Round and Round: In Search of Direction

First of all, I'm pleased to announce that my ruthless publisher Chronicle, an evil conglomerate of San Francisco hippies, have finally received newly-printed copies of my book "Bike Snob," which, unlike "Positively False" author Floyd Landis, I wrote all by myself without a ghost writer or anything. This means that gooey batches of oven-fresh literary goodness are on their way to the various purveyors of books both online and off, and that you can finally read a book in which "sarcasm takes precedence over actual thinking." (This according to some "bicycling almanac" called "Boneshaker," which is so pretentious that they actually think calling my book "sarcastic" is an insult. I'm looking forward to their upcoming carbon time trial bike round-up called "Missing the Point," in which they denounce them all because "speed takes precedence over grocery hauling.")

Of course, if you want a book you can also get one at my BRA tomorrow night at 6:30, which as I mentioned on Friday will place at the Rapha Cycle Club. Rest assured that I will insult Rapha even as they play host to me, and that I will also give away t-shirts and other items. I will also present some sort of slideshow loosely organized around the theme of the "epic." In fact, I briefly considered turning the event into an "epic burrito story" open mic night ("epic burrito stories" are the "beat poetry" of the 21st century), and if you have such a story I encourage you to take the stage and tell it. You can also test ride my Surly Big Dummy if you leave a substantial cash deposit.

In any case, I hope to see you there tomorrow night, and if you need cycling directions you can always consult a popular search engine. If you're wondering how accurate these directions are, the New York Times has endeavored to find out:

I only read this article because I'm quoted in it (I get my news from Hot Chicks With Douchebags), but I was alarmed to find that the writer was not only encouraged to "salmon" by the popular search engine's mapping function, but that "it steered [him] away from the rough parts of Bedford Stuyvesant."

The fact that the popular search engine would avoid an area it deems "rough" is doubly alarming to me, and seems to be even more evidence of a far-reaching cycling-based "douche-spiracy." Consider also that when the New York Post tested the mapping function it sent their hapless reporter directly into the maw of bloodthirsty, bicycle-hating Hasidic Jews. Clearly this sort of neighborhood "curating" on the popular search engine's part is proof that we have entered a new and disturbing age of online cultural gerrymandering designed specifically to manipulate and control "hipsters." I've long suspected this, and to test it I asked the popular search engine to give my cycling directions between two non-hipster locations: Harlem and Bedford Stuyvesant. Sure enough, it simply advised me to ride around and around McCarren Park in Williamsburg instead:

While this may seem obvious, it's positively subtle compared to the results I got two weeks ago:

In any case, it's clear that the popular search engine intends to corral bicycle-mad "hipsters" who don't know their way around their adopted cities into "gentrified" ghettos by providing inaccurate directions, thus limiting their exposure to the outside world. Those who exhibit "tech skillz" will be forced to toil in the popular search engine's delightfully M&M-colored labor "campus," and the rest will be ground into tasty and delicious "Soylent Douche."

Speaking of "salmoning," video of what can only be the World's Dumbest Bike Messenger recently surfaced. In it, the messenger is filming himself while riding the wrong way on a busy street, at which point he hits and knocks down a man in a suit. Astonishingly, the man in the suit expresses concern for the messenger, who responds in mind-bendingly douche-tastic fashion by berating him for not using a crosswalk. Subsequent to being uploaded, the video went more viral than a sex worker's "naughty components," at which point the messenger deleted it in what I can only imagine is shame, but you can still see the victim here:

(Video now deleted. New link here via a helpful commenter!)

And here is the messenger and his friend, as shown in one of his other videos, which indicates he is also an aspiring ("aspiring" in this case means "in the process of failing") musician:

As the bicycle courier industry breathes its last breaths, it seems that "street smarts" are finally giving way to online mapping, and the few remaining messengers are delusional stars in feature films of the ego that they don't realize are slapstick comedies until they actually upload them and the public at large informs them they're idiots.

Speaking of which, I suspect the upcoming film "Premium Rush" is shaping up to be unintentional slapstick comedy as well. Yesterday, I posted this picture of a Parlee road bike on the set and speculated as to its purpose:

Well, another reader informs me that it actually belongs to an "evil messenger" character and even managed to photograph the "evil messenger" having trouble with his diabolically recalcitrant clipless pedals:

If the crabon Parlee wasn't enough of a clue that this messenger is evil, then his left bicep should be a dead giveaway:

I'm not sure what's actually in the bicep holder, but I suppose it's the iPhone he uses to find his way around the city.

Meanwhile, in "real life," another reader informs me that an enterprising group of people who probably didn't land jobs at a popular search engine are planning to create an independent New York City bike-sharing program:
Apparently, you'll be able to find a bike with your popular brand of smartphone. The bikes will be locked at bike racks all over the city, which means they should all be stolen in a matter of days. Here's a charmingly naive video that explains the whole thing:

The Social Bicycle System from Ryan Rzepecki on Vimeo.

Notice, by the way, that he can deliver his entire speech while standing in the bike lane without encountering a single cyclist:

I guess they're all too busy riding circles around McCarren Park.