Wednesday, April 10, 2013

This Wednesday Tastes Funny, Did You Check The Date On It?

Well, spring has more or less sproinged around these parts, and you know what that means:

Spring tune-up time!



But of your bike, not your car:



Especially if you don't own a car, like Avid-De Yrne-be:


("I thought I forgot where I parked my car but then I remembered I don't even own one!")

I'm one of those people who prefers to stretch service intervals as far as possible, preferably to infinity minus one day.  This is because I perform my own bicycle maintenance, which means instead of riding I'm cursing and losing little screws.  However, in August it will have been two years since I'd taken delivery of my Ritte von Finkelstein road riding bicycle, and apart from changing the bar tape and the rear brake pads once I hadn't so much as changed a single cable in that time, and it was becoming abundantly clear from their brown color that I could postpone an up-tuning no longer.

Before you work on your bike, you should always clean it.  However, I hate cleaning stuff, so what I do is bring the bike to the gas station and hose off the biggest chunks of crap with the coin-operated power washer.  (This might be enough to clean a normal bike, but when you keep your bike as dirty as I do it merely restores the base layer of grime.)  After that, I'll take a rag to the thing, but I'll only clean the parts on which I'm working.  This means, for example, that if I'm replacing the bottom bracket, I'll clean the "beefy" bottom bracket area, but that's it--sort of how a doctor will prep the immediate area for surgery by shaving it, but leave the rest hairy.

Speaking of bottom brackets, that's the first thing I replaced, and because Ritte sent me the bike mostly assembled and it sports one of those new-fangled press-fit things (you know, because it's "beefier") I spent an inordinate amount of time figuring out how to remove the adapter from the shell, looking to any passers-by (I was working on the sidewalk because it was beautiful out) like a monkey trying to find a Gummy Bear that had been lost inside the frame.

Finally I extracted it, revealing a dank ecosystem inside the bike's robust bottom bracket shell, and then I replaced the whole deal with a seemingly more elegantly-designed system that I inserted with all the grace of a drunk having sex in an alleyway.  

Then I tackled the cables, and this being my first time working on the "new" under-the-bartape Shimano levers immediately regretted my decision to own them.  For some reason there are all these stupid plastic caps and covers and tiny screws that just want to break or get lost, and while it made me angry at Shimano it made me even angrier at all the Freds who simpered and moaned about how Shimano's cables stuck out in front instead of going under the bartape and how it was ugly, inspiring Shimano to come up with this stupid new design.  As far as I was concerned though, it was awesome that the shifter cables didn't go under the bartape, because it meant you could quickly change the cables and housing without removing the bartape, and taping bars is something I only like to do when I run out of electrical tape with which to repair the bartape.

I'm this close [indicates tiny distance with fingers] to just putting my old levers on there, but now that everything's all buttoned up and finished I have no intention of putting a tool to this fucking thing for another two years:


Incidentally, I also replaced those rims a few weeks ago in an exhausting fit of nipple-twisting, which means that as of now pretty much everything on the bike has either been overhauled or replaced right down to the chain, and I look forward to finding out which of my ham-handed repairs fails first.

I did wrap the bars pretty nicely, though.



The Slovakian has not been seen since his video apology to podium girl Maja Leye after his behaviour on the Tour of Flanders podium. The two are expected to meet at the Brabantse Pijl because Maja works for race organiser Flanders Classics.

"I'll see her again and I hope I can find a way for her to forgive me," Sagan told Gazzetta dello Sport.

"It was a joke. What else do you think it was? The problem is that some people didn’t understand it. But I apologised to her because she didn’t like it."

Fascinating.  I wonder if he'll "apologize" on her face or on her chest.

By the way, I think I may have come up with a good solution for the negative image professional cyclists have acquired recently.  You know how the commies used to like to call each other "comrade?"  Of course you do:


Communist usage

Communists use the term "comrade" as an egalitarian form of address and common title to supporters of communism that replaces hierarchical and gender-based titles. It is typically abbreviated in English as "Cde."

