Tuesday, December 17, 2013

With Brakes Like These, Who Needs 'Em?

Further to yesterday's post, a reader enriched the Internet with this comment:

Anonymous said...

"So the moral of the story is, always buy that cheap metal frame with canti studs, even if you can't put a derailleur on it, because if you've got an ample spare parts bin you can have fun with it about twenty different ways."

Naw..That ain't the moral... The moral is that you have brakes and are a pussy as a result...

Cunt

DECEMBER 17, 2013 AT 8:46 AM

Upon reading that I immediately removed the brakes, and for the first time in my life I actually feel like a man.

I gotta tell you, it's kinda gross.

By the way, remember when that was a thing?  Riding around with no brakes and bragging about it?  How funny was that?


(Answer: it was very funny.)

By the way, I regret to inform you that, after a tragic incident in which he tried to remove a spoke card from his front wheel while riding, his tattoo now says "No Bra."

Speaking of brakes, last week was a bad one for them.  First, it turned out that Trek's signature Fred Sled came with a faulty one in the front:


The affected models were built with a faulty attachment bolt on the front brake quick release. The bolt can come loose, allowing the cable clamp to detach, the consequences of which are predictably bad.

"Hey, at least it was predictably bad," said Trek in their own defense.  "Because we pride ourselves on building bikes that fail like they're on rails."

Then, like a day later, SRAM recalled every single one of their fluid-actuated velocity curation devices:




It has recently come to our attention that during last weekend’s Cyclocross racing in the US, in sub freezing temperatures, several failures were reported. In these conditions the master cylinder seals failed to hold pressure resulting in abrupt loss of brake power, and an inability to stop the bike. These failures are related to product that is outside the originally stated date code range and unrelated to the original failure mode. No injuries have been reported to date.

As a result of this new finding, SRAM requests that anyone who has a bike equipped with SRAM Hydraulic Disc or Hydraulic Rim Brakes stop using the bike immediately. All products shipped to date, and currently in the market or in inventory will be recalled.

Upon reading this, retrogrouches around the world wove flowers into their beards and danced arm-in-arm around the lugged steel maypole, reveling in the irony that the very conditions in which hydrolic dick breaks are supposed to excel were instead their undoing.  Meanwhile, the experts at SRAM have been working around the clock to find a new way to convince people that you need hydraulic braking for slow bicycle races that last only 45 minutes to an hour in which you have access to a spare bicycle roughly every five minutes.

As for the hydraulic rim brakes, all SRAM has to say about that is that if you actually bought those then the joke's on you.

Because why?

Oh, right, the jogger:


I had a jogger jump out in front of me on the Boulder Creek Bike Path and I stopped on a dime without skidding.

This is not to be confused with the buttonhook at the shopping mall, which is why you need electronic shifting:

A couple of weekends ago, we had a race here at the nearby Flatirons Mall on a grassy hillside above the Denver-Boulder Turnpike. One corner was an uphill buttonhook around a tree after dropping off of a downhill sidewalk and descending along the sidehill. I noticed most riders in my category repeatedly pumping their lever to shift from their smallest cog to their largest in anticipation of the buttonhook that required coming to a near stop and then turning sharply left uphill. They couldn’t pedal hard down toward the corner due to the decreasing gear as well as all of the hard effort from their right arm. I, on the other hand, could pedal most of the way to the corner in a high gear, and just as I started applying my brakes, I could just hold down the right downshift lever and keep turning my feet. It doesn’t require nearly the force, concentration, or time to make the shift all of the way from one end of the cogset to the other, and I closed some gaps on that downhill that way.

So between hydraulic rim brakes and electronic shifting you basically need a $15,000 bike now to ride on a multi-use path and occasionally suck ass in a cyclocross race held at a shopping mall.

Now that's bicycle-cycling American style.


(This used to be bicycle-cycling American style, but then riding without a helment became tantamount to suicide, and pulling gears and brake calipers with wires became the equivalent of using a telegraph instead of a smartphone.)

Meanwhile, having completely failed to perfect hydraulic braking for road and cyclocross bikes, SRAM are now moving on to electronic shifting, and so far it's about what you'd expect from the company that invented the exploding master cylinder:


Now those are some clean lines.

Of course, the only thing that makes Freds tighter in the chamois than electronic shifting is Jens Voigt, though it turns out that when you push him to say more than "Shut up, legs!" and ask him about drugs he's actually not all that adorable:



CN: With all due respect if you had gone down the path of Bassons it would perhaps be fair to say that you wouldn’t have ridden for some of the team managers that you have ridden for.

