Integrate This: Blood Bags and Dream Machines

Last week I went to San Francisco.  Upon my departure, I duly checked the weather, where I learned that the two measly days I was going to be spending there were going to be the crappy ones:

"Figures," I thought.

Nevertheless, after some rain on Thursday morning the rain clouds dispersed and in defiance of the forecast the sun shone for the duration of my visit.  "Lob hath blessed me!," I foolishly proclaimed, at which point Lobweh sent a giant blizzard to New York which forced me to remain in San Francisco for an extra night:

(Typical Park Slope yuppies prancing about with their artisanal sleighs.)

The good thing about being stuck in San Francisco is that, as smug as it is, at least it's not Portland.  The bad thing about being in San Francisco is that you can't stand still for more than four seconds without being accosted by some sort of vagabond who wants to discuss recent world events and how the only reasonable conclusion to be drawn from them is that you should give him a quarter.  Also, I only brought clothes for two days, which meant I had to buy a pair of clean underpants, and since I was in San Francisco and it was late all I could find were these:

Sadly I am not sufficiently equipped to fill the elephant trunk, though it did come in useful for storing rolls of quarters with which to buy off the vagabonds.

In any case, I'll spare you additional details of my trip since they're all going to be in the video we made while I was there, but I will add that this was my primary means of conveyance during my stay:

Next time I'll opt for something better suited to riding in San Francisco, like a brakeless track bike.  In the meantime, it's good to finally be home in New York, because if I had to look at the primordial majesty of the Pacific Ocean for another second I was going to puke.

Speaking of creepy underpants, it turns out that Mario Cipollini is a total blood bag whore named Maria:

On Sunday, Gazzetta reported more details of what it says was Fuentes' programme for Cipollini, who is said to have gone under the code name “Maria”.  The build-up to the 2001 Giro d'Italia included nine consecutive days of EPO, followed by a blood transfusion, growth hormone and more EPO – for a total of 13,000 units of the latter. Further, according to the notes, the sprinter received a transfusion on May 19, the first stage of the race.

This number is all the more impressive when you consider Fuentes's unorthodox transfusion method:

(Cipo accepts a "back door delivery" from Dr. Fuentes)

By the way, one of Cipollini's blood bags was never recovered, and anti-doping authorities believe that Dr. Fuentes used it to create Filippo Pozzato:

Only God can judge him, and only a pasta chef can style his hair.

In other pro cycling news, the Garmin-Sharp team couldn't finish a race because all their bikes got stolen:

And the team chiropractor had harsh words for the thieves:

Team chiropractor Matt Rabin photographed the empty truck and said, “While everyone was sleeping, some unscrupulous local scallywags have gone & pilfered ALL THE BIKES.”

Frankly I think he should have stopped at "unscrupulous."  "Scallywags" was a bit harsh.  Also, I hope Garmin-Sharp learns a lesson from this and assigns someone permanently to security detail.  I'd love to be there when Jonathan Vaughters explains to Tom Danielson that he'd be a lot more useful to the team off the bike and sleeping on a bare mattress in the back of the truck.

("We'll crack a window for you, you'll be fine.")

On the bright side, Portland framebuilder Sasha White has already offered to build new bikes for the team, and they should be ready in only eleven years--though in the meantime they can preorder this $500 cyclocross stem from him:

One of my fellow bloggers referred to this stem as "stupid, extraneous fluff," though it should be noted that it does say INTEGRATED on it in really big letters, so there's that.  Also, there was a huge hole in the cyclocross market for people who didn't want to make the move to disc brakes but who still wanted to spend hundreds of dollars for no good reason, so it's a good thing that this INTEGRATED stem has come along or else they might have spent that all money on something stupid, like 40 cable hangers and a stem that doesn't say INTEGRATED on it.

Speaking of INTEGRATED, I recently received the following email:

I am pleased to present you THE DREAM MACHINE, an important project of design for the bicycles sector that won the TAIPEI CYCLE D&I AWARD 2013.

For any further info, do not hesitate to contact me.

Indeed I did have a question about THE DREAM MACHINE, so I emailed forthwith:

I'll let you know what I find out.

Lastly, future scholars will doubtless debate on what date Brooklyn, NY officially became Portland, OR.  Well, believe it or not it hasn't quite happened yet, but the transformation will be official at exactly the moment when Brooklyn gets its own "funderpass:"

The plan includes a portion with colorful artwork along the walls called the “funderpass” and a bike pumping station. The design also calls for additional signage along the underpass that would direct pedestrians where to find attractions at both Brooklyn Bridge Park and Atlantic Avenue.

An artisanal underpasses?  I suppose it was inevitable.  Sure, I like nice things, but it's OK for some things to remain shitty, and I'd argue that one of those things is the highway underpass.

Less funderpass, more frumunda.