Cycling: For Entertainment Purposes Only

First of all, here's this:


LOCK IN FREEDOM from knog on Vimeo.

Can someone who speaks Australian tell me what she said was sticking to her thighs?

(Much less interestingly, can someone explain to me how Australians manage to work the letter "r" into the word "home?")

By the way, don't accuse Knog of sexism for using the breasts and thighs of young Sheila women to sell their wares, because in the interest of gender equality they also use sweaty Bruce Fred cleavage in their promotional videos:


NO ORDINARY NIGHT from knog on Vimeo.

See?  Bruce Fred cleavage:

I should also mention that I think I may be visiting Australia sometime towards the end of the summer, assuming everything works out, and provided I can find someone to drug me B.A. Baracus-style for the four hundred million hour flight there.  I'll keep you posted, and hopefully it happens because I look forward to visiting the land of pugilistic marsupials, sticky Sheila thighs, and hairy Bruce Fred cleavage.

(Pugilistic marsupial coldcocks hairy Bruce Fred.)

Speaking of places that aren't America but where something resembling English is spoken, I've expressed my disappointment in London for still clinging to the whole fixie thing, and now a reader informs me that they are finally relinquishing it just like their government finally relinquished all those colonies:

Bicycle gears do seem to be back, and in a in a big way. A couple of weeks ago, Tom Hipwell, co-owner of Fitzrovia Bicycles in the West End of London, told BikeRadar that road bike customisation was a line of work that was working well for the shop.

“I think people realise after a while that, if you want to do any decent riding, you’re going to need some gears,” he said, showing us the retro race frames and shiny titanium Van Nicholas bikes that adorn the shop.  

So what are they riding now?  Touring bikes:

Nigel Brook, a director at Brixton Cycles, a workers’ co-operative that see themselves as a destination for higher-end steel randonneurs, was more direct: “That wave [fixed gear] crashed against the beach about two years ago. Touring bikes are where it’s at now.”

This should come as no surprise, since cycle touring is in their DNA, just like drinking tea, or colonizing other countries in order to insure a steady supply of tea:



I'm not buying the whole "pump caught in my trouser leg" thing.  He was probably undone by the "goofy tiller effect" of his egregiously long stem--though not as egregiously long as this one:

(Long-ass fothermucking stem, forwarded by a reader.)

Anyway, I digest.  Back to my main point, which was fixies, and that they're stupid.  Yes, no self-respecting cosmopolitan urbanite would be caught dead on a fixie anymore.  The only people you see riding track bikes in New York now are teenagers and the sorts of aging hipsters who think that by fighting coasting they can somehow also fight off adulthood.  Everybody else is happily click-click-clicking away.  And shifting isn't the only thing we cyclists have to be happy about here in New York City, since we're also beating pedestrians in the hotly-contested "not dying in February" competition:

Though it could just be that the drivers are getting smarter and they're now waiting until we get off our bikes before they kill us.  Still, they're not smart enough to remove their valuables from their cars, choosing instead to let thieves do it for them:

Police in the 76th Precinct, which covers Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill, are frustrated with residents who are just leaving their valuables out in the open for thieves to steal. At a community council meeting last night, Captain Jeffrey Schiff announced that cops are taking pictures of cars that have iPads, iPhones or packages in the front seat and then letting the owners know they are, well, stupid.

According to the Post, cops will "try to find its owner — and if not, they will snap a picture from the sidewalk. Using the car's license place to track down the owner's address, the precinct then sends the owner a flyer that says 'if we spot it, so can thieves' — and the picture taken by the cops."

So let me get this straight: the police will go out of their way to find drivers in order to help them keep their cars from getting broken into, but they won't do it to punish them for intentionally running over a cyclist?

Yeah, sounds about right.

Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia--women can finally ride bicycles, but only for "entertainment," and not for
"transportation purposes:"

The official reportedly specified that women aren’t allowed to use bicycles for transportation purposes, “only for entertainment,” and they are being advised to avoid places where young men may congregate “to avoid harassment.”

I take this to mean that, while they can't do this:



They can do this:



Provided of course they wear the "full Islamic head-to-toe abaya," avoid any places where young men may congregate, and don't run an errand along the way.

Religion: always making sense.