2014 Tour de France Predictions, In-Depth Reviews Of Overpriced Crabon Bicycles, and Satanic Death Cults!

Yesterday I posted this picture:

Which prompted a commenter to point out the following:

Anonymous said...

Snob, you DO know that David Berkowitz and his merry band of devil-worshipping misfits got the ball rolling early on with late night dog mutilation parties held RIGHT THERE where you took that snapshot in Untermeyer Park?

JULY 22, 2013 AT 6:42 PM 

Well, actually, no, I didn't know that.  Furthermore, I wish I still didn't because now I'm totally creeped out.  Thanks for like totally ruining this ride for me forever.

Anyway, naturally after reading that I spent a bunch of time searching the Internet for more information about the Son of Sam killings (inasmuch as I was like three years old at the time I only know the broad strokes, though my youth did rule me out as suspect) and the aforementioned park and found stuff like this:

But when the coven moved to the darkened ruins of a mansion in Yonkers' Untermyer Park, Berkowitz says, he began to realize what he had gotten himself into.

"It was pitch black and the guy who took us there seemed to know where to go, further down these winding paths," Berkowitz remembers. "There, I was introduced to some more people. . . . We would have our chants and our rituals and I did begin to witness some animal sacrifices."

He remembers finding the rituals "a little weird." But, he says, "I was fascinated."

After months of demonic prayer, animal sacrifices and participation in several ritual arsons in Yonkers and the Bronx, Berkowitz was formally initiated into the cult.

And this:

Former employees of nearby St John’s Hospital can still recall nights when chanting and torch flames were seen and heard in the depths of the woods, especially from the area of the now-demolished Devil’s Cave. There are those who maintain that harmless teenagers were the only ones frequenting the backwoods at night during the Seventies, but that belief flies in the face of some disturbing facts. Over Christmas 1976, dead Alsatian dogs, with their ears carefully excised, were found on the Aqueduct just south of Untermyer Park. In November 1979, a Westchester County Police Officer stumbled upon a sinister night-time gathering in the Lenoir Nature Preserve: a group of robed and hooded figures carrying torches and leading two leashed Alsatians.

Fuck it, I'm moving to Portland.

Actually, I'm sure they do all kinds of creepy supernatural ritual cult stuff in Portland too, because wherever you have inordinate amounts of white people who resent their parents you can be sure to find cults.  In fact, one could argue pretty easily that all of Portland is a cult--though due to the preponderance of veganism animal sacrifices are probably pretty rare there, and you're more likely to find a bunch of hooded figures gathering at midnight in Forest Park in order to slit the throat of a tofurkey, after which they probably dance around the Hairy Vagina Ball:

(Artisanal gynocentric paganism.)

As for my own past, besides listening to Slayer records I never came into direct contact with any actual animal sacrificing Satan worshippers, and the indeed the only cult behavior my peers engaged in was a twisted occult ritual called a "Bar Mitzvah."

(Mäzel Töv.)

Speaking of blood cults, apparently pro cyclists were removing their blood, shining a black light on it, and then putting it back in again in order to go faster:

The German National Anti Doping Agency had opened proceedings against an unnamed cyclist, charging that the treatments were blood doping. The German sports court ruled last fall that the method of removing blood, treating it with ultraviolet light and then re-infusing it, did not violate rules in effect at the time, as it has been specifically banned only since January, 2012. The NADA took that decision to the CAS.

I'm assuming the procedure was performed on a bean bag in a basement with wood paneling to the strains of "Don't Fear The Reaper" by the Blue Öyster Cult.

Anyway, as the article points out, the riders in question will not be punished because apparently this was not considered blood doping at the time, and it makes you wonder what other sort of not-yet-illegal methods the pros are using now.  In fact, I Tweeted words to that effect, and someone replied with this:

@bikesnobnyc Sky is using a ketone treatment that is under drug trials in England. It extends the duration of maximal efforts.
— Bill Kennedy, Yo! (@BillKennedyYo) July 22, 2013

They offered no evidence to back that up, but then someone else came in with this:

@bikesnobnyc "Dr Scott Drawer, head of research at UK Sport, who helped design the trial..." http://t.co/BqjoZLznYi
— Alex Donald (@_awdo) July 22, 2013

I have no idea what any of this means or if it even matters, but I did use the Internet to look up ketone and evidently it's endorsed by the Fox News Channel and it comes in raspberry:

I give it two weeks before all the Freds on your local group ride smell like raspberry.

By the way, whatever these guys are on, it's a pretty sure sign of doping when your hair turns green:

You know what also improves performance?  Proper tire pressure.  And to that end, I've learned from some people in (oy) Portland that they've created an app that determines your proper tire pressure for you:

The Bicycle Tire Pressure Calculator is used to compute the optimal air pressure for your bicycle tires. Tires pumped too hard bounce down the road like a basketball, wasting energy. Tires pumped not hard enough are sluggish and prone to pinch flats. Tires pumped just right are at the optimal intersection of responsiveness, shock absorption, and energy efficiency.

Popular misconception is to pump a bike's tires to the highest number printed on the sidewall by the manufacturer. Instead, the optimal pressure is that which yields in a 15% sidewall drop. Sidewall drop is a non-linear function of the load on the tire and its width. It can be computed based on the weight of the bike, rider, bags, and gear. It is also different between front and back, depending on the frame geometry.

With this App, you can instantly compute the optimal tire pressure from your phone or tablet wherever you may be: in your garage, on the road, at a friend's house.

In fact, they offered to let me try it, but I don't have the right kind of smarting phone.  (Or they designed it for the wrong kind of smarting phone, depending on how you look at it.)  Furthermore, even if I did have a compatible smarting phone, I'm not sure I'd try it anyway, because I have a pretty reliable tire inflation app already:

(Not my hand, just a hand, but you get the point.)

Here's how it works.  First, I inflate my tire.  Then I take my hand app, squeeze the tire, and, using complex mental calculus determine if the air pressure is appropriate.  It's actually pretty easy, and if you're the sort of person who needs an app to figure out what air pressure to use in your tire then maybe you should also seek out an app that will help you find a new form of transportation, such as a skateboard of a pair of Rollerblades or some other means of conveyance with non-pneumatic tires.

By the way, another advantage my tire inflation app has over this other one is versatility, since in addition to determining proper tire pressure I can also use my app for wanking and nose picking.

So suck on that, Portland.