BikeSnobNYC's Blog, page 13

Vortex Schmortex

So the "polar vortex" has rolled into town, which meant it was pretty cold this morning:


That's America Freedom Degrees too, not that sell-see-us crap.

Now, before I go on, I realize that to you hardy types in the midwest this isn't even particularly cold:


("I don't even bother with knee warmers when it's that warm.")
But please try to keep in mind that everything's relative, and anyway, it's not a weather contest, okay?

Good.

Anyway, I have nothing to prove at this point in my life, and if I don't like the looks of things outside I have no problem skipping a ride.  However, despite today's deep freeze, I found myself compelled to head out, and so I saddled up the Jones:


By the time I rolled out it had warmed up a bit, but it was still only like 10 degrees.  To be honest I figured I'd just knock around for a little while and come back, but despite the cold I felt not only comfortable but uncharacteristically spunky, and my little ride turned into a surprisingly pleasant 20-mile ramble that included a visit to the forbidding Trails Behind The Mall:


Of course, keeping among the trees and never really breaking 8mph helps a lot, but I also owe a debt of gratitude to my expertly curated crazy person wardrobe, and from head to toe I was attired thusly:


These shoe covers:
My usual Sidi mountain bike shoes;A pair of non-cycling-specific argyle socks, similar to these:
Long thermal underwear bottoms;Those Outlier Winterweight OG pants they sent me waaay back in 2010 when I was still kind of relevant:
One of these wool shirts that Grant Petersen sent me; (It looks like they're out of stock at the moment but do yourself a favor and buy one if they get more because they're like the best winter cycling garment ever.)
A cashmere Helmut Lang sweater (yeah, you read that right) I've had for at least 20 years;A jacket Giro sent me back in like 2013.  It was from their "New Road" collection, which as far as I can tell no longer exists.  The idea was road bike clothes that didn't look like road bike clothes, or something.  Like this:
Foolishly thinking I was still relevant, when it debuted Giro set me up with like a whole bunch of the stuff.  Some of it was kind of stupid (bib knickers with a visible fly that you wear under shorts), and I also seem to recall that all of it was for men, because back in 2013 cycling companies still hadn't figured out that women ride bikes.  There were some very nice items though, one of which was the jacket, which I still wear all the time--which means absolutely nothing since I don't think you can buy it anymore.  The end.Threadbare Pearl Izumi lobster gloves I've had forever and which I keep expecting won't last another season, but then they do.  It's like the miracle of Hanukkah, but lobster gloves instead of lamp oil;A Cannondale balaclava I've had for probably 20 years and never wore until today.  For whatever reason I don't really have a problem with my face getting cold, probably because I'm usually a little flushed from anger and/or embarrassment, and therefore I never wear baclavas or neck gaiters or any of that face-warming stuff.  Today however it seemed prudent, and maybe that's why I felt so much warmer than usual.  Balaclavas keep you warm, who knew?A Castelli fleece hat I've had for probably 20 years and which is probably my favorite cycling garment I've ever owned ever.  I've never seen one anywhere else and I'm sure they don't exist anymore.  When something happens to it I'll be sad;NO HELMET.  Like I'm gonna strap a foam hat to all the crap I've already got on my head?  Please.
Did you need to know any of this?  No.  Do you care?  Almost certainly not.  Am I telling you anyway?  Yes I am, because now that I've come full circle on the FRED cycle I know that once it gets seriously cold you've got to abandon the concept of cycling clothes and non-cycling clothes and just freestyle it by creating a completely insane and profoundly unflattering ensemble like the one I just described.  And yes--the outfit looks as silly as it sounds, plus you've got to imagine it on top of the Jones for the full effect.  But the most absurd thing about it is that if you added up the retail price of every single item I was probably wearing something like $3,500 worth of clothes.

You could get a pretty nice bike for that...but then you wouldn't be able to ride it when it's cold, because you'd be naked.

Things That Go Creak In The Night

Okay, who out there has been following the saga of my creaky Renovo?

Hello?

Where did everybody go?

Well, I'll go on anyway just in case if anybody happens to wander by at any point.