Well I think a similar egalitarian form of address should be applied to professional cyclists, and that it should be "Doper."  As it is, everybody loves a pro cyclist, then he gets caught doping, and then everybody hates him, even though he's only doing the same thing as everybody else.  If, though, we just call them all "Doper," followed by their surname, then we'll eliminate the problem.  Consider some recent headlines and how they'd be improved:





(Dope Eustice interviews Doper Merckx in 2011.)

See?  I feel better about the sport already.

Meanwhile, I was stunned to learn from a reader that those Robs Fords still Mayors of Toronto, though I was totally unsurprised to learn that they're cockblocking some new bike stuff:


Evidently, they object to the showers:

The mayor wants to pull the plug on a proposed bike station with showers under City Hall.
“I’m going to try to kill it at council, but that’s a complete waste of taxpayers’ money,” Mayor Rob Ford told the media Tuesday, when asked about the station during an announcement about summer road construction.

The $1.2 million bike station was approved by the government management committee Monday and will go to council for approval next month. The plan includes four showers.

Though to their credit the Robs Fords have offered to shower the cyclists themselves instead:


(Fords showering a sweaty bicycle commuter.)

In other mayoral news, the guy who wanted to be Mayor of New York City and said this:

"When I become mayor, you know what I’m going to spend my first year doing? I’m going to have a bunch of ribbon-cuttings tearing out your fucking bike lanes."

And was subsequently disgraced for Tweeting this:

Thinks maybe he can still be mayor:


At this rate New York City will be the first city to simultaneously unveil a bike share program and totally remove its bicycle infrastructure.


111 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ass Monkeys… ATTACK!!!

Anonymous said...

and again...

Kenny Banya said...

Yo!

esttsra 813

theEel said...

WEdnEsDay

Anonymous said...

and again... good Ass Monkeys...

velobotomy said...

Mama!

recumbent conspiracy theorist said...

mOnKeY SpaNk

Anonymous said...

top ten

le Correcteur said...

Shit; go to look at the comments yesterday (many!) and end up barely ?? in the top ten!

le Correcteur said...

Ah, made top 10; but quite a drop off from podium.

ken e. said...

sakura!

CAT ASS said...

MEOW!

Anonymous said...

Botheration!

P. Bateman said...

hot titties under a hot e30. nice.

top towentie?

mikeweb said...

Snob,

Those valve stems are waaay too long. Hopefully that was addressed during the rim replacement.

crosspalms said...

"It's now or maybe never." Don't go into songwriting, Tony.

Paul Bowen said...

Cuh, top tweneeway

BikeSnobNYC said...

Mikeweb,

I always buy long. Better too long than too short.

--Wildcat Rock Machine

mikeweb said...

That first photo looks like a still from a movie. I'm guessing that after a minute a couple of nice mechanics showed up and fixed whatever was wrong with the car. Naked.

mikeweb said...

Ah, yes. Forgot about the whole stem thing...

Marcel Da Chump said...

Too nice tits.

JB said...

So Weiner calls his weiner "a run for Mayor"?

P. Bateman said...

that Anthony Weiner sure has a long stem.

i'm starting to suspect that Snobber may be coming out at some point. all this spying on the man sex in the woods, the up close photos of "man junk"....getting a little swishy around here.

Anonymous said...

I probably missed someone else pointing this out, but the blue letters in "abroad" spell BRA...hehehe...I am such a 10 year old

JB said...

Snobs, what did you replace the press-fit with? I thought once a press-fit, always a press-fit? There's one on my newish mountaining cycle.

Anonymous said...

repressed sexual cable tension.

Yarpo said...

Holy Shit! Ass Monkey Handler is racking up the pal-meh-res!

HIDE, KENNY BANYA, HIDE! THE ASS MONKEYS ARE TOO CLOSE!

Someone check on Kenny and see if he's okay.

I'm locking doors and windows now, cuz the Ass Monkeys are attacking, AGAIN!

Anonymous said...

so much bitching about bike wrenchingI I mean, do a transmission and clutch job for chrissakes, if you want to do something mechanical and write about it hero. Although, I can't say I'm any good at servicing swiss mechanical watches...which might be closer to bike wrenching than cars.

DAVE BYRN
HASN OCAR

rural 14 said...

