BikeSnobNYC's Blog, page 53

This Post Is Self-Lubricating

First of all, we haven't discussed this:

My hands are for one thing only: playing sax pic.twitter.com/ncuJJUBBAg— Kenny G (@kennyg) November 26, 2016

No hands?  No helmet?  On an old mountain bike with cantis and thumb shifters?

Not only is Kenny okay in my book, but he's about a thousand times cooler than Russell Crowe:


I guess when you're from the Antipodes it's hard to shake off the shackles of bike-dorkdom.

Moving on, after two days of heavy rain the sun is shining upon us once again:


Though as I headed out this morning I was dismayed to discover that my chain was a bit noisy.  Oh sure, I'd lubed it after my rainy ride on Tuesday, but evidently it could have used another slathering.

Clearly I need one of these:

Paging @bikesnobnyc this goes in the top 10 Fred Xmas list a long with those wheel weights. https://t.co/eA2mQ4ZzK7— Ned James (@NedleyJames) December 1, 2016

Yes, it's the automatic chain lubricator of your wettest, most Fredliest dreams:


Always forgetting to oil your chain before or after a ride? Take away the hassle with the Flaer Revo Via, an automatic lube dispensing system that oils your chain as you’re riding along and is claimed by the company to “significantly increase the power transmitted through the drivetrain to the rear wheel” by a heady 12 watts. 

Heady indeed--assuming "heady" means "fictional," since a study revealed that chain lube has little effect on bicycle drivetrain efficiency.  (The study is even cited in the story about the chain lube device.)

So really, the worst thing about forgetting to lube your chain is that you might have to hear sounds from it until you can scrounge some White Lightning from a bike shop (they love when you do that I'm sure) or surreptitiously rub your chain on Mario Cipollini's unctuous limbs:


Yes, by rolling your bike past Cipo and allowing your drivetrain to graze his glistening calves you can keep your chain noise-free for up to a year--for free!

Nevertheless, according to the company that makes the auto-squirt, they know it works because they've conducted "extensive testing:"

The company tells us it purchased a Chain Efficiency Tester that is apparently one of only three in the world and with this, it conducted its own extensive testing.

“It is impossible to achieve a 100% efficiency through a drive train, there will always be a discrepancy between what you put in at the cranks and what you get out at the rear hub,” says Flaer’s Andy Parker. “However, what we are able to do is keep these losses to a bare minimum, approx. 5 watts. This is where any chain that has been appropriately lubricated would be at the beginning of a ride. Where the Revo Via provides a performance advantage is, it can keep you at this 5 watt level for the duration of your ride.”

Hmmm, let's see: a special device that totally and conveniently validates their absurd claims?  Isn't that basically the idea behind an E-meter?


Indeed, the gap between Fred-dom and Scientology is rapidly closing, and at this point I'm not sure there's much difference between a custom-tailored training program and an auditing course.

And if special rare devices aren't enough to convince you that you need a chain lubing device on your bike, there's also this chart:


You're probably one of those poor schmucks using "other lubricants," and applying them at home instead of while in motion.  Silly you.  See how low you are on the chart?  Don't you want to be all the way up at the red line where the Revo Auto-Sploodge 2000 is?  Come on, get with the program already!  Plus, it doesn't sound like something that would be a pain in the ass at all:

The Revo Via comprises a small control module and fluid reservoir that can be attached to the down tube of the bike, and a short hose then runs along the chainstay to the dispensing unit which is attached to the rear mech. The whole setup adds 121g before you add any fluid, with a maximum of 27ml of fluid in the system. Refill intervals range from 7.5 to 37.5-hours depending on the frequency, and this will depend on the riding conditions. The system is powered by a battery and run time is 150 hours. 

Best of all, it only costs a mere £250 to catheterize your bicycle, though I suppose now's the time to buy one given the favorable post-Brexit vote exchange rate.

Though I'll probably wait for the gravel version:


In other news, if you've got any money left over after purchasing your Ejac-U-Tron 9000 make sure to help fund the USA Grand Tour, since they've only got another month to raise $1.3 million:
Clearly they've really thought this thing through:

The USA Grand Tour will be a race like the Tour De France, The Giro D'Italia and the Vuelta Espagna. Each of these 21 day stage races, or Grand Tours, is designed to showcase the country in which they are held, the products which sponsor the race, and to push the 198 or so riders to their very limits. The enormity of the race logistics and the secondary nature of bicycle racing here in America has made such an undertaking unthinkable. ..until now.

We've entered a new era where the growth of cycling participation and spectating in America is exploding! As a result of that growth it's time America stands up on the world stage and demonstrates how WE do a Grand Tour!

No it isn't.

And the video's not helping:



"Professional bicycle racing means many things to many people: Incredible speed that you can reach out and touch..."


Yeah, please don't reach out and touch the speed, it makes them crash.

"...and sensational triumphs:"



I'm not sure that's the photo I'd use to accompany the phrase "sensational triumphs."  Chris Horner's biological passport smells fishier than the Dumpster behind a Long John Silver's.

Bike fighting, on the other hand, could very well be the sport America needs NOW, and a commenter on yesterday's post was kind enough to share this article about on-the-bike self-defense:

This studio is the only one in the world with a defense program catered specifically to cyclists. The Krav Maga For Cyclists workshop, a three-hour hands-on tutorial on principles and special techniques, was a response to a rash of attacks against bikers in the city throughout the early 2000s.

Yes, your bicycle can be a weapon, as many triathletes know all too well:


Bike Attack

In most situations, the bike is your friend, you should not leave that friend behind unless absolutely necessary (more on that below). In addition to being a partial shield when you’re off the bike and a trusty escape vehicle, it can also be a weapon.

If your attacker(s) is (are) in front of you, you can pull the bike onto the rear wheel so that your front wheel is in the air with your hands still on the handlebars. Engage the rear brake (right hand), to keep the bike firmly planted. Thrust your arms out, using the front wheel to jab at your assailants.

With the rear wheel planted, you can swivel the bike, keeping it between you and the attackers. As soon as you have an opening, drop the front wheel, run forward and re-mount the bike.

Question: when you're pummeling your opponent in the face with your front wheel, what pressure should you be running?

Also, you may be forced to throw your bike to the wolves, turn tail, and flee for your life:



When To Ditch The Bike

In almost every scenario when you are confronted by a single attacker, keep your bike. But if there are multiple assailants from coming from different angles, let go of the bike and focus on protecting yourself. The bike may be the most valuable item on your person, so surrendering it may “buy” you a way out. Nothing is more precious than your life.

Nothing is more precious than your life?  Really?  Clearly the author has never ridden a CUSTOM RODE BIEK:


As far as I'm concerned Larry Olmsted remains the greatest cycling writer of all time.

Anyway, I enjoyed the bike-fighting article, but I could have done with an in-depth analysis of what the best frame material is for a weaponized bike.  Do you want the lateral stiffness and vertical compliance of crabon?  The supple reliability of steel?  Or the pleasant springiness of titanium?