Anyway, after swapping wheels and checking bolts and doing all the stuff you're supposed to do when a bike is creaking the sound persisted, and so I essentially just surrendered to it and decided the bike was going to be my new winter beater:


Hey, you may be disappointed that I'm riding a crabon road bike, but you should be positively disgusted that my winter beater is a hand-curated artisanal wooden bicycle from Portland that originally retailed for nearly $10,000.

So that was the state of affairs until just a couple of days ago, when a reader was kind enough to send me a tip:

Apparently, 11 speed Dura Ace cassettes can develop a creak from the rivets that hold the two largest cogs together.

Thinking about it, this made perfect sense.  While the parts on the Renovo are Ultegra, for whatever reason they did send it to me with a Dura Ace cassette.  What's more, that's the only cassette I've ever used on the bike, which would explain why the sound persisted even after a wheel swap.

As it happens, I did have a brand new 105 cassette I'd never gotten around to using, and so this very morning I installed it and went for a ride:


I refuse to declare success after only a single short ride to Central Park, but so far the results are promising.

It was also interesting to ride the Renovo after having ridden my new crabon bike almost exclusively for the past couple weeks.  The crabon bike rides beautifully, and even right out of the box it's easily the lightest bike I've ever owned, which always makes a bike feel faster even if it really isn't.  Still, despite the cheap wheels and Gatorskins I'm currently palping on the Renovo, the bike has a certain preternatural smoothness to it, and while I'm hesitant to ascribe mystical qualities to frame materials I can't help suspecting that there is something special about a bike made out of wood.

Not that I'd tell you to run right out and spend a bunch of money on a bike made out of wood, mind you.  (Not like you could even if you wanted to.)

Another nauseatingly Fredly question I got to ponder was this: Di2, or mechanical?  More specifically, the Renovo has Ultegra Di2, and the new crabon bike has mechanical Dura Ace.  Well, after riding both, I'd have to say if you're trying to decide between one or the other the answer is "yes."  I mean I don't have a bad thing to say about either.  Personally I guess I'd lean towards mechanical, if only because the psychological aspect of having a bike that needs to be charged bothers me, but in practice I've only plugged the thing in maybe three times in the 14 months I had it and even then the battery was maybe half-depleted.  (Plus if you're lazy about changing cables like I am the quality of your mechanical shifting degrades, whereas with Di2 as long as you keep your chain in reasonable shape it's always going to feel like new.)

But hey, as I mentioned, in Portland I rented a bike with Tiagra from River City Cycles and was blown away by how nicely that shifted too, so ultimately all of this is meaningless:


I guess what I'm saying is go find yourself a used wooden frame and some Tiagra and you'll feel like you're floating on air.

Oh, and on the way home from Central Park I saw a hawk:


It swooped by me rather dramatically, but I was only able to get a picture once it alighted on a fire escape a few stories up.

Not as dramatic as the time I saw one grab a pigeon on Avenue A, but pretty good regardless:


I can totally relate to that pigeon.

New Outside Column!

Hello!

In the spirit of saying you're sorry without really meaning it, here are some form apology letters you can personalize and share with your fellow road users:


Speaking of touching cars, this guy has turned himself in:


Gotta love the local news:


Yeah, I'm sure that's when the incident started, because cyclists in New York City go crazy for no reason all the time, but Uber drivers never, ever almost kill you.

Hey, I'm not saying what he did was okay, but I am saying he probably had a reason.

Maybe the judge will make him write an apology.

What A Long Staid Trip It's Been...

Last week, following the revelation that I am riding a new road bike, I received a fresh wave of accusations that I had sold out, or "jumped the shark" (presumably from people still accessing the Internet via dial-up modem and AOL given the hoariness of the expression), or other hackneyed phrases denoting the forfeiture of integrity.

While my addressing these comments may seem defensive, I can assure you that I delight in the irony.  Granted, by some measures I live a sumptuous lifestyle: hot and cold running water, streaming television, and a wide variety of savory Trader Joe's snacks available to me at any given time.  Nevertheless, most of us have a fairly specific image in our minds when we imagine what "selling out" looks like, and I'm fairly confident in assuring you that this ain't it.

Of course, as I've mentioned before, people have accused me of selling out for nearly as long as I've been typing this blog.  At this moment I don't have the time or the energy to find the first instance of it, but certainly when I announced my then-new Bicycling column in 2009 the pronouncements came fastly and furiously:

Anonymous said...