Rural 1st!

Anthony Weiner...I'd come in from my pastoral stronghold just to show him how to use the Twitter in the future. Perhaps he and Elliot Spitzer could make a "film" together, or at the very least, a public service announcement - "if you want to avoid a questionable political comeback, learn how to discuss sex with your wife / you trample the people you represent when your cock steers you out of office."

To tear out bike lanes is about as stupid as pretending your cock isn't yours.

On our homestead, well, we're cock choppers...no roosters need apply. Rooster + pressure cooker....actually, sounds like Anthony Weiner.

Buffalo Bill said...

Cleaning the bike is definitely a mistake. I went to rebuild the miyata last weekend. After stripping and cleaning, I find it has a cracked chainstay. (sad face)

If I hadn't cleaned it so well, I would have been blissfully ignorant, and probably would have ridden it till it broke.

Comment deleted said...

Shaving my bike, prepping it for surgery...

babble on said...

Question? Say you're doing it... how do you kiss a person over such an impressive pair of car jacks?

CJ said...

You go around,not over babble

babble on said...

Mmmmmmm man bits... all of the girls out here thank you, sweet snobbums. xo xo

Anonymous said...

Doper Tilford will not be amused with your new egalitarian form of address in the least.

Dooth said...

CORRECTION:
Groper doper Sagan back in action at Brabantse Piji (if I spelled that right-- 'cuz I haven't had a drink yet).

The Lifeless Corpse said...

" (DopeR Eustice interviews Doper Merckx in 2011.)"

"Meanwhile, I was stunned to learn from a reader that those Robs Fords ARE still Mayors of Toronto,"

airbag said...

Doper Snob is right - Why the hell do I have to remove my bar tape just so some ipod fan can pretend their bike doesn't have wires?

My cockpit looks like a ship's rigging, and I'm proud of it.

ChamoisJuice said...

BSNYC: You should take a picture of your bartape job so that I can critique your technique.

P.S. Axel is hotter than Eddie.

Dave said...

You've inadvertently cast me back in time: the ads in the back of comics for the Schwinn three-speed, with the cartoon of the guy blowing up his ten-speed because of the wires that kink and break.

P. Bateman said...

Babble, you go straight up the middle. works better with the Anthony Weiner than lips though.

ChamoisJuice said...

Oh yeah, I forgot to make fun of PNW white people.. here's another type of white person we got out here....

Welcome to the Methow Valley

babble on said...

CJ - it doesn't look like a shortcut to navigate around them...

Satin Scranus said...

To Babble

You kiss her right on the Jacks!

Dooth said...

Wait a second...shouldn't the citizens of Toronto be ecstatic about Robs Fords taking showers?

forbidden_from_racing said...

Snobby,

WTF is wrong with you? You know you will go faster with the electronics shifting cycling transmission from the Shimanzo.

BUY NOW OR YOU WILL BE LEFT BEHIND!!

ChamoisJuice said...

I have one of those "che" merckx t-shirts. I like it, because Belgian people are garaunteed to come up and talk to me. And then I ask them about waffles.

Dave Hanrahan said...

"Mayor Rob Ford says he will try to kill City Hall bike station with showers." Killing with showers is so 1940s Nazi Germany, but I guess Canada's tough gun control laws leave no better option.

RoilleFigners said...

Late to the party like a 2010 fixiedouche or a 2012 CXdouche or a 2014 fatbikedouche!

ChamoisJuice said...

...and WIWM is hotter than either...

Anonymous said...


Weiner for The Win

Anonymous said...

Babble the fun is as much in the journey as the destination. With luck one may never get past that impressive pair of car jacks

Roille Figners said...

You know what else? If they called each other Doper, they could greet each other like "Whassup my doper?"

babble on said...

Satan... yes, and so you should, but you'll want a reciprocal kiss, too.

P Bateman - ah, yes, that makes sense. Specially if you've got a pair of lips on the end of your johnson....

babble on said...

Anon @ 2:08 - yes, there is that.

Anonymous said...

Wildcat,

After replacing the shift cable on the new fangled Shimano levers I agree, it sucks. Turns out the poor shifting was due to a lever slowing grinding itself apart and the stainless cable outlived the lever.