Though in the right hands even high-tensile steel can yield high performance:



Lastly, here's a tragic instance of life imitating Super Mario Bros.:


Investigators found no evidence that another vehicle was involved. An autopsy showed that Kervin's head trauma was consistent with falling off his bicycle.

The turtle survived the crash with a small crack in the bottom of its shell. It crawled away with minor injuries.

No mention of whether the victim was wearing a helmet, but they do point out the turtle was wearing a shell.

A Wednesday by Any Other Name Would be a Tuesday, or Possibly a Thursday

Well, it's gift guide season, and the latest book by Jørs Trüli has made Portland's River City Cycles 2016 Gift Guide:


It's the perfect stocking stuffer, as is a tub of chamois cream:

[image error]
Indeed, my words and this chamois cream have a lot in common: they're buttery smooth, they're soothing when applied to the scranus, and they've both been tested on animals*.

*[Just kidding, as far as I know Assos chamois cream is not tested on animals, though I did test my book on animals by reading it to the cat**.]

**[The cat coughed up a hairball at around page 96.]

Not only that, but River City also mentioned my book in the Willamette Week:


I've got to admit I'm pretty intrigued by that beehive and am thinking it could make a great Festivus gift for the kiddies.  Beekeeping seems like a wholesome hobby and I see no reason why I shouldn't set up a hive in their bedroom.  In fact I visited the maker's website and they even offer a complete starter kit:

[image error] Though I'm sure rocking this will mark you as a total Bee Fred.

Speaking of lit-ritch-ur, today is Mark Twain's birthday:


(Mark Twain was just a pen name, his real name was Mark Goldfarb)
And to mark the occasion I highly recommend reading his account of learning to ride a bicycle, which is the source of this oft-used quote:

Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live.

Not only is it highly entertaining, but he describes the sensation of riding a bike better than anybody else has since, and this was only 1884:

The bicycle had what is called the "wabbles," and had them very badly. In order to keep my position, a good many things were required of me, and in every instance the thing required was against nature. That is to say, that whatever the needed thing might be, my nature, habit, and breeding moved me to attempt it in one way, while some immutable and unsuspected law of physics required that it be done in just the other way. I perceived by this how radically and grotesquely wrong had been the life-long education of my body and members. They were steeped in ignorance; they knew nothing--nothing which it could profit them to know. For instance, if I found myself falling to the right, I put the tiller hard down the other way, by a quite natural impulse, and so violated a law, and kept on going down. The law required the opposite thing--the big wheel must be turned in the direction in which you are falling. It is hard to believe this, when you are told it. And not merely hard to believe it, but impossible; it is opposed to all your notions. And it is just as hard to do it, after you do come to believe it. Believing it, and knowing by the most convincing proof that it is true, does not help it: you can't any more DO it than you could before; you can neither force nor persuade yourself to do it at first. The intellect has to come to the front, now. It has to teach the limbs to discard their old education and adopt the new.

Now cycling writing is just bike reviewers telling you a $10,000 plastic Fred Sled "goes where you point it."

Indeed, you could argue that the refinement of the bicycle is the very enemy of art.  Consider, for example, that if Twain had had access to a modern-day gravel bike this passage might never had been written:

Stones were a bother to me. Even the smallest ones gave me a panic when I went over them. I could hit any kind of a stone, no matter how small, if I tried to miss it; and of course at first I couldn't help trying to do that. It is but natural. It is part of the ass that is put in us all, for some inscrutable reason.

Instead he'd have bored us with some crap about how the Cannondale Slate ($4,260 with Force group) is equally at home on the tarmac and the trail and gives you the confidence to rail those corners like a monkey in a mining cart.

And would his spills have been half as entertaining if he'd had the false sense of security you get from wearing a helmet?


Though I suppose this is the 19th century equivalent of getting heckled for not wearing one:

He was full of interest and comment. The first time I failed and went down he said that if he was me he would dress up in pillows, that's what he would do.

"The victim was not dressed up in pillows," the newspapers would say.

Oh sure, the safety bike was a welcome innovation, and without pneumatic tires we wouldn't be able to obsess over #whatpressureyourunning, but it should be clear to everybody now that bike innovation topped out years ago and now they're simply grasping at windmills and tilting at straws.  For example, does anybody really need magnet pedals?


Apart from mountain unicyclists, of course:


Note how all-terrain unicyclists flail their arms like they're being attacked by a swarm of invisible bees.

Still, I wouldn't try these in New York City, if only because the streets are littered with bits of metal and your pedals would look like this in short order:


Also, they already ran a Kickstarter like two years ago that didn't get funded.

In other news, a reader forwarded a groundbreaking study with a shocking conclusion:


Yes, believe it or not, when you add bike lanes and stuff cycling becomes safer:

The odds of cyclists being injured in an accident in Boston have decreased significantly in recent years as the city has made a slew of changes to promote bike riding and improve safety, a new study from Harvard University researchers has found.

The study, published in the December issue of the American Journal of Public Health, found that there was a 14 percent reduction in the odds of being injured in a cycling accident for each year from 2009 through 2012.

And when you add more cyclists then cycling becomes safer still:

“There is a concept of safety in numbers that several studies have evaluated and we touched upon briefly,” said Pedroso. “The concept is based on the fact that with increased number of bicycle riders there is increased cyclist awareness by vehicles. This improved awareness results in reductions in vehicle-cyclist accidents.”

If you didn't know better you'd think that adding bike lanes and encouraging people to ride is more effective than making people wear helmets.

And here's a frustrating fact:

■ The odds of injury in accidents involving car doors are 225 percent higher than other types of accidents. “This is an interesting finding because it shows that if we expanded on strategies that separated bicycles from cars that we may have a significant impact on overall injuries,” Pedroso said.

Yes, of all the crap we deal with out there on the roads, we're most likely to be taken out by some asshole who can't be bothered to check before flinging open their fucking car door.

Drivers are so lazy they don't even put any effort into hitting you.

Lastly, on the subject of safety, race organizers are taking bold new steps to keep riders from getting hit by race vehicles:

During the General Assembly of the International Association of Cycling Race Organizers (AIOCC), the three groups decided to decrease team rosters from nine to eight in the Grand Tours and from eight to seven in their other events. This new policy will go into effect for the 2017 season.

"This decision responds to two-pronged objective: The first being to improve the safety conditions for the riders with a smaller peloton on roads equipped with more and more street furniture," read a statement released Friday by the ASO.

Wait, the road are crowded so they're going to reduce the number of bike racers instead of the number of race vehicles?  Aren't the bike racers why people follow the sport in the first place?  Isn't this like "improving" Lucky Charms by reducing the marshmallow count to three per box?

I guess we can look forward to an all-ITT format for the Tour de France by 2025.

I Could Have Titled This Post, But Then It Would Have Been Even Later

When you've got seventeen (17) children and a semi-professional blogging empire to run you take your chances to ride when you get them.  What you don't do is hem and haw just because it's going to be raining for the next two days.  You grab a bike with fenders and get out there while you can, precipitation be damned, which is what I did this morning:


And yes, I do realize that my bulging rear fender line is disgraceful, and that I should remedy the situation by trimming those struts and putting a spacer between the fender and the chainstay bridge immediately:


However, I can promise you I'll never do that, because with so little riding time the last thing I'm gonna do is waste any of it prettying up my goddamn fenders.