Did any of you podium twits read the column? He called you assholes and told you to suck his balls while he collect$ from glossy magazines.

MARCH 19, 2009 AT 1:09 PM


AshevilleMountainBikeRacing said...

Jeez. 

You could have at least gone with a real bicycling magazine, instead of this "Bicycling" magazine which from my perspective has nothing to do with bicycling whatsoever.

I'm going to the bathroom to vomit, now.

MARCH 19, 2009 AT 1:12 PM


carlos said...

The shark has been jumped!!!

MARCH 19, 2009 AT 1:12 PM

Yes, the shark had been jumped, and the passive voice had been employed!

It all seems so quaint now.

By the way, looking back at that post, I particularly enjoyed this quote from the Bicycling press release:

“After months of begging,’” says Mooney, “BikeSnobNYC finally agreed to bring his unparalleled wit and sense of style to the readers of Bicycling.” 

That is so not how it happened at all.

Anyway, I'm especially enjoying this latest round of derision since it gives me an excuse to explore my favorite subject, which is myself.  More specifically, it raises what is for me a compelling question: while present-day me is certain he has not sold out, what would the idealistic long-time-ago me think?  In other words, if 30 years ago I could see myself right now, would I pass muster in the eyes of a teenager who held anything mainstream in utter contempt?

By way of illustration, here is 30-years-ago-me:


(Photo: Danny Weiss)
I'll allow there's a case to be made that I'd already sold out by wearing a Danzig shirt, and I'm pretty sure that's also a Swatch on my wrist, but I ask that I be judged in the context of the times.

Obviously the simplest way of determining whether or not someone is a sellout is analyzing how they earn their livelihood, so in an act of unprecedented disclosure I'm going to go through my entire resume, starting with my very first paying job:

BSNYC/RTMS/Tan Tenovo Professional Resume and/or Curriculum Vitae
16 Years Old Or Thereabouts: Stockboy At a Neighborhood Drugstore
Proprietor let me go after a couple weeks.  He claimed he needed someone with a drivers license to make deliveries, the real reason was probably that I was incompetent. 

Sellout Status?  Not yet, because it was an independently-owned business and not like a CVS or something.


16 Years Old, Through High School, and On And Off Through College When I Was Home For Vacations Or Whatever: Stockboy/Cashier/Schlepper/Delivery Boy/Taker Of Abuse At a Neighborhood Hardware StoreI hated every waking moment of this job but I learned a lot about life, people, and, for awhile anyway, hardware.  (Though I've since expunged it all from my brain.)

Sellout Status?  I suppose working at a job you hate is a kind of selling out, but I always knew I wouldn't be doing it forever, and also it was an independently-owned business.  Plus, hardware is like totally blue collar, even if half the customers were buying Weber barbecue grills and filters for their expensive central air conditioning systems.

17-21 Years Old: SUNY Albany Art Gallery AssistantMy work-study job in college was helping out at the art gallery.  Mostly this involved sitting at a desk doing nothing but occasionally I'd bring my hardware store skills to bear by painting a panel or hanging some art.
Sellout Status?  Oh come on.20-21 Or Thereabouts: Intern/Assistant At a Book Publishing HouseTowards the end of college I got it into my head I wanted to work in book publishing, so I started interning at a pretentious small press (I realize that's redundant, all small presses are pretentious) in SoHo.  The other interns were all Barnard students who had absolutely no interest in being there, which was great for me because it created the impression that I had a work ethic.  I worked for free but eventually they started paying me and after I graduated they helped me get a real job.
Sellout Status? Scrappy SUNY student stealing low-paying job from apathetic Ivy Leaguers?  That is a blow for the proletariat!  (If by "proletariat" you mean suburban English majors.)
21 to 23 or 24 Or Thereabouts: Assistant At a Book Publishing HouseThis was my first "real" job, and it was at one of the big publishing houses.  Once again, the fact that most of my work peers had come from fancy private schools and were fairly unmotivated created the illusion I was a highly driven go-getter.  However, once it became clear I'd actually have to work hard in order to succeed, I left under the guise of "finding myself" or something.
Sellout Status?  I mean sure, it was a big company, but it was a big company that publishes books, not a pharmaceutical company that gets people hooked on opioids.
24-Ish I Guess: Bike Messenger, then Assistant to Film DirectorI'm lumping these together because I think the total time I spent at both jobs was only like a year, and in a way they were similar in that I mostly ran around bringing stuff to people who were indifferent to me.  
Sellout Status?  Being a bike messenger is being a bike messenger, and the film director was Michael Moore, so I don't think the kinds of people who accuse people of "selling out" would consider either to be selling out.


