The truck is parked squarely in the bike lane, but it is unloading bikes for a nearby shop. Certainly this is ironic, but is it ethical? Just something to think about over the holiday weekend.Oh, and the bikes are from Specialized. This may or may not influence your opinion.
Ride safe this weekend,
--BSNYC /RTMS
56 comments:
1
I'll never accept 2nd place!
Third?
Hincapie!
I demand a pee test for those who came ahead of me!
Looks like the shop is Bicycle Habitat. Shame on you Charlie. QBP - take back that gawdy award sitting on their counter asap.
BSNYC --
You ask for the meaning of life on a Friday before a long weekend? Have you no shame? (That question was rhetorical. One who wears bike clothes, by definition, has no shame.)
But I digress. The questions you pose:
Is a bike any less of a bike because it sits unassembled in the back of a truck?
Put differently, when does a bike become a bike? At the moment of conception in an outsourced engineer's mind?
When a high school student on his first summer job assembles it?
When the Supreme Court says it's a bike?
Or when some rough beast throws a leg over it and slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Questions, questions, questions.
And me still traumatized from ignoring my instincts and commuting over the Brooklyn Bridge last night and this morning.
No cheese, but plenty of tourists in the bike lane snapping photos.
The horror. The horror.
I'm specialized
If they're Langsters, it's only fitting that they are interrupting traffic and making life dangerous for everybody else.
But maybe they were the mean looking TT bike Specialized makes for middle aged lawyers to buy and sell to college racers 2 years later at a $5000 discount. Did you look through the handle holes?
No not the top ten?
-B
Specialized= Generic trash
Fuck Specialized, it's special ed with half an alligator in the doorway...
On the topic of irony...
A co-worker of mine snapped this pic on his way into work today.
i love bicycles!
Mr. Snob - would you talk to the truck driver with no pre-conditions, like I would ?
...leroy..."is a bike any less of a bike because it sits unassembled in the back of a truck ???"...so, might i surmise that this is, in essence, a peleton w/ it's riders late to the fore...
...this could make for a long weekend...
...d'oh, disingenuous remark, it IS a long weekend...
BGW --
Yes, it's a two tons of fun peloton if you believe a bike is a bike at conception and needs no assembly or rider.
The drafting could be awesome once it gets going...depending on the exhaust.
I regret, however, that I am unable to shed any light on this conundrum.
Between the Brooklyn Bridge traffic and trying to figure out what a Clockwork Orange Julius might taste like, my synapses are fried worse than Canondale's balance sheet.
Cameron --
That photo is not ironic.
When two cars love each other very much, this is how they make a SmartCar.
Honestly, what is the world coming to when love is mistaken for irony?
Leroy-
You are, as always, correct. That picture is not ironic after all...
...ah yes, leroy...pedal on the safe side, droogy (assuming there is a safe side, hmmm)...
...& some day, when i hit that town again, my treat, i'm buyin'...a clockwork orange julius tastes of fear, sweat, sweet victory & metal exhaust w/ a back taste of tangierian tangerine & hint of phil's tenacious oil...but it's much more palatable than it sounds...
Cameron, Leroy
The cars may be in love, but that is not the position for making a smart car.
This is…
The best the Buffalo Grove PD can hope for is this
There's a Steven Wright / Gallagher / Jerry Seinfeld joke in there somewhere. "What's the deal with unloading bikes in the bike lane, but not unloading cars in the car lane?" Or something.
whaaaa? sinard didn't personally ride the bikes to the shop from the factory? man's slippin'...
totally off topic... but thought you should see this.
attention pistadex
http://chicago.craigslist.org/nch/bik/692742430.html
oops scared him away.
Specialized bikes bring lots of joy into the world.
I'm new here, and though this is slightly off-topic, I'd appreciate some clarification. So much of my riding has been done in France, living and working as an expat for the last decade, and now that I'm back in the states, I'm mystified by the enthusiastic and recurrent scatalogical self-reference to fixies by people who ride single-gear bicycles, costumed in what appears to be contrived urban attire. Is there an alternative pronunciation other than "fee-sees", or feces? A new colleague explained the concept of "riding dirty", but I cannot discern as to whether or not she was putting me on - is that term related to these feces people? Is the term somehow related to the familiar concept of Prix Fix, as in "one choice and cheap"? Any help is appreciated, thank you.
Cher ami, ici dans les Etats Unis, nous sommes prononcier les "x."
Snob,
The truck in the bike lane is one of Specialized's time/space flattening portals. In this case, these cosmic workers are pulling bikes directly from the factory through the mobile portal and unloading them into a bike shop. The portals appear at random times, but are usually adjacent to a cycling shop. Because of their "cycling content", they are generally accepted as de facto bike lane users.
Had you been brave enough to ride into the portal on your bike, constituting a reversal of the continuum, you would have emerged at the factory on a considerably downgraded bike with no money left in your bank account.
Of course, if you were to purchase one of those embryonic cycles they were unloading, you'd still have a considerably downgraded bike and no money left in the bank.
A
Why do US cycle connoisseurs loathe and despise Specialized? Surely it cannot be because they are a large and successful American bicycle corporation.
Anything main-stream like Specialized is loathed. It has to be rare or old or underground or you're a poser. It's far better to ride a shitty conversion than an bike actually meant for fixed gear or single speed. Even though these machines are mechanically superior they are coolness inferior.
A Langster = did mom buy that for you at Kmart?