Let this be a lesson: don't bother with routine maintenance like replacing cables.

ChamoisJuice said...

I was I assume you are all familiar with The Kinsey Scale of human sexuality; with 1 being 100% gay, and 10 being 100% straight, and that MOST people fall somewhere in the 3-7 range.
Ladies are free to explore this in college.
Men, not so much. Even among the devoutly PC, like wishiwasmerckx, you put ONE dick in your mouth= you are a faggot. NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT.

Anonymous said...

"like a monkey trying to find a Gummy Bear that had been lost inside the frame."

Gold WCRM, Pure GOLD!

wishiwasmerckx said...

CJ, just goes to show you how one little mistake can haunt you for the rest of your life.

Even today, after all these years, when I visit the little village where I grew up, people still say "Hey, what's up, goatfucker?"

bikesgonewild said...

...not so clinical analysis...

...i'm betting that 'car jacks' of that magnitude are quite likely to fall prey to the properties of gravity once released from their 'containers', thus facilitating normal kissing procedures...

...just sayin'...

recumbent conspiracy theorist said...

That settles it! when my under-the-tape shifter breaks wear out I'm going back to down tube shifters. Friction too if I can find them. My first "real" road bike, an old Schwinn back in the day had down tube shifters. It wasn't a big deal to reach down once in a while.

babble on said...

Pretty sure car jacks like that have their own containers built in, and are thus relatively gravity proof.

Just guessin...

bikesgonewild said...

...anthony weiner called, bsnyc/rtms/wcrm, to complain about the length of your stem...

...said something about making him feel 'insignificant'...

Anonymous said...

Sup dopers,

All dicks and jacks aside, does anyone know if there will be dope control at the tour duh cure? I'm not just asking because bikers could be using syringes in the parking lot and nobody will blink, but I've rediscovered cycling to be a drug and I need to know if I need a therapeutic exemption.
"This is not a race" my ass!

logbig said...

I like your super long stem
It looks pro
You must be fast

CAT ASS said...

I keep reading "Rob Halford" when I see Rob Ford, my brain is triple dumb and my sub-conscious wants me to rock out with my cock out.

TEX-ASS said...

In Houston Mayor Annise Parker has declared Friday bike to work day there will be free doughnuts at city hall following a press conference.

I wonder if they will have kolaches?

Y'all should come!

Roille Figners said...

Oh indeed Babs. Just look at Pamela Anderson -- no matter how vigorously, how viciously she shakes them, they stay right there like bugs on a bumper. Or bumpers on a bimbo. NOT HOT.

bikesgonewild said...

...hmmm, babble...my first response to your assessment would be to suggest that i do a hands-on analysis simply in the name of science but whilst considering the weight & specific gravity of silicone &/or saline solution, basic extrapolation leads me to believe that i could suffer an injury of crushing proportion...

le Correcteur said...

WRM,
Did you pager this one in? It lacks the energy of the previous week or so.
--le Correcteur

Cat 6 Stevens said...

Tea for the Goofy Tillerman?

bikesgonewild said...

...robs fords called, bsnyc/rtms/wcrm, to complain about the length of your stem...

...said something about not being able to compare it to his because he hasn't seen his in years...

crosspalms said...

bgw,
You're right, caution is warranted. Call for backup.

grog said...

BABE ALRT
FAUX JACK
ASSM NKYS

ChamoisJuice said...

BSNYC needs one of those
funny jew hats.
...
.

... you should see the stem on my Ritte.

bikesgonewild said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bikesgonewild said...

...i think i'm good, crosspalms...

...i do have a jackhandle i can bring into play if necessary...

...& it's pretty obvious where it can be inserted...

babble on said...

It's important to celebrate often, and really, it would be appropriate to celebrate Wednesday by humping. Don't you think?

Mmmmm hump day. :)

JB said...

"Cat 6 Stevens" is a great commenter name. Congrats.

f said...

Last time I took my crankset out I found several death moths inside.

Comment deleted said...

Holy shit! Watch out for those death moths, man. They make Drop Jarraracas look tame by comparison.

babble on said...