JV: Be more precise with that.

CN: Okay so you may have ridden for Roger Legay but maybe not for Riis, maybe not for Johan Bruyneel.

JV: Well my friend now you’re making me mad and angry. You’re a journalist right? 

CN: Yes. 

JV: Do you know anyone called Murdoch? Was he your friend? Have you ever worked with him? Do you feel dirty working in the same business as Murdorch and all this illegal tapping of phone lines? How do you feel about that? Answer the question please.

CN: Well there’s difference. 

JV: Is there?

CN: Yes.

JV: Well not for me. I’m asking you a straight and fair question. Answer the question. Are you a colleague of Murdoch? What do you think about that?

Wow.  I haven't seen a pro cyclist get so defensive since they caught Mario Cipollini with that pin-up of a shirtless David Hasselhoff on his stem:


(Saeco mechanics scrambled to find this picture of Pamela Anderson in the wake of "HoffGate," but the damage was already done.)

Meanwhile, Esteemed Commenter Daddo One has forwarded me this article about how conservatives hate bikes, and it tidily sums up what we've been witnessing for the past few years:


In this respect, Rob Ford isn’t just a mess. He is a visionary—perhaps the first candidate to win an election in part by fanning public annoyance at those reckless, entitled, tax-and-spend bicycle riders. As new bike lanes make their slow incursions into downtown traffic patterns, it’s reasonable we can expect more such victories. It might seem frustrating for bike supporters, but there is one consolation: In politics, you get attacked because you matter.

It's good to matter and all, but sadly our only value is in the people who hate us.  There's nothing in it for the politicians if they actually were to cater to us, because the very thing that makes cycling so great (it's cheap, as long as you avoid the stupid brakes and the power shifting) is also its undoing--namely, it's cheap, ipso facto no money, cognito ergo scum nobody really gives a shit about what we think--except for nouveau douche companies like Whole Foods, who use cycling as marketing.  Why?  Because it's so damn cheap to do so!  Take the new Brooklyn store, for example:



See?  They have bike repair:

Bike Repair and Parking: Bikes are beloved by Brooklynites and Whole Foods Market, so we want to support people's ability to maintain and ride them. This form of alternative transportation contributes to a reduced carbon footprint and a healthier lifestyle.

Yeah, that's cute.  So they throw a few bucks at some bike racks or whatever, meanwhile everyone's going to drive there.  There's no real future for cycling in Brooklyn, because Brooklyn is becoming too way too wealthy for people who ride bikes.  Instead, it's going Full Subaru, which is the car for people who like bikes in theory but who don't actually ride them, instead expressing their affinity for them by shopping at grocery stores that have bike parking they don't actually use--oh, and records for some reason:

Vinyl Records and Wrecords by Monkey: A vinyl venue featuring music as well as reclaimed vinyl jewelry and accessories from Wrecords by Monkey, a Brooklyn-based design and lifestyle brand

Good for them.

And over in the UK, a reader tells me the BBC asked readers to suggest ways to protect cyclists, and the results are now in:


This one was kind of OK:

Make drivers cycle

"What about requiring that in order to get a driving licence, every driver has to cycle for three miles along a dual carriageway. This seems to me the best way to make drivers realise that cyclists have a right to use the road and not to be squeezed into the gutter. Most cyclists are drivers too or have been at one time but most drivers have no experience of what it's like to cycle in traffic and don't seem to believe that cyclists have any right to be on the road." Pedal Pusher, London

"A real radical solution? Any person sitting a driving test should have to sit a practical test on a bike. In traffic, in an urban area and also on a country road (the problems are very different), at night, in bad weather. It might not convert them to cycling, but at least they'll appreciate the other point of view a bit better." Graeme Allan, Keith, Scotland

Though I maintain the only solution is to make a law banning air conditioning, roofs, windows, seatbelts, air bags, or any other form of passive restraint from all motor vehicles.  Maybe that way people would actually think before getting in the car and remember they're actually driving machines that require skill to operate, especially in foul weather, when all the idiots in SUVs get over-confident, lose control, and drive into each other.  You know, there would be consequences for their stupid actions--consequences that affect them as well as the people they hit.

This would also put us on more equal footing, mostly because when they cut us off we could kick them in the head.

Lastly, Klaus from Cycling Inquisition has posted two sublime images in his most recent post.  This one:


And this one:


It's the cycle of life.