Mid-20s to Mid-30s: Incompetent Literary Agency AssociateAfter experiencing life as a film industry assistant, which mostly involves people with enormous egos ripping your guts out on a daily basis, I went running back to publishing like a toddler with a boo-boo and proceeded to hide from the world by working at a literary agency for the next 10 years.
Sellout Status?  Sucking at your job just badly enough not to get fired isn't exactly commendable behavior, but I don't think it technically qualifies as "selling out."  Plus, it was a small company that represents people who write books, not some evil corporation.
Mid-30s On: You're Looking At ItWriting about bikes.
Sellout Status?  Please.  I write about bikes.  Sometimes I appear in a major publication and say stuff like drivers shouldn't be allowed kill people  Let's get real.
So there you go, that's my resume, and I don't think the teenager who used to struggle emotionally when a band he liked signed to a major record label would be too offended by my career trajectory, downward as it may be.  In fact, thanks to this slightly embarrassing newspaper clipping from like the Nassau Herald or something, I daresay I fulfilled my modest ambitions:


(I must have been home from college for the summer, working in the hardware store, and bored out of my fucking mind.  I love how I sound like I'm in prison and not living a comfortable life on Long Island.)
As for what present-day me thinks upon looking back of it all, I'd certainly maintain that I haven't sold out, though I sure have squandered a shitload of incredible opportunities, which is easily about a thousand times worse.
And yes, I know what you're thinking: "You're not telling the whole story.  What about household income?  Your wife probably does something evil."  Okay, you got me, she's an attorney who works for a fossil fuel industry lobbying group.
Just kidding!

Actually she publishes young adult literature, a vocation I'd argue positively oozes integrity.
But it's one thing to say you haven't sold out just because you don't have fuck-you money and a yacht called the "Just Kidding."  It's another to say you haven't sold out because someone actually offered you fuck-you money and you refused to take it.  I certainly can't claim to have done that.  Oh, sure, I've turned down offers and told myself I did so because I had integrity, but in retrospect I probably did it because I was scared or lazy or both.  (See: squandering opportunities.)  Odds are if I hear the "beep-beep-beep" of the money truck backing down the street I'd run right downstairs and guide them safely to my front door.
Hey, I'm not mad at Henry Rollins for doing Infinity voiceovers or whatever he does.  Meanwhile there are people who would probably burn all their Dischord records if they saw Ian MacKaye drinking a kombucha or something, so it's all relative.
I guess what I'm saying is fifteen hundred bucks buys this whole blog, cash and carry.  Just drop me an email.

It's Friday! Do NOT Read This Post! Go and Ride Your Bike!

Further to yesterday's post, a commenter asked:

Anonymous JLRB said...

The old post you linked to included the following - have you exceeded stage four and returned to stage 1?

1) Fresh

This is when you're an utter dork who's like totally super-stoked on bikes and you fall all over yourself because Shimano figured out how to squeeze another cog onto a wheel and you do stupid stuff like wake up at 4:30am to do hill repeats so you can crash out of a Cat 4 race;

2) Refined

This is when you're like totally too cool for school and you're keyed in to what the current proper sock height is and you think you're the opposite of a Fred when in fact you're just a Fred who has figured out that the key to roadie-dom is color coordination and acting like you have a frame pump up your ass;

3) Exhausted

This is when you're totally cynical about bikes and think the epitome of marketing gimmickry is Shimano figuring out how to squeeze yet another cog onto a wheel;

4) Dork

This is where you come full circle and return to dorkdom, but now you covet Rivendells and think Grant Petersen makes a lot of sense when he says it's totally fine to ride in underpants.

JANUARY 25, 2019 AT 12:52 PM

Indeed I have--although I haven't so much circled back to Stage 1 as I have broken through to a new stage of Fredness in which I occupy all four stages at the same time and have gone Beyond the Infinite:


The upshot is that I can enjoy a stretchy-clothes ride splayed out on a crabon road bike as much as I can an underpants-and-jorts ride sitting bolt-upright on the Jones.  As for the bikes themselves, I'm simultaneously enamored with and indifferent to them: most of the time I'm fine with whatever, but then circumstances conspire to put me on a new bike and I'm like, "Holy crap this bike is amazing!"  It's funny how that works.  When I was riding that Drysdale I kept thinking, "This is incredible, 70 years ago and we basically had it all figured out, what more do you need really?"


Then I try a handmade wooden bike with Di2 or a crabon Fred chariot with the latest Dura Ace or something and am agog over how good it is...and then I rent an aluminum bike with Tiagra on a trip to Portland and am impressed at how good that is too.

I suppose this is why I could never be a real bike reviewer: I just like riding bikes too much.  The truth is most bikes are excellent, and it takes a lot of work to fuck them up--though plenty have managed over the years:


Wow that bike sucked.

Along those lines, this comment also caught my attention:

Anonymous said...

Seems the Snob's been kidnapped again and some industry shill is tapping out this shit until the ransom is paid. Free the Snob!!!

January 25, 2019 at 8:49 AM

I'm not bothered in the least by these sorts of digs.  After all, I've been accused of "selling out" or "jumping the shark" since probably around my second blog post.  Still, I suppose there's some truth to this particular comment, inasmuch as as a middle-aged Fred who has come full circle it's kind of hard to be mad at the bike industry, and I want pretty much everyone involved in it to sell lots of stuff and be happy.  When you really think about it, they've done pretty well by us: the sheer variety of bicycles and parts available is stunning, and for every ridiculous five-figure douche wagon there's an affordable "entry level" bike more capable and refined than most people will ever need.  Sure, they're always foisting new standards and new spacings on us and blah blah blah, but at the same time I'd wager there are good quality, affordable replacement parts available for pretty much any bike you happen to be riding.  (No, I don't want to hear about your French-threaded porteur bike.)  And when you look beyond the bike industry and take inventory of the sheer fuckery going on in the world today, you realize that the worst thing pretty much any bike company is guilty of is, you know, trying to sell you a bike.  It's not like any of them are committing crimes against humanity...the company who made this excluded:

What a fucking abomination.

So Many Bikes, So Many Memories...

Further to yesterday's post, a commenter commented thusly with the following commentary:

Chazu said...

My jaw dropped a little when I read this. Partly because I'm a slack-jawed yokel, and partly because you admitted to purchasing a crabon bike. Mostly the latter.

January 23, 2019 at 2:52 PM

Now, to be clear, this is by no means my first dalliance with the crabon.  Indeed, like any Fred, when crabon started taking over as the default race bike frame material I couldn't wait to get my scranus on one.  And I finally attained that goal when I obtained this bicycle, which according to the Internets would have been around 2005, which sounds about right:


The bicycle was excellent.  In fact I remember my first ride on it, which--like my first ride on my latest Fred sled--was on a cold winter day, the streets stained white with road salt.  "It doesn't get any better than this," I remember thinking to myself, and I had nary a problem with the bike.  Nevertheless, my team soon switched to the then-new Specialized Tarmac E5:



And so I sold the Scott frame and moved my parts onto this ungodly aluminum/crabon hybrid.

I'm tempted to say the bike only looks ugly in retrospect, and that at the time it was super cool.  Alas, this is untrue, and it was as ugly then as it is now--I remember thinking so at the time.  In fact I believe I was still riding this thing when I started this blog, which explains a lot about why I chose to remain anonymous.  (My credibility as a "bike snob" would have been shot immediately had anybody known that this was my bike.)

Anyway, as I mentioned, the bike was an aluminum/crabon hybrid, the top half being crabon and the bottom half being aluminum.  And what eventually happened to pretty much every one of these bikes, including mine, was that the bond between the two materials began to corrode and separate.  And so, to their credit, in about 2007 I believe Specialized eventually replaced mine with what was at the time their top-of-the-line all-crabon Tarmac frame, which I continued to ride until just a few years ago.  Here it is in 2013, late in its tenure, its saddle bag bloated and its owner having retired from racing:


I should point out, by the way, that's the same 10-speed Ultegra group that came on the Scott.  It still works flawlessly, and I'm currently keeping it in a bin for some future project that may very well never materialize.