They deflect the water and they don't rub so for the time being that's good enough for me.

Anyway, it was an enjoyable ride and I visited some of my favorite hidden climbs of the lower Hudson Valley (you can order my guide to these climbs for only $2.99 by clicking here), though by the end of it I was a bit waterlogged:


But while I may be wet and wobbly-fendered at least I have my integrity, unlike a certain Mario Paz Duque, who apparently doped his way to a 38th place at the Red Hook Crit Milano:


Paz Duque, who finished 38th, is now disqualified from the Milano No.7 results and receives a lifetime ban from the RHC and all Trimble Racing events.

As far as I know this is the first positive drug test from the Red Hook Crit, though it's been pretty obvious for awhile now that the new breed of fixie-crit bro is almost certainly doped to the gills:


I wonder if they'll flag his Strava account:


Of course, in an age when even 45 year-old Fondo Freds get caught doping none of this is particularly surprising, though that didn't stop VeloNews from gloating about it:


(Yeah, saying "Jumped the shark" jumped the shark sometime in the last decade.)
Yes, they really do seem to have it in for this event for some reason:

Which is suprising, because people in Colorado have such a laid-back approach to riding bicycles.

I mean sure, of course I think it's hilarious that someone got caught doping at the Red Hook Crit, but I'm not sure VeloNews gets to laugh at it.  After all, the magazine owes its entire existence to performance-enhancing drugs.  It's like a porn film company laughing at a model for having breast implants.

Because Jim Ochowicz totally hasn't jumped the shark:


Speaking of porn, I recently received a press release with the following subject line:

The Sexiest Cycling Bottle in History
And here it is:



Arrive L allows easier and intuitive entry and exit from cages, and pockets. Compared to standard bottles, it slides in and out with less resistance, and easily at severe angles, thanks to tapered ends. It also has a high flow rate, self-sealing silicone valve, and 710ml / 24 oz capacity.

Holy crap, is this a water bottle or a double-ended dildo?

Finally, a bottle that isn’t just a product of engineering. Visual balance and a streamlined shape captures the essence of cycling. The clean façade lacks graphics to scratch, and allows a neutral presentation. The high-gloss cap is available in nine colors, with a smoke black, semi-transparent body.

They should do very well with this whole no-graphics concept, because cycling teams, bike shops, and other organizations who order bottles in large quantities to promote themselves certainly wouldn't want any graphics on them.

“Cycling bottles haven’t fundamentally changed in decades. We’ve been stuck with brute cylindrical shapes, bad graphic design, and basic functionality ” said Yujin Kawase, Founder and CEO of ABLOC.

Thank you, Yujin Kawase, for liberating us from the bottle shape.  You should move onto the wine industry next, the bottle shape has been a huge problem for them as well.

Speaking of things nobody asked for, that paper helmet has made the New York Times:


As bike-share programs have proliferated in cities around the world, a clear point of friction has emerged for bicycle commuters: How do they protect their fragile skulls?

Really?  Has this been an actual problem?  They protect their fragile skulls the same when they do when they're walking or riding the subway or taking the bus: by doing their best not to fall on them.  Reminds me of that Mr. Burns quote: “Ever since the beginning of time, man has yearned to destroy the sun."  Forget liberating us from bottle shapes; please liberate us from the bullshit idea that people need or want helmets to ride Citi Bikes three blocks at a time.

Many are unwilling to share helmets with strangers, because of germs and stuff. And carrying a helmet at all times can be a burden.

Lice.  They're called lice.

Luckily, a selection of foldable helmets has emerged to help solve the problem. This month, one such product, the EcoHelmet, won the 2016 James Dyson award, named for the British designer best known for making high-tech vacuum cleaners.

The helmet’s inventor, Isis Shiffer, will receive $45,000 to further develop the cheap, recyclable product, which is made from cardstock paper.

I gotta hand it to her, nothing gets people to open up their wallets like a good helmet gimmick.

I'm Now All Out of Thanks, and I Had No F*cks to Give in the First Place.

Well, it's the 21st century holiday known as Cyber Monday:


And obviously you should look no further than the right-hand margin of this blog for all your online holiday shopping needs.  Seriously, what can't you buy from my generous sponsors?  Bikes, coffee, tool rolls...even humorous how-to manuals informed entirely by this blogger's own highly subjective precepts!  I dare say you could go from layperson to jaded cyclist who's totally over it in a matter of days simply by ordering your way down my ads.

It's like 20 years of cycling experience distilled in like a dozen banners.

Oh, and if you're looking for Cyber Monday discount codes from all my generous sponsors, you can find them here.

Speaking of being totally over it, Malcolm McLaren's son burned a bunch of pants on a boat or something:

The items set on fire included a pair of bondage trousers that had been tailor-made for Mr. Corré as a child; rare posters; live punk recordings; and pants that had belonged to John Lydon, a.k.a. Johnny Rotten, the lead singer of the Sex Pistols, according to a news release sent by a publicist for Mr. Corré.

This was apparently to protest the fact that punk has become a marketing tool:

“Punk has become another marketing tool to sell you something you don’t need,” Mr. Corré said to a crowd of dozens gathered on the shore in London’s Chelsea district, as flames licked at a trunk of punk paraphernalia and fireworks shot from the boat into the late afternoon sky. “If you want to understand the potent values of punk, confront taboos. Do not tolerate hypocrisy. Investigate the truth for yourself.”

This bold statement comes at least 39 years too late and would have been trite even then, so who better to make it than the son of the person who conceived of the punk style as a marketing tool in the first place?  If you really think about it, punk is basically an entire musical genre based on complaining about its own inherent marketability.  It's just people in riveting wardrobes singing songs with irresistible pop hooks and then getting mad when people like them, which is the perfect formula for success.  Indeed, as every lovelorn soul out there knows, it's this very seduce-and-rebuff cycle that perpetuates the entire human species.  So the pants burning seems lame even by marketing standards.

Nevertheless, I fully intend to burn a bunch of fixies on a barge in the East River in 2047, so mark your calendars.


(I wonder if he ever got brakes, and if so did he modify the tattoo?)
In other fashion news, Eurodouche coglomerate LVMH is sniffing Rapha's chamois for potential purchase:


Helped by the boom in road cycling over the past decade or so in the UK and elsewhere – the US, Australia and Japan are all significant markets for Rapha – the company achieved turnover of £48.8 million in the year to 31 January 2016, with pre-tax profit of £.1 million.

The Mail on Sunday says that while a source confirmed the two parties were in talks, neither LVMH nor Rapha would comment.

Paris-based LVMH, owner of brands including Louis Vuitton, Moet & Chandon, Marc Jacobs, Dior, TAG Heuer and Bulgari, is known to be keen to build its presence in the sports and leisure sectors.