Here in Vancouver, Doper is already a term of endearment. Respect, even.

And yes. Cat 6 Stevens is a brilliant name.

Anonymous said...

Cat 6 Stevens changed his religion to mountain bikes, and changed his name to Broseph Islam.

BikeSnobNYC said...

le Correcteur,

No, I typed it on my computer as always. Oh, wait, now I get it, that's HYSTERICAL!!!

I'm SO BURNED. Oh, man, I gotta use that one.

--Wildcat Rock Machine

Cat 6 Stevens said...

That's Broseph 6 Islam to you, anon.

wishiwasmerckx said...

CJ, at least you have big hands...

If I promise to miss you, do you promise to go away, and take your racist stereotypes with you?

Anonymous said...

Right hand meats the left hande. In other gnus, New Yawkers discover there sity isn't just shitty but crappie.

Vegas said...

West Coast late afternoon. Avoided the anal apes, though.

Thanks for the reminder, Snob, there's some tilapia in the fridge I need to throw out.

Anonymous said...

I checked the Velonews doper's bikes gallery, and by Odin, those fools really slam those stems. But that Ritte Von Dickenstein is just nor rite. Too much stem to compensate for the owner's feelings of inferiority. Classical Freudian.

Grump said...

Snobby, you should know that in the history of all cycling, there had been only one real doper (whose name may not be spoken)

PS. That under tape housing makes the components look like they were made in Europe....damn them all
.
.
.

ken e. said...


TLKN LOUD
SAYN NTHN

Society for the Advancement of Monkeys said...

How I wish Cheetah would stop posting as Anonymous. Who ever heard of a monkey named Anonymous?

ken e. said...

apologies grump, snarky tats are for anon above...

Pump it Up said...

I wonder if car jack babe's legs will work as a scissors jack?

And, using her chest jacks as jacks is an epic fail. Her chest jacks don't come close to fitting under the car. The only thing they might jack up is someone's slawson.

Anonymous said...

For those of you who might care, Mr. Weiner was forced to resign from congress for posting inapropriate pictures on the internet. He still receives a retirement of $46,000 a year plus the 200,000 plus in his government 401K (per all voices.com).

Anonymous said...

I have a little home-made wire hooky thing for shoogling cable inners into where they should be to slide nicely into the brake cable outers. A wee kink (not Ray Davies) in the cable end can help, too.

hey nonny mouse

Mcfly said...

Just because I ride my bike does not mean I am an athlete.


Just because I wrench on my bike does not mean I am a mechanic.

That will be enough talk about internal cable routing being inferior. I AM FRED HEAR ME ROAR!

Dooth said...

I have a short stem. The only good one the French ever made: a Belleri. And an ex, who called me out-of-the blue the other day, once appraised my penis by saying, "it's perfect".

Yarpo said...

BRA-bont-shuh-PEEEEEEEEEEEL!
or
Brabantse Pijl.

Weed & Ass Monkey Wednesday...anybody check on Kenny Banya? His silence is frightening.

obat penyempitan pembuluh darah said...

haha,,,like your pict,,

anonymoose said...

Wow. Maybe it would be fun to be car-jacked? 2251 onguleye!

Anonymous said...

Broom Wagon

185 nceainl

Anonymous said...

No comment, but 203 rockepo begged publicity.
New campaign slogan: you can't keep a good wiener down

Dennis said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Sagan's a complete BALLER! He'll apologise on her face AND her chest. Bravo.

Anonymous said...

..and then just to be sure he'll apologise in her ass too.

Anonymous said...

Cat 6 Stevens rode a while, for a mile or so, down the road to the eighteenth avenue.

And he was salmoning!

McFly said...

You idiot those are not car-jacks.

They are speed bumps. How do I know?

Because they made me slow down and I drug my undercarriage on them.

MONY SHOT

Anonymous said...

Surprized you had to replace the back brakes but not the front.

On Braking . . .

http://sheldonbrown.com/brakturn.html

Anonymous said...

Surpized you had to replace the back brakes but not the front . . .

http://sheldonbrown.com/brakturn.html

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