BSNYC Friday Fun Quiz! (Now With Electronic Shifting!)

One stereotype of "urban cyclists" is that they are entitled, self-obsessed people who adopt a veneer of rebellion and then play out their outlaw fantasies with no regard for anybody else around them, least of all their fellow cyclists. Like most stereotypes, this is patently unfair. I mean, where do people get these sorts of ideas? Certainly not from Lucas Brunelle:


As you may know, Lucas Brunelle is the filmmaker who parlayed a hardscrabble upbringing on the mean streets of Cape Cod into a career as an owner of "an IT company with more than a million dollars in revenue," as well as a sideline in filming himself and others racing in alleycats and riding on expressways:

Your new movie, Lucas Brunelle: Line of Sight, offers up hair-raising footage from Beijing, Boston, Dublin, New York, and Tokyo. What's the craziest stunt you've pulled?

In Miami, we rode on I-95 for 2 miles, and crossed three lanes of traffic. The cars were coming behind us at 60 or 70 miles an hour. When you're riding like that, the endorphins create this heightened sense of awareness. You notice a car veering in a distant lane or someone braking on an overpass.

Wow. So why does he do it? To inspire people of course:

Last year you spent $80,000 of your own money filming alleycats. Why?

Almost daily, I get e-mail from people who tell me I've inspired them to ride more. And they're taking risks in their lives. One person has cancer; now she's using her savings to travel. Another was in a relationship with someone she didn't love; she left. For a lot of people, "No, you can't" is a motto. I'm saying, "Hey, you can live life on your own accord."

Yes, Brunelle is a brave man, inspiring others to ride like idiots and boldly taking situations that aren't really dangerous, making them incredibly dangerous for no reason, and then filming them:

Do you ride like that even when you're picking up groceries?

Yes. Every seat I have is as sharp as a razor, so you always play to roll.

I don't even know what that means, though that could just be because I don't speak adrenalinese and am one of those workaday schmucks who doesn't understand the need to live in perpetual self-imposed fear:

Are you ever scared, riding like this?

I'm always scared—even if I'm going to the coffee shop I'm scared. You never know—the Lord has your number.

I wonder if Brunelle can do anything without turning it into a life-or-death adrenaline-fueled nonstop thrill ride. Does he also shower in a tub filled with vegetable oil while wearing a helmet cam and Rollerblades? And, were he to slip and fall, would it be because "the Lord had his number?" I'm not so sure. Contrary to popular belief, "the Lord" actually doesn't have everybody's number. Sometimes he only gets it because you keep giving it to Him and insisting that He call. (A-meh, and Holly Luau.)

But lest you think Brunelle is a selfish person who is unconcerned with the implications his vanity projects have for his fellow cyclists, you can rest assured that he is merely just a selfish person who is unconcerned with the implications his vanity projects have for his fellow cyclists:

Do you own a car?

I still have the police car. Haven't driven it in years. But I love cars. Fuck bike advocacy. It's the cars that make shit fun. Without cars, we couldn't do skitches off SUVs. We couldn't get bruised and cut up; we couldn't commiserate. I love traffic. It's an evil river, sure, but I love the city streets.

Yeah, fuck bike advocacy. Who needs bike lanes? Even the most mundane ride should end in cuts and bruises, and cyclists should all look like they lost a cockfight when they step up to order their espressos. Lucas Brunelle may need to swim in an "evil river" of deadly traffic because he resents his "homogenized" Cape Cod childhood, but what about the rest of us who just want to get places on our bicycles alive and unscathed? I guess we just don't know how to live.

Anyway, Brunelle's new film is called "Line of Sight," but he probably should have called it "Load of Bull." In the interview he claims that he and the riders he's filming are masterful cyclists who ride so deftly that drivers hardly notice them, but in the trailer all I see is a bunch of idiots falling down, getting honked at, and grazing pedestrians:

Though I do give Brunelle credit for sucessfully branding himself as the anti-David Byrne:

(Unlike Lucas Brunelle, David Byrne does not own a car.)

George Carlin had a routine where he juxtaposed the absurdly animated New Hampshire license plate slogan ("Live Free or Die") with the absurdly dull Idaho license plate slogan ("Famous Potatoes"). It's pretty obvious which license plate Brunelle represents and which one Byrne represents, and like Carlin I'd have to agree that the ideal cycling figure skews just a little bit closer to "Famous Potatoes." However, I'm not prepared to completely abandon my theory that Brunelle and Byrne are actually the same person:

Clearly the LucasByrneBot 9000 is a project of the automotive industrial complex designed to turn every single person in the world against cyclists once and for all.

Speaking of cycling advocacy, a number of people have informed me of a proposal that could ban cyclists from the Blue Ridge Parkway:

I've never ridden on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and from the sound of it I guess it's possible I never will. This seems like a shame, but I'm sure Lucas Brunelle is fine with it. He'll ride on it anyway, make a movie of it with his IT money, and then sell it to a bunch of Nü-Freds half his age.

And now, I'm pleased to present you with a quiz. As always, study the item, think, and click on your answer. If you're right you'll know, and if you're wrong you'll see an indecisive tall bike rider.

Thanks very much for reading, ride recklessly, and remember: if you didn't finish the ride with cuts and bruises and at least 10 minutes of useable video footage, then the ride didn't happen.

--Wildcat Rock Machine

(Kolobnev has clearly read the famous book "Russian Torture Methods" by I. Kutcha Cockov)

1) What consequences does Alexander Kolobnev fear due to his alleged sale of the 2010 Liège-Bastogne-Liège victory to Alexander Vinokourov?

--"My balls may be cut off"
--"My tongue may be ripped out"

--"I may be given a Brazilian with duct tape"

--"I may have to watch an episode of 'Glee'"

(Members of Liquigas fostering ecosystems in their socks and pants.)

2) Due to their unsanitary sauna practices, there's a strong likelihood that the Liquigas squad's 2012 season will be ruined by fungal infections.

--True

--False

("Objectively speaking, something about that name really creeps me out.")

3) "Rock Center" host Brian Williams thinks New York City Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan's name is:

--"Unusual"

--"Exotic"

--"Suspiciously Muslim"

--"Disconcertingly Jewy"

4) Which road component group will finally make the jump to 11 speed next year?

--SRAM Red

--Shimano Dura-Ace

--Campagnolo Record

--Who cares?






5) What is this contraption called?

--The "The Velo-vator"
--The "Floaterhoist"

--The "Thrifty Lifty"

--The "Accident Waiting to Happen"

(Disembodied hand, embodiment of douche.)

6) Best Made Company sells this half-gallon of North Family maple syrup for $68. Or, if you prefer, you can buy it directly from North Family for:

--$50

--$45

--$35

--$29

7) How much for this jar of bread bag tags?

--$1.25
--$12.50
--$125
--This is a trick question, nobody could possibly be stupid enough to buy a jar of garbage

***Special High-Visibility Bonus Question***

***Warning--Do Not Attempt to Answer Without Eye Protection!***

(Man with death wish handles Sun without oven mitts.)

There are indeed more dangerous things to stare at than the Sun.

--True

--False