And let the record reflect I totally called this after it was reported LVMH was kicking Pinarello's tires awhile back:

I commend them on their choice, as Pinarello will make a fine addition to their exquisite portfolio of Eurodouchery.  After this the next acquisition is going to be either Assos or Rapha, and by this time next year you can expect them to offer an $8,000 leather Louis Vuitton pool noodle.

So to recap:

1) The nexus of professional Fred cycling is shifting to the Persian Gulf:


2) Used to be the last thing you saw before getting doored on the Upper East Side was a Vuitton bag emerging from a town car; now they're going to be making both your plastic bike and your bib shorts:


3) President of Trek Bicycle John Burke may already be positioning himself to succeed former stage race organizer Donald Trump as President of the United States:


Given this it's abundantly clear to me that not only is road cycling being wholly appropriated by the word's ultra-rich and well on its way to becoming the new horse polo, but it's also probably somehow going to figure into the nuclear apocalypse that is certain to put an end to life as we know it sometime during the next administration--though if somehow we make it through a Trump presidency unscathed then President Burke has the solution to nuclear security going forward, so we'll all be able to breathe easy again:

Reduce the risk of nuclear war. This one scares the hell out of me, especially with you in charge. We have over 2,000 missiles on active duty. We don’t need 2,000 missiles on active duty. There is a great op-ed published in the May 23, 2010 edition of the New York Times  written by civilian employees of the US Air Force, Gary Schaub Jr. and James Forsyth Jr., in which they adeptly calculate “that the country could address its national defense and military concerns with only 311 strategic nuclear weapons.”This move would reduce our chances of accidentally causing a nuclear war by over 93.91%, and significantly reduce our costs. Remember we have a debt of $19 trillion.

Yes, why have 2,000 nukes when you only need 311?  That's why President Burke will be introducing the Domane ICBM.  Billed as a "quiver killer" that will reduce the size of your stable while still maintaining mutually assured destruction, it's equally at home menacing nearby neighbors and far-flung republics alike thanks to its Classics-proven IsoSpeed decoupler:


THE SMOOTH ADVANTAGE

Domane with IsoSpeed has it all: Blistering speed. Devastating power, even on the punishing pavé of Kim Il-sung Square. Don’t endure. Conquer.

Powering over centuries-old empires, vaporizing upstarts, descending from the sky to rain death upon our enemies. That's how America refrains from firing its Domane in the name of maintaining a precarious détente. How will you refrain from firing yours?

It even has an integrated chain keeper for some reason.

Yes, with a mere 311 cutting-edge "gravel nukes" hand-crafted in Waterloo, WI* and Jens Voigt as Secretary of State, America will regain the global respect we're sure to lose during the next four years:

*Project One missiles only


("SHUT UP ISIS!!!")
Hey, John Burke vs. Mike Sinyard with Grant Petersen running as a third-party candidate?  Stranger things have happened.  In fact all of them happened during this most recent election.

Lastly, I was perambulating through Central Park over the Thanksgiving break when I encountered this rider braving the forbidding (and forbidden, no bikes allowed) bridle path on a fat bike:


Might be time to launch the fat bike-burning party barge.

Take My Thanks, Please.

Well, it's American Thanksgiving tomorrow--otherwise known as The Day the Turkey Cried (not to be confused with the similarly-titled film):


(Oh yeah?  Well I got mine at Whole Foods.)
This means two (2) things:
A) No post tomorrow or Friday but I'll be back on Monday, November 28th with regular updates; 
and 
2) This morning I headed out on the WorkCycles to run some pre-holiday errands like the wonderful host I am.  Yes, even a cynic like me can't help feeling a bit of holiday cheer when I roll out into the crisp morning in search of goodies, though I suppose a lot of that could be attributable to my morning vodka.  But whatever the reason for my high spirits, my first stop was Party City, where as always I cursed the developers who built this stupid shopping center without adding a single bike rack:

It's a soulless affair, even by shopping center standards, but you'd think they could have added at least one goddamn bike rack somewhere in that giant courtyard instead of making me walk all the way from the curb.  I mean come on, most places have at least one token bike rack, even if it's intentionally too close to a wall or something so you can't use it.  Meanwhile, the whole goddamn structure is basically a parking lot with some shitty stores on top of it--which you need of course when you're spitting distance from a subway.
Anyway, at Party City I got plates and stuff because fuck washing dishes.
Next, I went to get dessert:

Not just any dessert either, but UNQUESTIONABLY THE WORLD'S FINEST CREAM CHEESE CHEESECAKE!

If there's one thing I can't stand in a dessert it's ambiguity.
See, that's a dessert that makes itself known.  No ribbons and doilies there.  When you walk into a party and drop a DELUXE pizza box full of the world's balls-out best cheesecake onto the table (squashing six or seven cronuts in the process) everybody knows you mean business.
It's even Kosher.  The fucking thing is unstoppable.
(I might also have gotten a carrot cake at Lloyd's, but the line was already almost to the corner.)
Anyway, if you're a terminal Fred or Frederica, Thanksgiving also means fretting over those holiday pounds and spending the following day doing "guilt burpees"--or else lighting out for that #BlacktopFriday ride.  Yes, in today's fast-paced world it's all too rare that the whole family has the day off work and school, so why not take advantage of it by abandoning them and posting pictures of your lame-ass road ride on Instagram?  Who knows?  You might even get a "kudos" on Strava!

1. Have a great activity title

The title is one of the first things people will see in their feed. To come up with a good name, think about what stood out in your activity. Did you stop for donuts? Was it really hot? Maybe you got a new pair of shoes? Anything is better than “morning ride.”

I'd suggest "SuperFred BigMuff's Wank-Tastic Hill Repeat!," I can't see how you'd lose with that one.

In other news, as a reader pointed out yesterday, a coroner in Australia is calling for expiration dates on bike components:



The story behind it all is incredibly sad, but here's the upshot:

Coroner Lisbeth Campbell found Mr Stanton's riding, maintenance of the bike or previous minor prang had no bearing on the crash and instead pinned the failure of the carbon fork on a fatigue fracture in the aluminium steering tube.

The coroner determined the crack could not have been picked up by Mr Stanton or the technicians that had serviced his bike less than two months earlier and deemed it an "inclusion flaw" from the manufacturing process.

Now the coroner has recommended Standards Australia investigate a mandatory safe life for bicycles components such as the front steering fork, depending on the material and manufacturing process.

Upper safe life limits are routine in the aerospace industry, which uses many of the same materials found in high-end bicycles, Coroner Campbell said.

This is highly unrealistic for any number of reasons but it is rather sobering, and I couldn't help thinking that the alloy steerer on the victim's Trek sounds like it could be of the same vintage as the one that took George Hincapie out of Paris-Roubaix, since it sounds like his bike was going on 10 years old and this happened in 2006:


The article also mentions the victim had had a "previous minor prang" (which it discounts as a factor in the failure for some reason) and Hincapie had also crashed before this occurred.

Anyway, seems to me there's not much sense on imposing a "mandatory safe life" on bike parts, but there is probably sense in replacing your fork after a crash.

