Life's A Beach: Sand Is The New Gravel

Firstly, here's a SPOILER ALERT:

Later this week I'll be vanishing again.

I'll let you know again before I do, and in the meantime I'll be here for a few more days.  Also, if you're wondering where I'm off to, I'll be headed to a small republic called Noneofyourfuckingbusinessistan, where the chief export is a lack of disclosure.

Secondly, if you answered any of last Friday's quiz answers wrongly, you saw this video:



The "fighting" was thrilling enough, but I was more captivated by the subplot, in which one of the "antagonists" punts his helment into a passing car:

And then some cubicle jockey and his ladyfriend get out and, wearing expressions of deep concern, scrutinize the car for damage as though it's a living, breathing thing and not just a piece of shit Mazda:

("Is that from the helmet or the pedestrian we ran down earlier?")

Why even bother stopping?  Honestly, people are such wussbags about their cars.  The idea that a vehicle that weighs over a ton and lives most if not all of its life outside somehow shouldn't get dented or scratched is completely delusional.  If you've ever gently rapped on a car to let an oblivious driver know that he or she was about to run you over then you know how hysterical these morons can get when you dare touch their stupid, oversized appliances.  It's like getting upset at someone for messing up the front door of your house by knocking on it.  Sure, I realize a lot of the blame lies with the banks, which trick people into leasing cars with easy monthly payments and then make them pay out the ass for every scratch and scuff when they finally return it, but it's still pathetic how invested people are in the appearance of their econoboxes--this gentleman excluded of course:

("You can't punt a helment into my car because I don't own one.")

Speaking of smugness, while I was in Australia a great big box from Workcycles arrived at my estate:

So on Saturday I summoned my inner "Shabbos goy," paid him a quarter, and assembled its contents for my better half:

(Non-drive side photography is the new drive side photography.)

There's exactly one (1) benefit to being the wife of a bike blogger, and it's that you wind up with a pretty sweet bike.  Here it is "about town" with the front rack and kiddie footrests but without the rear child seat:

After christening the bike with a bottle of Snapple we undertook a maiden voyage to the New York Botanical Gardens, where I saw this Brompton-in-a-cozy:

Complete with artisanal saddle scrotum:

Anyway, not only is the Workcycles already making my wife far happier than I ever could, but our kid (one of seventeen (17) but the only one we bother to feed and entertain) is way into riding on that little front kiddie seat and upshifting on the hills with predictably hilarious results.

Also, between this bike and the Big Dummy we now have the portaging capacity of a Honda CRV and the smugness quotient of a food co-op in a medium-sized city.

Of course, man does not live by smugness alone, so I was also sure to Get Fredly this past weekend by putting on stretchy clothes and riding a bike with those pedals you click into and those curved handlebars with the shifters in the break leavers like they ride in the Tour de France:

(Drive side photography came back in style while I was writing this post.)

It wasn't too long ago that I'd be off spending my September weekends getting lapped in cyclocross races.  However, I'm now unofficially retired, at least for the time being, so instead I'm embracing the world of giant saddlebags and compact cranks and wide-ish tires by road bicycle cycling standards:

I used 28mm tires for the Rapha Gentledouche's Race this past spring and I liked them so much that I haven't gone back.  Plus, everybody knows 28s on road bikes are the new 25s, which were the new 23s, which were the new 21s.  In any case, here's some more tire clearance porn:

You'd think with tires like this I might even be tempted to ride on gravel, but I'm not stupid, because not only does this bike lack dick breaks, but I also know that if a piece of gravel were to wedge itself in between the tire and the chainstay I could die:

Plus, I'm not even interested in riding on gravel anymore, since a reader tells me that beach bikes are the new gravel bike:

The frame is based on (and replaces) their Cross Winner cyclocross bike. But, they tweaked it to make it more effective for the flat, sandy courses. The seat tube got steeper to bring you closer to a time trial position so you can lay down the power through softer sand. The head angle was slackened a bit to provide better stability. All of which sounds a lot like some gravel racers we’ve seen.

Sounds great, except what the fuck do I do if I have to race on a gravel beach?

(My head hurts.)

Do I choose my gravel bike, which has been painstakingly optimized to race on tiny rocks, or do I use my beach bike, which has been constructed from special proprietary materials (uh, aluminum) to "help combat salt water"?

Fuck it, I'm getting a skimboard;

At least until the whole gravelboarding thing takes off: