Manifest Destiny: Wither Cycling Bliss?

I left town this past weekend. If you’ve had ever had a pleasant dream only to awake abruptly and see it dissipate like a squirt of octopus ink into the ocean of reality, then you know how I feel after returning to New York after a trip. I cling to the bliss for as long as I can, but like one of those rubber water snakes the tighter I squeeze the quicker it slips out of my hand. Of course, in times like this it is tempting to ask myself if perhaps I should move, but generally the bitterness subsumes me before I can get very far along in my planning. As of right now though the negativity has yet to reclaim me fully, so once again I find myself plotting my escape. And although I didn’t leave the East Coast this weekend, my thoughts inevitably drift westward. Here are the possibilities I'm considering:

Northern California

Pros:

--The cradle of mountain biking civilization
--Mild weather
--Progressive bike culture
--San Francisco is a cosmopolitan city, so no big city withdrawal
--Great places to ride

Cons:

--Expensive
--Everybody in New York seems to be from the Bay Area these days, so something must be wrong with it if they actually want to move here
--The palpable undercurrent of hippiness frightens me

What I could do there:

Open a cycling school for Bay Area residents planning their inevitable move to New York. Classes will include light-running, pedestrian chicken, and sitting in for the sprint. The final exam will involve being pursued for six straight hours by a minivan whose driver suffers from a rare combination of narcolepsy, rabies, and myopia.

Southern California

Pros:

--Warm all year round
--I can’t think of anything else

Cons:

--Car-centric
--I like beaches, but I don’t like beach cruisers
--Too many people with flat-brimmed caps and bandanas on their top tubes
--San Diego is there

What I could do there:

Showbiz! Currently I’m working on a stand-up act. Actually, it’s more of a ventriloquist bit. A rusty Schwinn conversion named “Jeff Fixworthy” with a Budweiser beer cosy for a top tube pad takes the stage and I provide the voice offstage in a southern drawl. His “You Might Be A Roadie” routine should kill. “If you spend your day with your nose six inches from someone else's butt and you’re not a proctologist or the President, you might be a roadie.” (Cue groans now.) Who doesn’t love paceline humor? The sitcom offer should be forthcoming.

The Pacific Northwest

Pros:

--Huge bike culture
--Has actual cities as well as natural beauty
--Thriving cyclocross scene

Cons:

--Wet
--Portland sounds like Williamsburg, Brooklyn if it were exposed to radiation
--I’m haunted by the 1992 Cameron Crowe film “Singles”
--People who obsess over coffee like it’s wine drive me even crazier than people who obsess over wine

What I could do there:

Open a shop called “The Fenderia” that only sells bicycle fenders.

The Southwest

Pros:

--Dry

Cons:

--Dry

What I could do there:

Start a company called Custer's Last Trackstand that makes Native American-inspired beaded top tube pads, messenger bags, and riding moccasins.

The Rockies

Pros:

--Great riding
--Hotbed for bike racing
--Stunning landscapes, rugged beauty

Cons:

--Epic climbs make wheelsucking impossible
--Snows too much
--Frequent references to cowboys and ranches are unsettling

What I could do there:

Open a dude ranch for fixed-gear freestylers called the The Lazy Q-Factor. Visitors can wear chaps and practice calf-roping and cattle-herding on their fixed-gears. With the popularity of bike polo, stunting, and branding, fixed-gear rodeo sounds like the next logical step.

The Great Plains

Pros:

--No climbs to get dropped on
--No urban cycling trends to taunt me

Cons:

--Daunting expanses
--Tornadoes
--No urban anything
--Too much wheat, not enough gluten

What I could do there:

Start a Velospace-type website called “The Bikes of Wrath” where people submit Dorothea Lange-inspired photographs of their weathered and beaten bicycles and lament their lots in life.