(And you can leave your smug comments about your 100% indestructible steel bicycle here.)

Somewhat less tragic is this story of a Chicago alderman who was felled by a squirrel, which a friend alerted me to yesterday:


Howard Brookins Jr., the alderman for Chicago’s 21st ward, had publicly spoken out about a toothy menace plaguing the city’s garbage carts: urban squirrels, which in Brookins’s view were “aggressive,” and aggressively damaging the trash cart lids.

He now has another reason to dislike the rodents. One recently sent him to the hospital with a skull fracture in a “freak bicycle accident,” as the alderman wrote on Facebook.

Firstly, as many of you pointed out yesterday, the Washington Post's not mentioning whether or not the rider was wearing a helmet in the context of a bicycle crash (which resulted in a skull fracture no less) is unprecedented.  Indeed, it can only mean one of two things:

1) He was wearing a helmet but it didn't work and heaven forbid anybody impugn the Almighty Helmet (though the easy solution there is to add something about how the injury would have been much worse without it, "A helmet saved my life," yadda yadda yadda);

or

B) They're freeing themselves from the tyranny of helmet propaganda thanks to their brilliant contributors.

Secondly, the victim seems to be highly misinformed concerning the nature of squirrels:

Brookins was biking along Cal-Sag Trail on Nov. 13, when a squirrel darted into his path. The squirrel cut Brookins’s bike trip short by wrapping itself in the spokes of the alderman’s bicycle. The alderman flipped over the handlebars and landed with such a severe impact that he fractured his skull, broke his nose and knocked out a handful of teeth, the Chicago Tribune reported. A woman who passed by called 911. Brookins was only able to leave the hospital Thursday.

“I can think of no other reason for this squirrel’s actions than that it was like a suicide bomber, getting revenge,” the alderman said to the Tribune on Monday. He told the newspaper a full recovery was expected to take months.

Really?  No other reason?  That's exactly what squirrels do!  If you're riding and a squirrel doesn't try to ensnare itself in your spokes then something is seriously wrong.  I have no doubt the very first pennyfarthing ride in history was ended prematurely by a squirrel:


("Holy shit, what's that giant round thing?  Some kinda hamster wheel???  I GOTTA GET IN THAT!!!)
Seriously, if you see a squirrel and he doesn't immediately try to dive bomb your front wheel then he's up to something far more insidious--like maybe he's about to signal to a friend in a tree to drop a sixteen-ton weight on your head:


("Wait for it...")
In any event, I wish him a speedy recovery, and he might wanna think about replacing that fork--though we're going to be stuck with "suicide bomber" squirrels at least until Trump unveils his new vetting policy.

And with that, I'm off.  Enjoy your Thanksgiving, or if you're not American enjoy pointing and laughing at us as we stuff our faces in the shadow of our inevitable doom, and I'll see you all here back on Monday.

Yours and so forth,


--Wildcat Rock Machine

Let's Clip in and Roll Out!

ルッカで、ルッカ出身の自転車プロロードレース選手で世界チャンピオンのマリオ・チポリーニさんに会った‼️ まさに #ちょいワル な雰囲気の方でしたよ！かっこいい！Abbiamo incontrato il ciclista piu' famoso Mario Cipollini ! pic.twitter.com/2ddndnlL9v— ERIKO K-ble Jungle (@ErikoKbleJungle) November 7, 2016

(Cipollini's starting to look like William H. Macy)
Further to yesterday's post, the media continues to examine Sydney's successful effort to position itself as the world's most bicycle-hostile city:

There is however another way to keep cyclists safe. It’s to get them off our roads, footpaths and cycle lanes entirely. This can perhaps be achieved through enacting legislation that penalises cyclists with massive fines for minor traffic infringements such as not wearing a helmet or cycling without a bell attached to the handlebars.

Governments can also rip up existing infrastructure and force cyclists on to traffic-clogged roads. They can allow the police force to target minor infringements by cyclists, rather than focus on motorists who speed, text while driving or drive under the influence of drugs or alcohol. In short, a government can create an environment where the cyclist is seen as an unwanted guest on our roads, rather than as a husband, wife, mother, daughter, son commuting to work or school.

To the best of my knowledge, this bold experiment is only occurring in one place on earth: New South Wales.

Hey, scoff if you will, but this is the perfect time for anti-bike forces to implement a similar scheme here in New York City.  Ordinarily our city's safe streets advocates act as Gatekeepers of Smugness, attending community board meetings and assiduously scanning the media for victim-blaming and excessive use of the word "accident."  Now, however, they're so wrapped up in tweeting about Trump and putting (((parentheses around their names))) that it's only a matter of time before some legislator passes a helmet law or makes it so that you need a "B" endorsement code on your drivers license in order to ride a bicycle.

Then again, I'm not sure it even matters, because Fredly video game Zwift is more popular than ever and soon we'll all be riding inside anyway:


If you haven’t heard of Zwift, founded two years ago in Long Beach, Ca., you aren’t alone. But investors have been following the company. Its massive, multiplayer video game technology, which caters to indoor cyclists, just attracted $27 million in Series A funding in a round that brings Zwift’s total funding to $45 million.

$45 million?!?  What do they even do with all that money?  Granted, I don't know much about the tech industry, but it seems like all you need to run Zwift is a couple of computer nerds, a bong, and a "Fred consultant" who says stuff like "his socks should be higher" or "her sunglasses should be under her helmet straps."

Then again, I suppose if Zwift does finally rid the roads of Freds once and for all then it will be money well spent:



Perhaps the government of New South Wales should consider investing.

Indeed, as a recovering Fred myself the world of road weenie-ism has become one I no longer recognize, and as you can see from my primitive metal bicycle I've fallen way off the back:


Speaking of this bicycle, it came with the inexpensive Shimano wheels you see above, and while at first they sort of offended my Fredly sensibilities they've proven to be more than serviceable so far--though if I knew anything about quality I'd immediately upgrade to some Zipps that cost ten times as much:


I like quality. I dig greatness. When I sit down to read fiction, I want an author who’ll reach with mad ambition, which is to say I’ll read Thomas Pynchon rather than 50 Shades of Awful Prose. This, I admit, is a bias. But it’s one that has served me well. I’ve done my best work when I chase my personal sense of excellence and don’t worry about how esoteric the final product might be. That experience has taught me to trust and respect those who do the same. I believe I have a duty to extend others that same opportunity to stretch.

When I buy wine, I’d rather buy three really good bottles than a case of dreck.

Yes, and when I make analogies I make way too many when just one would do.

Is there a corollary to Godwin's Law that says any review of high-end cycling equipment must at some point make a facile comparison to wine?

And if those wheels are the rolling equivalent of reading Pynchon just imagine how good the ones with the biomimetic whale ridges must be:


Think of a humpback whale’s fast but graceful movements...

Yeah, I'm thinking of whale moves, but I still don't get it:



Jeez, get a room, you two.

A big one.

