Strange Customs: Art, Bikes, and the Apocalypse

"The customization of all of these bikes and the different people who ride them is fascinating to me." --Aaron Edge, Rain City Fix

Indeed. However, let's be honest. Choosing between vintage Italian and NJS, or between black and pink Deep Vs, or even between track drops and risers, isn't exactly customization. If that's customization then I suppose I customize my feet every morning when I decide which socks to wear. No, real customization is combining disparate components and elements, making them work together, and thus creating something truly unexpected and inspiring. A real custom bike cannot be measured on the Sense-o-meter or the Money-o-meter, because a real custom bike is art, and as such it defies quantification. Therefore, a real custom bike can only be quantified the way art is quantified, in that the true measure of its greatness is the intensity with which it stirs your soul.

Having said that, I bring you this, which was reverently photographed by a reader:

I realize a bike like this isn't for everyone, so if you're looking for a more traditional "dream bike" check out Fat Cyclist's raffle. But to me, this magnificent specimen not only stirs my soul, but it whips it up into a froth, spoons it up, and puts a dollop of it on top of a caffeinated beverage and serves it right back to me like some sort of cosmic barista. Put this in your coffee table book, Mr. Edge! The pie plate alone would be magnificent enough, but in concert with the Spinergy it's sublime, and in the context of the entire bike it's achingly beautiful. Like any true work of art, this bicycle is a window into universal truth, and as such it is open to infinte interpretation. My own is that it's a tragi-comic look at the folly of bicycle upgrading in particular and the futility of materialism in general. Alas, my only quibble is that I personally would have put a carbon fork on there too. But then again, to imply that I could somehow improve this bike is arrogance bordering on hubris. Also, while the carbon fork might help kill road buzz, it might also mute this bike's cosmic hum.

After all, if anything is going to save us from the Apocalypse, it's art. And the Apocalypse is as nigh as ever. (As if Rain City Fix weren't proof enough.) If the fixed-gear phenomenon is a party, then the Apocalypse is still at home primping and trying on different shirts. But rest assured, when it finally does choose a chemise, it will be on its way. In fact, another reader just sent me this:

I'll be damned if that isn't a Fixed Gear Pie Plate. The picture must have been taken in Hell, and clearly it's snowing down there since the dreaded FGPP has finally manifest itself. Of course, I am the type of person who looks the proverbial gift horse in the proverbial mouth (even if that horse is an alpaca and it's breathing fire from its nostrils), so I'm a little disappointed it's not one of those newer, plastic freehub-style pie plates. That to me would be the ultimate. But still, this is not a good sign. Nor is it encouraging that the bicycle has no pedals. That can only imply that the beast who rides it simply puts a claw or talon through the pedal holes in order to turn the cranks.

I wish I could explain this away as a fluke, but I also received this from yet another reader:

Is there a death knell louder than that of the instructional video? This should look great alongside your other videos about how to play the guitar and how to swing a golf club.

Well, actually, maybe there is a louder death knell. It would appear that Time has published an article about the Messenger Mania event at last Sunday's Harlem Criterium:

It's puzzling to me why a magazine as big as Time, if they wanted to run something about a messenger race, would cover this instead of the Cycle Courier World Championship in Toronto which was happening at the same time. (Not that I begrudge local messengers the coverage--far from it--but still.) I suppose maybe the writer had a cutesy idea for a story and didn't want to travel. Also, the writer is probably angling for a Pukelitzer, which is an annual prize awarded to the fluffiest piece of cycling-related journalism published in a mainstream publication. (I don't think she'll win, though. Even with lines like "The pros had slick helmets, fancy bikes and numbers pinned onto the backs of their shirts," she'll still have to compete with The Climb.)

But the most noteworthy thing to me about this article was the following quote, by none other than promoter John Eustice, regarding his inviting the messengers to come race:

"I almost look at them as the artists colonizing the big race," says Eustice, who organized the event. "When you want to make something cool, you bring in the artists."

Indeed you do. Hey, it worked for Williamsburg, why not for road racing? Yep, nothing's cooler than messenger culture. Someone really should put together a coffee table book.