An Open Letter To Astronomers Everywhere: The Onus Is On You To Show Us Uranus

I'm getting old.  You know how I know?  Two reasons:

1) I'm getting smarter.  Like, a lot smarter.  I think I know pretty much everything there is to know now.  In fact, I know I do.  It's a good feeling, being omniscient, I gotta tell you;

2) When I ride around the city all I think about is what used to be wherever I am.  It's kind of pathetic.  Basically, I'm wandering around in a sort of Proustian haze, which I guess is why old people are so annoying.  "Look at that beard oil shop, I remember when it was a deli that sold weed," I think to myself.  "Check out these tourists studying a touristy map of touristy Brooklyn at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, I remember when the only people you'd find standing around here were the Muslims selling bean pies:"

Of course, this is only compounded by my newfound omniscience, which allows me to see beyond time and space.  For example, as the tourists above scrutinized the map, I rolled up behind them, cleared my throat and announced, "I remember when there was no bridge here and all you'd find was Walt Whitman waiting for a ferry and quietly wanking."  It even gets so bad that sometimes I'll stop at a red light, look around, sigh, and say to myself, "I remember when all of this was Pangaea."

(Those were the days, because fuck bridges.)

Nostalgia continued to plague me into the evening yesterday when I ducked into Central Park.  There was a time when the park used to be empty after dark because everyone was afraid of the wilding and the wanking Walt Whitmans, but if you headed there on your bike on a crisp weekday evening you could join a massive group ride that would whip through the park at race pace, which was a pretty good way to unwind after a workday.  Pretty much every character in New York City who rode a bike fast would be there.  But then the local racing club killed it because the park threatened their private members-only races, and Freds got way into training indoors during the winter anyway because it was "more effective" for their private members-only races, and now it's long gone.

Still, is there anything better than riding in Central Park at night?

Well, yeah, sure, there are like a million things that are better.  Still, it's one of the finer New York City cycling experiences.  One moment you're in Midtown dodging and parrying the taxicabs, and the next you're on this serene loop, the leaves skittering along the pavement and the greatest city in the world twinkling at you from beyond the trees.

(Yes, you can see Cleveland through the trees in Central Park.)

Anyway, it was very pleasant, until I saw some dork wearing a teardrop helment and riding a time trial bike and I got all pissed off because he was such a dork.

Speaking of being pissed off, yesterday I was somewhat complimentary to the inventor of the Fred Stand:

But then someone left the following comment:

Anonymous said...

That stupid engineer stole the design from clickstand. They have been building them for years now. What great idea. They even have started making them in different colors. For a cyclist unable to organize his cockpit correctly. Did we really think he has the brains to have an original thought?

NOVEMBER 6, 2013 AT 6:24 PM

Sure enough, the collapsible kickstand has been done before:

And you can even use it with recumbents:

This led me to wonder if they actually sell recumbents without kickstands, because that seems about as smart as selling a motorcycle without a kickstand.

Anyway, even though the Fred Stand is slightly different (i.e. shorter), I'm tremendously disappointed in the so-called "inventor," especially since he seems to have earned well over a thousand dollars since I mentioned him yesterday, and it's pretty clear to me now that he doesn't deserve it and that money should be mine.

Mine.

In light of this, I'm now shifting my allegiance to another Kickstarter project called the "Roof Brain," and while this idea probably isn't original either the video sure as fuck is:

So basically, the Roof Brain is for people who ride their bikes while they're completely tripping balls and then proceed to drive home, where they forget to take their bikes off their roof racks.

Of course, there's also the requisite "social networking component," and this one allows you to share low clearance areas with other Roof Brain users:

I don't know, to me the best part about remembering to take your bike off the roof before driving into that parking structure is that you avoided some trap that will inevitably fell some other shmuck, and to me helping someone avoid it too completely undermines my sense of smug satisfaction.

If anything, I'd go around falsely labeling random areas as low clearance so people's Roof Brains start sounding unnecessarily.  In fact, if this Roof Brain thing takes off, I may tag the entire I-95 corridor before Gloucester next year.

Speaking of bike racing, here's the confirmation you didn't need that pro cycling is a complete clusterfuck:

“One day in 2007 the gendarmerie came to check our bus. We had drugs hidden in the bus, but our bus driver Piet hid the EPO in his underpants,” Rasmussen said.

Is Rasmussen sure Piet wasn't tricking him into a handjob?

"You want some EPO?  It's in my underpants.  Keep looking.  Keeeep looooking..."

Three to five minutes of rummaging, and there's your EPO.

Also, for those of you who remember Rasmussen's disastrous Tour de France time trial in 2005, he says it's because his mechanic was girl drink drunk:

Furthermore he blames the team’s mechanic for ruining his chances of finishing on the podium in 2005. Rasmussen claims the mechanic was drunk on champagne before the penultimate time trial stage. He lost over seven minutes to stage winner Lance Armstrong, slipping from third to seventh overall. 

And here's that time trial again:



The great thing about individual time trial crashes is that you can generally laugh at them, because not only do they rarely involve injury to the rider, but also the pointy hats.

By the way, after the champagne incident, Rasmussen tried to fist the mechanic:

“I saw our mechanic in a chair sleeping off his champagne hangover. I put my bike against the truck and walked his way. I was three metres from the guy with my fists ready when Erik Dekker pulled me away."

Oh, that Erik Dekker, always spoiling a fisting party.

Penultimately, I see via Jonathan Maus's Twitter that the Portland clown bike I mentioned last week has been located and "Sketch Dude" apprehended:



Portland Police spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson said Cansler was picked up at a bus shelter near Southeast 122nd Avenue and Southeast Division Street after a passerby spotted him and called 911. 

He was charged with theft, possession of meth and probation violation.

The tall yellow bike was stolen from Olive Rootbeer and Dingo Dizmal on Oct. 24.

Reading that makes me so incredibly grateful that I don't live in Portland.

So what does Olive Rootbeer think?

“It’s not fair that he took my bike and there was no consequence for it. He needs to face the consequences for being, like, mean to a clown,” said Rootbeer.

Laugh if you will, but the penalty for being mean to a clown in the state of Oregon is death.

Death.

Hopefully they follow this report up with a story about why clowns in Portland look like they've been sleeping outdoors for two weeks.

And lastly, it appears
the time-traveling t-shirt-wearing retro-Fred from the planet TridorkBret appeared on Letterman last night:

I haven't watched Letterman in awhile.  When did it get so golf-clappy?