Lastly, now that Rapha are opening stores all over the world, Assos wants you to remember they're still the original Eurodouche brand.  To that end, they've fired a shot over Rapha's pink-accented bow by opening a concept store in London, where you can gaze at their finery from under the chamois cream-slathered scranus of the Assos Guy himself:



Much more than just showcasing essential cycling apparel, the ASSOS Boutique London is at the intersection where performance meets practicality. 

I see no practicality in evidence.

While also being a place for personal fittings and picking up tips and tricks for how to dress on the bike, it'll serve as inspiration with live race screenings and in-depth chats over coffee about riding and racing. 

So like a Rapha Cycling Club, but for people who use styling products in their hair.

Anyway, I checked out their Instagram using the suggestive hashtag #ASSOSLDN, and I note that you can try on their clothes while grinding away on an SRM bike:


When you try on cycle clothing, you normally don't have the chance to test it until you're on your bike. By that time, you would have likely found out that the clothes you're wearing doesn't fit, causing discomfort and inefficiency. Here at #ASSOSLDN, we offer everyone the option to try all our garments and test them on our SRM bike to ensure the perfect fit
.
Yikes.  Does that include the shorts?  I really hope they wash the merchandise afterwards.

Eeew.

Why, it's Monday already?!?

Once again, I apologize for last Friday's extreme tardiness, though let the record show I did post so I am technically not in breach of contract.

My contract, by the way, is with Satan, and I can only assume he smote me on Friday in order to punish me for leaving my post and fucking off for a ride:


(Satan)
I'm like the Flying Dutchman of bike blogs, consigned to complain about cycling-related matters for all eternity.
As for the nature of my (thankfully) short-lived malady, I can only conclude that I managed to dehydrate the fuck out of myself, which is something I must admit have pulled off in the past.  I'm not very good about drinking water as I go about my day, so when I headed out on my impromptu ride Friday my fluids were probably already pretty low, and the unseasonably warm temperatures coupled with a morning of "riding furiously" after a fairly sedentary week probably put me unwittingly into the danger zone.  So by the time I got home I was probably out of water and electrolytes and my system started short-circuiting, which is why you should always carry a bottle of Brawndo:

In other words, I made the sort of mistake the typical Fred or Frederica learns not to after the first month of his or her Bicycling subscription.
Then again, cycling is a lot like drinking: no matter how much experience you may have every so often you go at it with too much enthusiasm and too little prep and you wind up moaning under the covers.
Nevertheless, I'm pleased to report I was back in action in relatively short order and even managed to get out on the Milwaukee yesterday afternoon:

I admit I'm a sucker for blustery fall days.  The foliage is transitioning from vibrant to drab, the cold gusts are trying to wrest control of your front wheel from you, and climbing requires some finesse lest you lose your footing on wet leaves.  One needs a sober, sure-footed bicycle for the road rides of fall and winter, and so it is this time of year when the Milwaukee takes its turn at the front.
Speaking of Milwaukee, I've become an avowed fan of the whole 27.5+ wheel thing, and now they're offering one called the "Gravy:"
This sucks because I totally want one now.
Just imagine how severely I could dehydrate myself on the trails behind the mall with that bad boy.
In other news, it looks like New South Wales is now paying the price for its draconian bicycle fines:

(Via @AlanSchenkel)
And by "paying the price" I of course mean "succeeding in their goal of culling those pesky cyclists:"

The number of people cycling in central Sydney is lower than it was two years ago – with some advocates blaming the drop on the policies of the Baird government.

Until about a year ago, the state government had a target of doubling the number of trips made in Sydney by bicycle.

But the government scrapped that target last September – and, in the meantime, cycling rates have remained below where they were in 2013 and 2014.

Yes, it turns out that when you remove bike lanes and fine the shit out of people they're less inclined to ride for some reason:

Separate RMS figures, meanwhile, appear to show a drop in cycling numbers around February and March this year in some places across the city. During that period, heavy increases in fines for cycling offences came into effect. However the government disputes there has been a significant drop in cycling rates since March, and the overall figures for 2016 are slightly higher than the previous year.

Indeed, my little jaunt on the Milwaukee yesterday afternoon would have cost me AU$850:

In March, fines for cycling offences increased significantly. Riding without a helmet attracts a $319 fine, running a red light attracts a $425 fine, and not having a bell carries a $106 fine.

That's "Fuck it, I'm leasing a Hyundai" money right there.

Even Cadel Evans won't ride his bike in Sydney:


"I'm not intimidated to ride in many places but Sydney is one of them," he said. 

While the narrowness of streets, volume of traffic, poor cycling infrastructure and distance from the CBD to good riding areas were factors, Evans said there was just too little respect on the roads.

"This could apply to many places in Australia but in Sydney the traffic is concentrated because the population is concentrated [so] that lack of respect and sometimes aggression is concentrated," he said. 

Though he made sure not to blame the poor innocent drivers:

The former champion cyclist, who still rides most days for love of the sport, said he was far from being anti-car. He described himself as "a car guy" who has a V8 SS Commodore as well as classic and sports cars.

"I'm not accusing drivers," he said. "I'm saying road users in general so it's bikes getting angry at cars, cars getting angry at bikes, trucks getting angry at cars and vice versa.  A little bit of respect would go a long way."

Anyone who'll logged the kind of miles Cadel Evans has knows damn well it's all the drivers' fault, but you can't really blame him for lying since he's got his GM partnership to think about:


Then again, Cadel Evans was always rather prickly, so he could easily be accounting for most of Australia's cyclist-generated aggression himself.  Plus, as a head-butting enthusiast and an Australian, he understands more than most the importance of wearing a helmet:


Speaking of helmets, as I briefly mentioned yesterday that disposable paper bike share helmet has won the International Sucks-Like-A-Dyson Design Award or whatever it's called:



And apparently they would go for $5 a pop:

Shiffer envisions her single-use helmets being sold in vending machines near bike-share stations; they would likely go for $5.

Yeah, right.

Not only does it only cover the pointy end of your head, but it also looks like something they'd make you wear if you worked in a restaurant kitchen:



Or else something Martha Stewart would teach you how to make in order to liven up Thanksgiving:


I'm pretty sure the true Bike Share Freds (oh, they're out there, I see them doing laps in Central Park) will continue to carry their own helmets, and the rest of civilized society will rather astutely continue just hopping on and not giving a fuck.

Though I do think that if the inventor were to repurpose the design and market it as a one-use-only suspension chamois for gravel racing she'd have a real hit on her hands:
Lastly, remember XShifter?  Well it turns out it opens up the possibility of voice-shifting:


That does sound great for handcycles, but I really hope this feature also catches on with the upright Freds too so we can shout, "Faster, faster, faster!" at them on the climbs and watch them upshift themselves stationary.

I don't feel tardy.

Sorry.

You can go ahead and file this post under "too little too late."

Here's what happened:


It's been just a few PSI over a year since I took delivery of the Marin Pine Mountain 1, and it was a ridiculously beautiful day, so I figured I'd indulge in my standard behind-the-mall jaunt before completing my blogular responsibilities.  It was quite an enjoyable ride, and I felt nothing but sprightly.  The outdoor mall adjacent to the park has a Whole Foods, so afterward I stopped in for some lunch.  People often look at me funny for riding a bike through a shopping mall, but I also look funny at them in return for shopping at a mall when they could be riding mountain bikes instead.