This bike served me well for quite a few years.  I clung to the back of many park races on it, traversed the George Washington Bridge on it countless times, and it even took me through two (2) Rapha Gentlemen's races--you can even see me astride it in the video for one of them:


As you can see, I was only able to finish by holding onto the videographer's car:


Don't worry, I promise that was the only time I smiled, and the rest of the time my visage was a mask of exquisite Rapha-esque pain.

(By the way, that was like nine years ago now.  I didn't even have any kids!  Why I was so out of shape I have no idea.  If you don't have any kids but are planning to make or obtain some in the near future I have only one bit of advice for you: RIDE!  RIDE LIKE THE WIND!  RIDE EVERY SPARE MOMENT YOU CAN!  Because it'll be 20 years before you're able to ride for more than two hours at a time.)

As for the second Gentlemen's Race, that one was in 2013, and I rode it in Bicycling livery:


(Photo: Greg Kaplan)
By this time gravel bikes were already becoming a thing, but my aging crabon road bike accepted 28mm tires without issue and handled the course with aplomb.  (This is less true of its rider.)

So yeah, the bike served me well, but a few years ago it started making a noise and I found what could have been a crack or what could have been a scratch, I can't be sure.  If I were a normal person I would have taken it to a shop for inspection, but as a semi-professional bike blogger who by this point had like three road bikes I instead gave the frame away during my 2016 Philly Bike Expo talk:


None of this is to disparage the bike, since: 1) It took me far and wide, as you can see; 2) I don't even know if it was cracked; 3) If it was, I never gave Specialized a chance to make it right.
Regardless, once I gave away the frame, I had officially divested myself of the crabon, I was no longer racing, and that, I figured, was that.
But here I am, back on the crabon horse, forced to acknowledge that I am, fundamentally, a total road weenie.
And I'm okay with that.
Now go read the Bike Forecast or something.  Hey, it beats working.

WHy is ThIs TItlLE BoUNCinG aLL OveR Oh Now I See I Had The Clutch Lever Switched Off

Hey there!

So what day is it?
Eh, whatever, it doesn't matter.
When last we spoke I'd been taking advantage of the dry/frozen conditions to ride the Jones:

On that particular Thursday, rather than ride the Forbidding Trails Behind The Mall, I continued north on the Old Croton Aqueduct to a small town park:

Which is pleasantly scenic: 

And also contains some fun trails:

A 30-ish mile mixed bag of dirt, pavement, and singletrack, it was the perfect ride for the Jones and exactly the sort of riding you should be doing in January in this part of the world.
Then Friday brought a dusting of snow, which meant more perfect conditions for plus-sized tires, so I met up with a friend for jaunt to the Highbridge trails in upper Manhattan:

Astute readers may have noticed Ol' Piney in the background, and you will be either pleased, saddened, or indifferent to learn that I have transferred custody of said bicycle to said friend.  I'll always love the Marin, but as someone with too many bicycles it made little sense for me to have two similarly-configured 27.5+ bicycles, plus the Marin happens to fit my friend's current needs perfectly.  This way everybody wins, and the world is a better place.  
So thank you Ol' Piney:

You will always be the bicycle that sparked my affection for plus-sized tires, and I know you will be happy in your new home.
Of course, given my demonstrated inability to pare down when it comes to bikes, it probably won't surprise you to learn that as soon as the Marin left my stable another bike rushed in to fill the void.  And since as of last year I'm a born-again Fred who has returned to sucking at bike racing, I've gone ahead an obtained a new road-racing bike.  So what did I get?  Well, I'm not going to tell you right now, for no other reason apart from the fact that my ability to withhold information from you is the only real leverage I have in the writer/reader power dynamic.
Nevertheless, I deemed it necessary to get a new racing bike because the other road-type bicycles I have were sub-optimal for the purpose.  There's the Milwaukee, which of course is fantastic, but which I prefer to keep configured with either fenders for winder riding or plump, soft tires for summer rambling:

Then there's the Renovo:

I did most of my "racing" (if you can call it that) on the Renovo last year, but it's a little short of gear and tall of headtube for that application.  Also, much more frustratingly, it's got that one water bottle cage on the seat tube.  (Or seat trunk since we're talking about a bike made from trees.)  I've mentioned this on numerous occasions, and for mellow rides that placement is perfectly fine, but when you're hunched over the bars and clinging desperately to the wheel in front of you it's roughly a thousand times more annoying to grab a bottle from the seat tube than it is to grab one from the down tube.
And of course there's the Ritte Rust-Bucket:

The problem with that bike is simple: it needs a complete rebuild.  I did most of my early spring riding on the Ritte last year, which included ample helpings of rain, snow, slush and road salt.  That, coupled with my tendency to neglect stuff, meant that by mid-April the bike was totally fucked.  Currently I have it stripped almost down to the frame, and I will likely delve into my parts bin and rebuild it, but when I get around to doing that is anybody's guess.
So instead of doing actual labor I did what any terminal Fred would do and got a new bike.
As for the attributes of the new bike, it's a stock out-of-the-box crabon model, and while I've only had one proper ride on it so far all indications are that it's excellent and that I won't have to change a thing.  Even the saddle seems like it'll work for me.  In fact this new bike feels way faster than any of my other bicycles--which, thanks to Strava, I know is not at all true.  And while succumbing to the crabon may indicate a certain lack of character on my part, at least the bike still has primitive rime breaks and cable-actuated shifting, which I like to think lends me...well, if not integrity, than at least an air of obstinance.
Also, everybody knows aluminum is the new crabon, so in that sense I'm a total retrogrouch.
So I guess what I'm saying is go out there and get yourself a new bike, because you deserve it.

New Outside Column!

Hello!

The reason I've been absent is that I've been busy:


I regret nothing.

I do have a new Outside column though, and it's about old people and doping:


I do recommend clicking through to the USADA sanctions I linked to, because they make for very interesting reading and basically confirm every negative stereotype about MAMILs.

Finally, if you're not in New York, you may have missed Whoopi Goldberg's latest anti-bike rant, which you can read about on the Bike Forecast.  Basically, she hits every obligatory note from "I like cyclists but..." to "they're not wearing helmets." 

Truly some insightful stuff.

When Adventure Calls, I Put It Though To Voicemail

Subsequent to yesterday's post a reader asked the following:

STG said...

Snob, what are the forbidden trails behind the mall? Do you ever ride your Jones at Blue Mountain Reservation in Peekskill?

January 14, 2019 at 2:31 PM

Before anything else, I should stress that The Trails Behind The Mall are not "forbidden," they are forbidding--I mean, they're not really forbidding.  There are definitely some tricky spots, it's very rocky, and the whole thing's on a big ridge so there are some tough climbs depending on how you approach it, but if you know your way around you can also carve out some mellow loops if that's what you feel like doing.

But yes, they're not forbidden at all.  In fact the official name is Sprain Ridge Park, the mountain bicycling is very much allowed, and it's a pretty popular spot.  However, I prefer to call them the Trails Behind The Mall because they are in fact behind an outdoor shopping mall:


Approaching from the south, what I do is ride through the mall, which looks like this:


Essentially nobody ever rides a bike up there, so as I pass through people look at me like, "What's that guy doing riding a bike to a mall?"  Meanwhile, I look back at them and wonder, "Why are these assholes shopping next to a mountain bike trail?"  Then I pass through an unassuming gate behind the REI and it's like the whole temple of consumerism never existed.

This is not to say I'm above patronizing the mall.  For example, I've certainly had to duck into the REI for some odds and ends while riding, I've dropped off my phone for service at the Apple store and then hit the trails while they worked on it, and I've also been known to lock up and enjoy a lunch at the Whole Foods:


Every once in awhile I'll even rendez-vous with the family and we'll go grocery shopping, me clomping through the aisles in my Sidis and jorts like the couch-blogging dirtbag I am.  And of course I did sneak in a quick ride when I had to go to that same Whole Foods to pick up the Thanksgiving turkey:


As for Blue Mountain Reservation in Peekskill, I have not ridden the Jones there, but of course I have ridden there on my other bicycles on numerous occasions, and I even wrote a Brooks Blog about it awhile back:


The only reason I don't go there more often is that it's over 30 miles away, and therefore it does not often present an attractive value proposition for a couch-blogging dirtbag who needs to squeeze his rides in between school drop-offs and pickups.  It's rare I've ever got more than two or three hours at a time to ride a bike, and I'll be damned if I'm going to spend half that time driving.

