perfect Primal Wear product placement:

I can't wait to see it, since it promises to do for road cycling what "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" did for bicycle commuting:



I'm sure dorks crashing bikes never fails to score through the roof at Hollywood test screenings. "Ha ha, the guy on the bike fell down. Fail! Streets are for cars, silly."

Of course, if you're tired of Hollywood hegemony, consumer culture, corporate corpulence, and other forms of alliteration, you can always endeavor to unlatch yourself from the societal teet and live "off the grid." As it happens, I was perusing the Kickstarter recently looking for worthwhile projects not to fund when I came across a documentarian who wants to do just that:


Though the funding period has expired, it would appear he wanted $10,000 to document how to live for free:

Starting this summer I will leave from Washington, DC to zig-zag, largely unplanned, across the southern US. I hope to become largely integrated into these subcultures, as they exist separately and with much overlap, in different communities across the US and truly come to understand the meanings of both radical self-reliance (existing without any external means of support) and, on the other side of the spectrum, communal living.

To me, this is as American as it gets: making a movie about living outside of society and needing a bunch of money from strangers in order to explore the idea of radical self-reliance. The project is simply antithetical to its subject--it's like building an animatronic Lancaster County because you're interested in the Amish, or like constructing a synagogue out of pork by-products. Still, the fact is that not only is self-reliance expensive, but it also requires lots and lots of people:

Already producers, cameramen, editors and composers have expressed interest in-and begun to sign onto- the project, and now I need your help in keeping it moving. The approximate budget break down is $3,500 for video and audio equipment, $2,000 for gas so the crew can follow me, $3,000 for food expenses and $1,500 for shelter and other miscellaneous expenses of the crew. None of this money will be going to me (the subject) to assist with my survival, nor for anyone's profit.

This being 2011 you can pretty do the work of a film crew with a single smartphone now, but I suppose that's not technically being "off the grid" since you need a service plan. Maybe someone from the counterculture can start an underground telecom company and introduce a "Radical Self-Reliance" plan. I'm imagining three or four people with impressive beards riding bicycle generators with satellite dishes strapped to their heads.

Actually, it would probably look a lot like the Überhood.

Ambition: The Silent Killer

America is synonymous with ambition, and Merriam-Webster defines the word "ambition" as follows:

am·bi·tion noun \am-ˈbi-shən\

Definition of AMBITION

1

a : a confection of nuts or fruit pieces in a sugar paste

b : to rub gently in one direction; also : caress

2

: an enzymatically controlled anaerobic breakdown of an energy-rich compound (as a carbohydrate to carbon dioxide and alcohol or to an organic acid); broadly : an enzymatically controlled transformation of an organic compound

3

: a fold of skin that covers the glans of the penis —called also prepuce

I like to think I'm an ambitious American. (At least according to definition 1a.) In fact, it's my formidable ambition and drive that compels me out of bed by mid-morning every day, motivates me to turn on the TV, and occasionally even inspires me to undertake important projects like having hero sandwiches delivered to my home.

But there is one ambition that burns within me like a severe case of "epic" burrito-induced indigestion, and that is to one day have as much free time as people in the Pacific Northwest apparently do. I mean, they must have panniers-full of time on their hands, because I can find no other explanation for how much effort they're able to put into putting on and participating in wacky cyclocross races:

As ostensibly hard-working as we are in this country, there's a tendency to dismiss copious amounts of leisure time as somehow harmful to the soul, and to repeat hoary adages like "Idle hands are the devil's playthings." (To be fair, this phenomenon is often observable in nature.) However, once we liberate ourselves from the demands of soul-eroding tedium such as "having a job," or "needing to do stuff," or "generally caring about anything," sometimes we find that long-dormant portions of our consciousness begin to stir, and we can finally begin moving towards enlightenment.

Either that, or we just start painting our faces and getting really awesome at useless skills like riding cyclocross on unicycles:

This is not to say that some New Yorkers aren't similarly devoted to bicycle-themed irreverence, as you'll see if you peruse the photos from this past weekend's "Bike Kill" on the Sucka Pants blog:

Indeed, just as the eyes are the windows to the soul, the bicycle is the key, and you can use it to unlock either your inspiration or your inner idiot--or both, since they're usually the same thing. (I know this is true for me.) That's also why (as we saw yesterday) people write songs about fixed-ger bicycles in which they boast about their "tore up jeans and beat-up Vans:"

(Actually, both his shoes and his pants seem to be in pretty decent shape to me.)

Speaking of having time on your hands, if you're looking for something to do you can always go down to Occupy Wall Street and take your turn on the bicycle generator:

However, if you're a "hipster," please note that the protestors respectfully decline your services. The problem is, "hipsters" are only interested in trackstanding, and while it's highly effective for showing off your matching bag-and-pants ensemble at intersections and parties, it's not very useful when it comes to actually generating electricity. In any case, last time I was down there I noticed a lot of drumming going on too, so if they could also rig up some sort of drum generator I think they'll be in pretty good shape for the winter.

Meanwhile, you may recall that there was some controversy on this blog last week regarding the manufacture of human babies, with some readers even decrying the process of spawning as the height of arrogance and ecological irresponsibility. Well, as you may have heard, the U.N. says that as of Monday there are now seven billion people on Earth (give or take a few million):

This milestone raises a number of interesting questions, including:

1) So, like, is seven billion people on Earth a lot compared to other planets?

2) If every single person just gave me one penny, they'd hardly notice and I'd be rich. So why are people so greedy?

3) Can we make all the obese ones ride bicycle generators? It seems like that would solve at least two major problems at once. (USA Fun Fact: America's 300 million people weighs as much as the remaining 6.7 billion of the world's population.)

In the meantime, as humans continue to beget other humans some would argue that it's only a matter of time before our planet becomes a toxic wasteland. This is why anti-pollution masks are rapidly becoming the new "helment:"

The above product was forwarded to me by a reader, but keep in mind that in a pinch you can also just rubber-band a cycling chamois to your face:


Just make sure it's clean first--unless you're one of those people who finds the scent of dirty chamois arousing and who scours eBay looking for used cycling attire:

(Eeew.)

If you're lucky, you might even score some that's been worn by a celebrity:


Says Ms. Todd:

"In 2008 I got terrible saddle sores cycling 350 miles through France."

Now that's arousing.

Speaking of long cycling trips, recently I was reading about the Long Island Railroad disability fraud plot:

Apparently, one of the alleged scammers collected disability payments while enjoying a bike tour:

And a third defendant, Steven Gagliano, 55, of North Babylon, N.Y., who receives more than $75,000 in payments annually and claimed to be suffering from severe and disabling back pain, went on a 400-mile bike tour around New York State, the complaint said.

Well, I'm pleased to announce that Mr. Gagliano has retained me as his attorney, and my defense hinges on proving to the jury that one can actually ride a bicycle with severe and disabling back pain thanks to the brilliant invention known as "Back-Up Barz:"

(If the bike doesn't fit, you must acquit.)

If that isn't enough, I'll then call to the stand my expert witness, Grant Petersen, who will testify as to the incredible healing and restorative powers of incredibly long quill stems.

Justice may or may not be blind, but it's definitely lugged.