Everything was fine, and there were no signs anything was amiss with me physically but by the time I got home I felt like ass.  Total ass.  Like "I can't pick up my head or I'm gonna puke" ass.

I don't know if it was something I ate or just some post-ride atomic bonk-cum-dehydration freakout, but only now am I able to type words into my computing device, and I deeply apologize for leaving you blogless.

There was one thing unusal about the ride though, which is that when I got to the gate that leads to the trails it was ajar and there was an empty shopping cart in front of it:


I don't know if someone stole a bunch of shit from Dick's Sporting Goods and vanished into the forest, or if someone went a-deer huntin' and used the shopping cart to portage his kill back to his car, sort of like this guy from the other day:



I should have taken it as an omen.

Speaking of fat tires (the Marin has them), the road Freds are onto them too, and before I headed out this morning I noted this article in which James Huang dives deep into the wide rim craze:


It was only just a handful of years ago that 15mm was considered an optimal width for everyday road wheels, narrow enough to slice through the air, light enough to feel faster on the climbs, and a suitably broad foundation for the 23mm-wide tires commonly used at the time. Today, most modern high-performance road wheels now measure around 20mm — an increase of just 5mm, but a whopping 33%. What’s the thinking behind this rapid change? U.S. technical editor James Huang takes a look at the upsides and downsides of this now-common trend.

This is obviously one of the few roadie crazes that actually makes sense, though rest assured it's only a temporary fad.  After all, we've been through this before:


As you can see, Fred tires were pretty plump to begin with, but then they got all skinny, and now they're getting fat again, and I promise you in 20 years they'll be insisting that you (or your progeny) should be riding on 21mm tires inflated to 120psi.

It's like a whole Big Bang/Big Crunch thing.

Anyway, you'd think you could just put some fatter tires on the wheels you already have, but these are roadies you're talking about so you'd be wrong.  You need new ones:

“Going wider makes the tire take on a better shape for better handling,” according to Boyd Johnson of Boyd Cycling. “It allows you to use a wider tire and not have a lightbulb shape (picture a 28mm tire on a 13mm rim). It also helps with aerodynamics in the higher yaw range, and allows you to use the wheel for multiple purposes. The same wheel you are using in a crit can be used for gravel or cyclocross.”

I dunno, I've always used everything from 23s to 32s or so on my road bike wheels, and it seemed to work just fine.  But but apparently in addition to sacrificing precious handling precision I was also risking my life:

“Even though the norms might seem silly, they are real,” stressed Mavic global brand manager Chad Moore. “The safety concerns are real. The tests are real. The failures are real. It’s not bullshit. Being one of, if not the biggest wheel manufacturers in the world, we simply cannot take any chances. I can offer you a lot of math about percentages of failures per hundreds or thousands of wheels based on the ETRTO testing, but I don’t think I need to. With the amount of Ksyrium wheel-tire systems that we sell, you can imagine how even just 1-in-1000 failures could impact our customers. We just don’t want to take that chance.”

Bold words indeed from the company that brought you the exploding R-Sys:


In conclusion, pile up all your old 23mm tires, make a tire fire, and purchase new expensive new tires and wheels immediately.

Lastly, remember that paper bike helmet?  It won that Dyson award:



It also works as a filter for your vacuum cleaner, so at least it's economical.

And with that I leave you, and hopefully whatever's ailing me passes quickly.  Please accept my apologies, or don't, what do I care, and either way I'll see you back here on Monday.  Ride safe and enjoy the weekend.


Humbly yours,



--Wildcat Rock Machine

Back With a Smugness

There's been much discussion in the media of "fake news" recently, specifically on Facebook where some wiseass may have gotten Donald Trump elected President or something.

Not being a Facebook user I am blissfully ignorant of the manner in which word travels on that platform, but I have certainly witnessed the "too lazy and/or gullible to tell fact from fiction" phenomenon firsthand.  Indeed, I myself am guilty of creating at least one falsehood now regarded as fact.  It all started in 2008, when I made up this quote:

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

I thought nothing of it because, after all, look at George Plimpton:


Now look at a Y-Foil:


As tempting as it is to imagine Plimpton riding around the Upper East Side on a Y-Foil sporting a wicker handlebar basket with a baguette in it, it seemed fairly obvious to me that my fabricated quote was well within the realm of parody.

Also, the Y-Foil came out in 1998, at which time Plimpton was 71 years old.

Nevertheless, somebody bought it.  Not just anybody, either, but the editor-in-chief of the Paris Review:


And since then a quick Googling reveals it's now entered the canon of actual quotes:


I deeply regret posthumously and inexorably associating George Plimpton with one of the most horrendous bicycles of the 20th century, but sadly once these things get absorbed into the culture there's simply no way to undo them, as Richard Gere and his imaginary ass-gerbil know all too well.

Oh sure, it's easy to blame the Internet, but the medium is largely incidental.  This is as old as human communication itself.  Consider another load of bullshit called "The Bible."  It's mostly the fake news of its day, yet millenia later we're still living by it and fighting wars over it.  And hey, look at that, we just elected a president who campaigned on banning Muslims.  Whaddya know.

Maybe that's why Gandhi said this:


Or was it Bachman Turner Overdrive?

I get confused.

Then there was the time I tweeted this:

Greetings from sunny California. Very excited for my Rivendell talk at 4 and very surprised Grant drives a Ferrari: pic.twitter.com/q3tbEBPiOC— Bike Snob NYC (@bikesnobnyc) June 18, 2016

I thought that was even more ridiculous than the Y-Foil thing, but people have asked me if it's true.

(If you meditate on any image today, let it be Grant Petersen driving the California Coast in a Ferrari with a Y-Foil on the trunk rack.)

In other news, remember how my WorkCycles FR8 (shown here with my smallest human child for maximum pathos) was stolen from outside of my largest human child's school?


Well, while I got pretty much all of it back, it required some rehabilitation in order to be rideable again.  So naturally I did what any self-respecting semi-professional bike blogger would do, which was to defer the maintenance and use my wife's WorkCycles instead:


I didn't even bother to raise the seat.

Nevertheless, I realized yesterday that my procrastination was getting ridiculous, and I was also missing my own WorkCycles and its more generous proportions.  So I brought the bike into my makeshift workshop and performed a diagnosis.  The most obvious symptom was that the tires had been punctured in what I imagine was a final "Fuck you" from the thief or thieves after they had failed to open the wheel lock, but closer inspection revealed a considerable flat spot from when they'd dragged the bike away:


It's tough to see from my shitty photos, but it looks like they went at it with a deli slicer:


Also, they were considerate enough to stab the tires in the sidewall:


I thought at least one of the tires was salvageable, but inflating it revealed this was not the case:


Sure, I might boot it or something if this was just a neighborhood beer-getter, but tempting a blowout on a bike used to portage two (2) children is sub-par parenting--especially when I'm already a sub-par parent who doesn't lock his bike and enjoys helmetless familly hillbombing sessions.