One day however I will organize a Dirt Fondon't in which we ride up the OCA, hit Blue Mountain, then drop in on the Peekskill Brewery before taking the Metro North back to civilization.  However, it could be years before I get it together to curate such an outing, so if it sounds good to you you're probably better off just doing it yourself.

In other news, the big story is that some guy's Pinarello Dogma blew up:

“I was coming up the hill and my electric bike caught fire, so I threw it down,” said Ryan. 

He added: “The guy who built my bike said I must have had a short [circuit] in it. Because that never happens.”

Yeah, right.  "It never happens" is aftermarket ebike conversion jargon for "it happens all the time."  In fact, even beyond the world of bikes, anytime anybody ever claims something never happens, you can be sure it totally does, and often.

Also, I should point out that I take no pleasure in anybody getting injured, even slightly, and that I've got no problem whatsoever with a 79-year-old man using an e-assist.  Nevertheless, I fully acknowledge finding the following passage funny, and I accept that this makes me a bad person:

Soon after the battery on Ryan’s bike caught fire some CO2 canisters in his saddlebag exploded. These canisters are used by cyclists for emergency tire inflation.

As does the fact that I love the smell of burning crabon in the morning:

And that I secretly pray that this happens to a rider during the Tour de France.

Of course, I shouldn't be smug, since with a Di2 battery in my Renovo I'm always one flare-up away from taint flambé:


In fact, the way it's been creaking, it'll probably burst into flames this summer just from the friction.

Smug As A Bug In A Rug

It's been rather cold here in New York:


This is a good thing, because after months of heavy rain the ground is now frozen, meaning I can finally do some proper rides on the Jones Plus SWB Complete.  So this past weekend that's what I did:


With just a short time to ride on Saturday morning, and with temperatures well below 30 American Freedom Degrees™, the prospect of a road ride seemed terribly unappealing and I didn't have enough time to ride to and from the nearest mountain bicycling trails.  So in a great big selfish "Fuck You!" to the environment, the streets of New York City, and smugness in general I fired up THE CAR THAT THE BANK OWNS UNTIL I FINISH PAYING THEM BACK and drove my lazy ass to Queens--utilizing the Saris SuperClamp EX of course, with which I remain quite pleased:


"Queens?!?," you say.  Indeed.  For Queens is the home of Cunningham Park, which contains a compact yet tremendously enjoyable network of all-terrain bicycling pathways:

I almost always ride a singlespeed at Cunningham because the smooth, rolling terrain is ideal for riding without shifting.  However, this time I took the Jones, and I'm glad I did, because there were lots of frozen ruts left behind from people riding in the mud and I was able to float right over them thanks to those plush, grippy, and apparently out-of-style plus-sized tires.

Hey, my wheel size may be the stylistic equivalent of some doofus in dad jeans and white Under Armor sneakers, but I'm okay with that because rigid bikes with plush tires are awesome.

Anyway, I rode for about an hour and a half:


And spent the drive home repeating the Act of Contrition to the David Byrne bobblehead I keep on the dashboard:


Sunday I had a bit more time, so I once again took up the Jones, though I had the luxury of doing so without resorting to the use of an automobile.  Heading north on the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail for about 10 miles:


I then headed due east and entered the forbidding Trails Behind The Mall:


And by the time I got home I'd described a pleasant 20-ish mile loop of mostly dirt that hit the sweet spot between easy and "epic":


Anyway, I've said it enough times you're tired of hearing it, and I've even filed an official review, but I'll reiterate anyway that you should buy one of these bikes--unless of course you don't want one.  I should also add that at no point during this weekend's exploits did I wear any Lycra, which I think deserves some sort of prize.  (A tube of fungicide seems appropriate.)  So there you go.

Finally, in other major cycling news, esteemed commenter CommieCanuck informs me that Peter Sagan will be riding a bicycle made out of (gasp!) metal:


Wait a minute, you can make racing bicycles out of metal?!?

This changes everything!!!