Over the Rainbow: Transatlantic Smugness

(Via a reader, the time-traveling t-shirt-wearing retro-Fred from the planet Tridork demonstrates some on-the-bike yoga.)

For many Americans (look it up on a map, it's the place that keeps Canada and Mexico from dry-humping) the weather has been awful. Ice storms in New York, "epic" snowfalls in Chicago, and machete-wielding locust swarms in Milwaukee have all but brought everyday life to a grinding (or, in the case of Milwaukee, screaming "Why, God, why?!?" and bleeding) halt--and that's to say nothing of cycling, which in some places has been rendered virtually impossible. That's why, now more than ever, we need videos that will lift our spirits and "portage" them though the blizzard and into the spring. The following is emphatically not such a video:

robo-rainbow from mudlevel on Vimeo.

Good for you, paint boy. Go stuff your rainbow machine down your "coin slot."

Speaking of smugness and unwieldy bicycles, the two go together like Canada and Mexico would if America wasn't such a cockblocker, and I noticed with interest recently that Cyclingnews technical editor and beefy bottom bracket enthusiast James Huang has been living la vida smugness by spending an entire month using a longtail cargo bike instead of his car:

Carrying lots of stuff by bicycle and then bragging about it on the Internet is almost exactly like making a treacly video of yourself painting a pretty rainbow on the wall in that it makes most people want to punch you in the nose. At the same time, though, like most things that make people want to punch other people in the nose it's also immensely satisfying when you're the person doing it, which is why I do it too. Also, as Huang notes:

If nothing else, these few days have shattered personal perspectives on when a car is needed – and when it isn't. And looking back at my Garmin data, there's been a lot more time spent on a bike than there otherwise might have been, all while usually only adding negligible minutes to my errands when factoring in traffic and parking time. And of course, there's the small but not insignificant amount of money saved in fuel and occasional parking meters.

This has been my experience too, apart from the fact that I don't have a Garmin and I avoid any sort of "data" at all costs. (Plus, obviously driving isn't always the easy choice in New York City that it is elsewhere.) Sure, I'm riding a Surly Big Dummy, and he's riding an Xtracycle ripoff from the Great Trek Bicycle Making Company's "Gary Fisher Collection" (the Gary Fisher Collection is a line of bicycles and not a limited edition series of designer bongs as you might assume), but that doesn't mean we can't be Siblings In Smugness (or, if you prefer, "SISsies"). James Huang also makes another good point, which is that some cities are simply more conducive to smugness:

Having a bike purpose built for the task certainly helps but an even bigger factor to this project's success has been the bicycle-friendly infrastructure built into my local city planning, not to mention the generally friendly and curious – not hostile – attitudes of the drivers around me, many of whom are likely cyclists themselves. Local mountain bikers may sometimes say otherwise but Boulder is an insanely easy place to do business on a bicycle as compared to the US national standard.

Oddly, and to my great surprise, even in New York I've had a similar experience in that non-cycling people generally seem to be more curious than hostile--though I suppose that's due to the novelty factor, and once more people start carrying bulky items by bike they'll get back to the business of trying to run us over. Also, while some cyclists debate whether the new protected bike lanes in New York City are in fact an improvement, when you're actually hauling crap by bike they are nothing less than a Lobsend. There is one other crucial difference between my experience and James Huang's, which is that his smugmobile is electrically-assisted:

Woosie.

I have a feeling that, in the not-too-distant future, some researcher in Portland is going to devise a rear hub that is powered by vegan flatulence, and the world of "portaging" will be completely revolutionized.

Speaking of driver hostility, the BBC recently profiled a London cyclist who wears a helmet cam so he can catch motorists in the act of being complete douchebags:

I hate to generalize people based on nationality, but nobody--and I mean nobody--flashes a "They won't get away with this!" expression like an Englishman.

By the way, in the feature film, Ben Porter the helmet-cammed commuter will be played by Griffin Dunne:

("They won't get away with this!")

Oh, I'm sure they won't.

Anyway, I was expecting the helmet cam footage to reveal some shocking incidences of bad driving, but the worst thing they showed was this van getting a little too close to him:

I was definitely frightened by the driver, though, who practically exploded from the vehicle in a burst of anglo-belligerence:

Here in the United Cockblockers of America, we're terrified by belligerent English people, for the simple reason that we don't have much exposure to them. Everybody in the world knows Americans are crazy, since when we're not actually invading other countries we're attacking them with our entertainment. Honestly, would anybody on the planet be surprised to see video of an American driver murdering 17 people with an automatic weapon because a cyclist touched his van? Of course not--this is the land of Martin Erzinger! Indeed, people expect us to be crazy, since we've exported all of our regional insanity in entertainment form:

However, due to this imbalance in cultural trade, we Americans know very little about English craziness--in our naive worldview, the only people who are supposed to be as crazy as us are Arabs. English people are supposed to be dashing like James Bond, or charmingly befuddled like Hugh Grant, or lovable mop-tops like the Beatles or Bradley Wiggins. This is why our students lag behind children in the rest of the world--when we learn about things like the American Revolution, we can't even wrap our minds around the concept. "Really? We fought them?!?" So you can only imagine what would happen to one of us if we were to go to England and get in a tussle with a van driver--we'd probably just stand there waiting for Guy Ritchie to yell "cut!"

Clearly, though, all English-speaking countries share the same skewed bicycle/car relationship, as evidenced by this "heated debate" between a cyclist and a "motoring journalist." Guess which one is which:


"I think a big chunk of the problem is actually the cyclists and their attitudes themselves," says motoring journalist Adam Rayner:

Ha, ha. He said, "Big chunk."

Meanwhile, here's "journalist and keen cyclist" Zoe Williams trying desperately to keep her composure:

That is one angry cycling advocate. An American almost certainly would have shot somebody by now.

"The road is such a serious place," concludes Adam Rayner in an attempt to make Williams's trembling upper lip leap off of her face entirely. "If I'm burning petrol or diesel the legislation I'm surrounded by while you guys are diving in and out of traffic like swallows--"

"It's only a serious place if you're not watching people and trying not to kill them," counters Williams, failing to add that the only kind of swallowing Rayner is capable of doing is the kind that involves enormous quantities of food.

Anyway, just as it does here, the whole registering and insuring bicycles thing comes up, and when Williams denounces it the host says, "Then you're saying you want to be recognized but you don't want the accountability."

I don't know why some people think that drivers will suddenly respect cyclists if they need to register their bikes. Motorcycles require license plates, and insurance, and all the rest of it, but in my experience motorcyclists get about as much respect as cyclists do. Maybe next time someone tries to run me off the road I'll hold a driver's license and motor vehicle registration up to their window. I'm sure they'll apologize profusely and back off.

Of course, there's no better way to get respect on a bicycle than by demonstrating your awesome trackstanding skills, and a link left by a reader in the comments on yesterday's post shows just how seductive a well-executed trackstand can be:



track stand on alcatraz - m4w - 30 (oakland rockridge / claremont)
Date: 2011-02-01, 5:13PM PST

I was pretty impressed by your biking skills at the intersection of alcatraz and telegraph this morning. You held a track stand for a long time and then took off up telegraph like a pro. You were riding a tiny black fixed gear with red rims, you were wearing all black and had long hair and you were just ridiculously beautiful.

I was stopped with my bike on the other side of the intersection, transfixed. I was wearing a military coat and riding an old blue motobecane.

I work in a bike shop, I'd love to give you a tune-up.

It was almost charming until that smarmy "Hot Karl" of a closing line.