In Smarm's Way: Soul-Searching and Cheese-Mongering

A certain philosopher by the name of Socrates (perhaps you've heard of him, he's the one who's not Plato) famously said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." This has been wrongly translated and misinterpreted over the centuries. In fact, the original quote was, "The Unwashed Fruit is Not Worth Eating," and it was an admonition he penned while experiencing a severe case of diarrhea after eating a bag of dirty dates. Nevertheless, everybody now takes it to mean that you should like think about stuff really hard and stuff, or else you're an idiot.

For this reason, I used last week's break in order to engage in some "epic" soul-searching. Purchasing a Handy Home Products Montana 8'X10' shed from my local Home Depot, I erected it in an undisclosed location (hint: it was that beach "accessible only by bike" that Outlier pretends to have discovered which has a parking lot and is right near a bus stop) and, David Blaine-like, resolved not to emerge from it until I could satisfactorily answer the question that has been foremost on my mind of late: "Why do I, a person not confined to a single location by a house arrest ankle bracelet, choose to live in New York?"

Five days and nights passed, after which I was no closer to having an answer, and in fact I'd still be in there now if some off-season beachgoer hadn't mistaken my shed for a rural-themed porta-potty after eating a bag of dirty dates and fouled it so unbearably that I was forced to abandon it.

A few months ago I could have answered this question easily: "Because at least New York is becoming a better place to ride a bike, thanks to all the new bike lanes they're installing." Unfortunately, though, an anti-bike backlash seems to be wafting through the zeitgeist like the stench from a fouled porta-potty being carried by an ocean breeze. Here's an editorial from the Daily News that neatly sums up the current attitude:

You'd think the fact that "cyclists love it" would in itself support the notion that the bike lanes are successful, inasmuch as they are built for cyclists. However, this is New York, where the attitude is that anything new should work for everybody except the people who need it. Here, a bike lane is a failure if drivers don't like it, a new housing development is a failure if you can afford to live in it, and a restaurant is a failure if the people of the ethnicity which inspired the cuisine can afford to eat there. Hence, we should remove the bike lanes because people who don't ride bikes don't like them, and all they're doing successfully is preventing deaths:

The best her aides could provide were statistics showing, they said, that collisions between pedestrians and bicyclists or motor vehicles on avenues with bike lanes tended to produce fewer fatalities and less serious injuries than crashes elsewhere.

Clearly we need a new Department of Transportation commissioner, since it does not behoove New York's gritty reputation to have streets that are not sufficiently deadly. This is also why the hottest video game this holiday season is going to be "NYC City Planner," in which players compete to design streets for maximum carnage and the highest death toll wins.

Of course, the other argument against bike lanes is that they cause traffic:

That may be music to her ears, but it's blaring noise to New Yorkers who have to drive into Manhattan from Brooklyn, Queens or the Bronx.

Right, because there wasn't any traffic before the bike lanes, and because you have to drive into Manhattan. That's like saying iPhones cause AIDS simply because they happen to exist at the same time--and of course you have to have an iPhone.

In any case, it's probably only a matter of time before New York ends the bike lane "experiment" and reverts to the old "all men, women, and children for themselves" approach. This will be disastrous, since we've all been mollycoddled over these past few years and have lost our "street smarts." Consequently, I fear my only option will be to leave town and go someplace else where the soft and spoiled thrive, like Portland, OR--or else to undergo some sort of intensive training in order to regain my mental toughness. Unfortunately, I'm already too late for the Saxo Bank-SunGuard training camp, where I could have partaken in some of Bjarne Riis's famously difficult team-building exercises. One of his favorite is the "aquatic gladiator" match, in which he arms two riders with paddles and pits them against each other in a fight to the death. Here he is ordering Alberto Contador to "Kill, kill!"

(Note Riis's bloodthirsty smile.)

And here's his adversary scrambling to defend himself against the "Pistolero's" clenbuterol-fuelled assault:

("Get out of my way, you meddling Water-Fred! Can't you see I'm fighting for my life?")

Sadly, the defense was unsuccessful, and the waters of the Mediterranean were red with blood. (Mediterranean Sea's suspension pending B sample test results.)

Then, later, the team engaged in some "dry 69ing" (which is dry humping's dirtier cousin) to oompah band accompaniment:

They should dominate the controversial Team Tantric Sex stage at next year's Tour de France.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Europe, Thor Hushovd, Vincezo Nibali, Damiano Cunego and others attended a party so "cheesy" it made a Five Towns Bar Mitzvah look like tea at the Harvard Club. Here they are "tripping balls" in a stretch Hummer:

(Click here for the soundtrack if you dare.)

Here's Vincenzo Nibali wearing a pair of pants that took a team of chemists over six months to artificially distress, and which probably still contain trace amounts of toxins strong enough to either cause a positive drug test result or else render him infertile:

And here they all are posing with the contenders for the title of "Miss Ciclismo:"


Curious about the Miss Ciclismo pageant, I consulted a popular search engine, which led me tow what appears to be some sort of "behind the scenes" gallery. Clearly, the competition to become Miss Ciclismo is fierce. For example, here are two contestants trying to intimidate each other with a silicone breast bump:

Here's one ridiculing another behind her back:

Here's one attempting to sabotage her opponent though hypnosis:

("When I snap my fingers you will wake up and think you're Vincenzo Nibali's pants.")

And here's a creepy sex-crazed Euro-stalker lurking in the stairwell:

("Actually, I'm waiting for Thor Hushovd. He makes me feel lighter than milk.")

His dreamboat has come in, and it's a Viking longship.

Speaking of Euro class, Ritte van Vlaanderen, purveyors of racing bicycles and films such as this one...

...have sent me what they claim is the "classiest disembodied hand shot ever:"

Whether or not you agree may depend on how you feel about Rivendell and their authoritatively lofty quill stems, since they too know a little something about using hand models:

Either way, though, it's certainly up there. Here's how they made the magic happen:

Judging from the hue of her arms, she must have been part of the design team that developed Nibali's pants.