Make sure to wear your tight ass pants and faggy shirts and hats. Don't worry, having the bike with you will let people know you don't take it up the ass you give it. :)
The Specialized Allez was a nice bike. It had the "metal matrix" frame. I used to have one ten years ago or so but I sold it.
Really, I only had an Allez frame with a bunch of mismatched parts...so I have no idea if the original machine was a "nice bike" or not. The frame was ok...actually, it was too stiff.
A metal matrix composite (MMC) is composite material with at least two constituent parts, one being a metal. The other material may be a different metal or another material, such as a ceramic or organic compound. - wikipedia
The Langster is not metal matrix...not sure if this means that it sucks more, or sucks less.
Ironic? Iconic. Forward momentum blocked by Spaz boxes. Reminds me of the last shop I worked in.
It looks as if the hard-working Americans pictured here are unloading bicycles in the bike lane because there is no "Bike Unloading Lane". This is clearly a case of the structural inequality of our society manifesting itself in our built environment.
The fact that the Senator from New York hasn't voted once for bike unloading lanes in her own state, quite frankly, speaks for itself.
Dazzlingly urbane, insanely insider, thrillingly cynical, clairvoyantly witty, incomparably self-assured, knowing and brilliantly lean. I propose this entry be submitted to a biennal or two. It is the quintessence of sanctimony. A miracle of myopia. Or is it? From one snob to another, the snobbery revealed in this side-splittingly hilarious self-righteous jihad deserves nothing but the finest virtual immortality.
The Allez Sport was a nice bike. Mostly 105 bits. The Aluminium did make for a stiff frame. Hitting a small road burble the steel frame would have rolled over caused the Allez to snap the bars out of my hands.
The road buzz was a pain after 50 miles. Climbed nice though.
Verdict:
Not vertically compliant and very torsional rigid.
There are no ethics in bike lanes. When all that separates you from a blind putz opening a door or a cell phone addled Escalade driver in a hurry is a 1/16th inch high white stripe ethics take a back seat to accident avoidance.
Maybe us intended users can develop a shared set of bike lane values. But really don't lanes just squeeze us into a target rich environment?
This is a perfect picture. I mean, if the bike shop is permitting unloading in the bike lane, is there any hope for us?
I for one entertain the use of jousting lances and a shiny metallic helmet, makes um move just a little quicker or end up as a shish kabobed. Just need to attain ramming / penetration speed
No, we have no hope. It is just W*R*O*N*G.
Did the photographer let them know, or abused them as he/she would if it was a cab driver?
PS. Specialised just doesn't have it, unless they are made for Tom or Paolo.
andy pandy,
You'll need a tandem to skewer anything bigger than a VW Bug. Maybe, better, BGW's weapon of choice - flamethrowers?
Umm, roving vigilante tandem cyclist of the alpaca-lypse?
bite it barack your unchecked manipulation of my generation has not gone unnoticed. a vote for mccain is a vote for a legitimate democrat in 4 years
Where else is a shop suppose to unload stock?
The truck represents the dog, the driver is the owner, the bikes are the shit it leaves behind, the shop worker is the one that has to it clean up. Just another turd in the bike lane.
Leroy, get your right-wing opinions off my bike.
BTW: there is a way to make a whole NEW, better bike by just taking one good part off and deriving a new bike. You can do this anywhere in the world except the US, where if Jesus knew about it, he would have put it in the bible in the appendix (or supplemental material on-line), as a mortal sin.
People are trying to make better bikes from old bike parts in Califoonia, but they are getting blocked in court by cycling fundamentalists led by the Reverend Grant Peterson.
The good news is while it was thought you needed a whole new frame to start, sceintists-mechanics know have been able to derive a whole new full CF racing frame with just the discarded valve stem caps from a Lew LT-1 wheel.
The religious right still says its a sin because Jesus would have said so, if he ever existed, if he even knew what a bike was. This gives them the right to shoot bike mechanics in the face.
Please, someone think of the Colnagos.
http://www.skavenger.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/rone-1.jpg
How come I always end up dead last?
Those Special-ed-ized bikes should be unloaded at the landfill for recycling into more useful things like bridge girders or hubcaps or...
I heard this awhile ago from the sageman.
Hey BSNYC, I'm surprised you didn't write a longer post about the ridiculous thoughtlessness of drivers sitting in the bike lane. I really would like to get stickers made up that say "Stay out of the bike lane!!" and stick them right on the windshield of those cars and trucks!!
...jeezus...mocked for 4 straight days by that "look-a-like" bsnyc/rtms 'approve' sticker...
...ah, mi vida miseria...
dennis,
Don't despair. This is teh intarnet, after all. No matter how last you think you are, there will always be someone more laster. Even though the guy straggling half a minute behind the peleton might think he's the lasterestest, he can always rest assured that myriad folks haven't even clipped in yet.
Let me emphasize my triumphant return to blog-land by following up that last comment. The only absolute on teh intarweb is the album cover for Smell the Glove. Because how much more black can anything be? The answer is none. None more black.
"Swear to god officer, I didn't see him. The sticker blocked my view."
"Lasterestest!"
Ha! Classic.
lasterestest++
Fuck that place 28 bucks to replace my brake line, pads, and tighten the line. Dude was cool but what a rip off. could've fixed myslef for like 8 bucks... Just was in a bind without a wrench.. fuck them though..next time I'll walk over to Franks or Recycle a bike...
- T
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