Fortunately I had a spare set of 26" slicks in storage from when I still owned a tiny-wheeled mountain bicycle, so I set about installing them:


The great thing about the WorkCycles is that everything's enclosed so you don't have to worry about your pant cuffs and you can leave it outside.  The bad thing about it is that tire changes are kind of a pain in the ass, though they're at least facilitated somewhat by the handy removable dropout design:


I also fully admit I have yet to fully wrap my head around how you open the chain case, so in the spirit of laziness I just removed the end piece and worked around it.

Once I'd changed the tires it was mostly just a matter of aligning stuff here and snugging up fittings there, and I'm pleased to report that the Smugness Flotilla Mark II is back in action:


Alas, the tires I had were merely 1.5s, but while it may look a bit unsightly I think they'll do the job just fine.  Also, the brakes could use a bleed but that was the case before the theft anyway.

Lastly, my wife's WorkCycles is the "Secret Service" model, and I just learned today there's such a thing as a Secret Service bicycle officer--and apparently even they can't escape shitty drivers (unless it was a deliberate attack, but here in the USA we know nobody uses cars to do bad things):

JUST IN: Secret Service bicycle officer struck on 17th St. near the White House; Transported by ground, current condition unknown - WUSA— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) November 17, 2016

Naturally I'm wishing the officer the best, but the revelation that the Secret Service has a bike division raises many interesting questions, including but not limited to:

--Are they a highly-drilled squad with awesome bike-handling skillz?
--If so, when's the movie coming out?
--And of course, most importantly, #whatpressureyourunning?

Wednesdystopia gonna end?

First of all, regarding this picture:


Is Bearded Colnago Fred flashing the sun-addled Trump flag-waver the victory sign, which is what I assumed?  Or is he, as one Twitter user suggested, merely attempting to subvert her with a peace sign?


Not that it matters really, but next year when our President launches a dusty Cold War-era nuke at ISIS that misfires and destroys Cleveland (sorry, Cleveland), it would suck to have such an image coming back to haunt you.  (Assuming our infrastructure ever comes back and we're not too busy running from the Morlocks.)

And if it was an anti-Trump gesture there are certainly less ambiguous hand signals to choose from:


Of course, we don't need to wait around for Trump and Giuliani (who in any sane reality would be doing Pizza Hut commercials together and not running the country) to kick off the nuclear holocaust because we're doing a fine job of killing each-other with our cars:


The messaging app Snapchat allows motorists to post photos that record the speed of the vehicle. The navigation app Waze rewards drivers with points when they report traffic jams and accidents. Even the game Pokémon Go has drivers searching for virtual creatures on the nation’s highways.

When distracted driving entered the national consciousness a decade ago, the problem was mainly people who made calls or sent texts from their cellphones. The solution then was to introduce new technologies to keep drivers’ hands on the wheel. Innovations since then — car Wi-Fi and a host of new apps — have led to a boom in internet use in vehicles that safety experts say is contributing to a surge in highway deaths.

In other words, as this election has already proved, people are at their absolute worst when using the internet:

After steady declines over the last four decades, highway fatalities last year recorded the largest annual percentage increase in 50 years. And the numbers so far this year are even worse. In the first six months of 2016, highway deaths jumped 10.4 percent, to 17,775, from the comparable period of 2015, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

And it's not going to get better anytime soon.  Sure, some people think self-driving cars will save us, but in the meantime cars are only going to get even more distracting thanks to our culture's inability to separate movies from real life:


After Marvel’s superhero flick “Captain America: The Winter Solider” came out in 2014, designers at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV wanted to try putting the movie’s futuristic computer displays in real-world cars. So they hired the special-effects artists behind the superhero gadgetry to make it happen.

Perception, a New York visual-effects firm that created the look of digital devices in the Marvel universe, worked with the auto maker’s team to reimagine the way information flows between car and driver. The resulting Jeep cockpit concept, which includes three displays and an augmented-reality windshield, was shown at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January.

That's just great.  As a cyclist there are few situations more dangerous than finding yourself between some asshole and a parking space.  So just wait until their windshield alerts them when one's just opened up and they're able to descend upon it from the opposite lane.

Maybe it doesn't matter who's president since our demise will probably come not from incompetent leadership but from our tech bro-infused "Dude, wouldn't it be cool if...?" approach to technological innovation:

“Most of the tech they do in the movies is complete fantasy, but it’s done so well and so convincingly that it helps you imagine the future so vividly,” Mr. Giles said. “With the realism [in movies] so seamless, you almost forget that it’s a movie after awhile and you’re like, ‘Why can’t we do that today?’ They kind of force-accelerate the future.”

Though he's certainly right in that movies do inform if not actually determine the future, which is we're pretty much on the cusp of living in "The Running Man:"


(Pedestrian wearing mandatory helmet, visibility suit, and suppository beacon to facilitate Uber pickups.)
In other news which is either dismal or uplifting depending on how you choose to look at it, the NYPD have finally arrested and charged the driver who killed Matthew Von Ohlen:

Officers from the NYPD's Collision Investigation Squad have arrested a suspect in the hit-and-run killing of Matthew von Ohlen, a Queens man who was fatally struck by the driver of a black Chevy Camaro while biking in a Williamsburg bike lane in July.

A police source told Gothamist that the arrest was made this morning at 8:30. The suspect, 56-year-old Juan Maldonado, resides in South Williamsburg. He was indicted this afternoon in Brooklyn Supreme Court on eight counts including second-degree manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and leaving the scene of an accident. Bail was set at $100,000.

This has been a source of considerable outrage here in New York because police found the vehicle shortly after the incident but since then nobody's heard a peep from them about it.  This led to speculation that the driver might be a cop or similarly-connected individual.  Now, finally, police have both arrested the driver and hit him with a pretty hefty charge (which almost never happens), and while some still look askance at the time it took them to do so I'll choose to give them the benefit of the doubt and attribute it to the considerable amount of time it probably takes to build a solid case in situations like these.

As for cycling in New York City, it remains a blend of the sublime and the infuriating (with an undercurrent of deadly), which is why I was glad to be on the Brompton yesterday:


As a middle-aged "woosie" who no longer has anything to prove, one of the things I appreciate most about the Brompton is that it lets me "curate" my commute for maximum "woosie compliance."  For example, yesterday morning it was raining heavily, so I took it on the train.  Then by the evening conditions were pleasant, so I headed home from Brooklyn on it:


But I didn't feel like dealing with all that Midtown traffic and mayhem and so I simply edited it out, hopped a train uptown, and then resumed my clownish journey from there:


(That's the bridge on this hat, by the way.)
And yes, of course I was wearing my Inspector Gadget jacket:


(Best thing about it is that the bird droppings wash right off.)
You'd almost think I was some sort of urban sophisticate and not a washed-up bike blogger.

But enough about cities foppish stuff from England, because here's cycling American style:



Someone should really make a dedicated hunting bike.

Oh wait, they have:


Clearly we need some kind of rural woodland bike share system.