112 comments:

3G said...

FIRST!

wishiwasmerckx said...

First!

Anonymous said...

Douchetastic!

wishiwasmerckx said...

Fuck you, 3G!

g. said...

Top 10
Quick group today

Anonymous said...

je suis dan le premier dix.

Anonymous said...

Top Ten

theEel said...

weed!

Anonymous said...

top 10

ScranusTastic said...

Top Ten

flyover bc said...

Somewhere near the top.

leroy said...

My dog says it would be very manly to ride the bus today if it didn't have brakes.

I think he's just messing with me.

Marcel Da Chump said...

Kramer has a point.

Beth said...

I worked a safety-awareness booth at a public event a couple of months ago where we were asking safety trivia questions and giving away cheap crap if you answered correctly - you know the type.

So one of my cohorts asks a child of maybe five or six, "Is it safe to text while driving?"

"No," he said slowly, then added after a moment's thought, "unless you're driving a Volvo."

Our future!

JB said...

Hey Leroy, congrats on the podio on Valentine's Day, 2008!

McFly said...

Is the preggo bike jewelry supposed to turn me off?

Because she didn't.

OVEN FULL

trama said...

Hi Beth !

SRAM and NASA both got bit by the same bug, the old shrinkage with cold on those o-rings.

mrkept

Freddy Murcks said...

My fred sled has cable actuated shifters AND cable actuated breaks. I have had my current sled for about 10 yrs, so it does predate the era of electronic shitting and highdroolic breaks, but the cycling media would have me believe that it is nearly non-functional. Nevertheless, it works just fine and, barring some sort of accident or corrosion problem (it's steel, dammit!), I am pretty certain that I will never need to replace it unless I really want to.

Robot captcha: oCUMpage 13

Anonymous said...

XIX?

amisswo fuckgoogle

Anonymous said...

Grandson: Hey Grandpa what does that NOBR EAKS tattoo on your knuckles mean? Were you in prison?

Grandpa: No grandpa wasn't in prison, when I was young I used to ride a bike that didn't have breaks and I thought it was pretty cool.

Grandson: So you had it tatooed on your hands?

Grandpa: That's right sonny, but with hindsight it doesn't seem like it was such a good idea.

Grandson: You're a fucking idiot.

commentatorbot_037409 said...

I would have gotten here sooner but I had brakes on my bike.

What a looser!

Anonymous said...

NO BRAKES, isn't that something you're supposed to yell right before comically rolling down a hill (flailing the whole time) and crashing into a giant pile of manure or whatnot?

Anyway it appears those SRAM customers were experiencing sudden and unexpected bouts of manliness. One minute you're just another pussy with brakes; the next second, MANLY.

Comment deleted said...

Roads were largely unpaved until dandy horse enthusiasts banded together and lobbied for paving.

Yet car drivers feel completely entitled to the road, the whole road, as though cyclist were recent interlopers.

We were here first, cagers.


Shameful confession: I also own a Subaru.

mikeweb said...

No brakes?! pffft.

Try no brakes on this bad boy then come talk to me.

balls™ said...

You really nailed it on the Subaru thing. Pretty much described me to a tee.

Of course, my bike is mostly metal, and the only electronic device on it is the red blinky light, so I probably shouldn't ride it anyway. I might die.

Je suce à la vie.

Anonymous said...

I asked my cat about hydroleak breaks. She sat down, stuck a hind leg up in the air, and licked her butt. Pretty much the same answer I have gotten from every question I ever asked her.

Anonymous said...

I bought my first lottery ticket yesterday, one of those mega millions things. Gave it to my wife as a 12 Days of Xmas giftee.
If we win, the BSNYC retirement village is definately a go.
Saw my LBS owner yesterday, he's carrying Salsa bikes now. What is the word on the blog about them? I'm selling the FredSled and need a replacement.

babble on said...

Hey heyyyyyy! I rode my bike all preggers like that, too! It was so much easier on my hips than walking, especially during the third trimester. :)

RR and Faux News, a marriage made in heaven said...

Genuine bottled Gowanus Canal Water. Only $5.99 a six pack at the Gowanus Whole Foods.

The babe on Cipo's bike has attire on, obviously not Cipo's bike. The real Cipo's babe would only be au natural.

Spokey said...

"it's cheap, as long as you avoid . . ."

snob;

you got to be kidding? Cheap? Must be a definition I'm not aware of. I thought it meant inexpensive.

Maybe a cheap sport if you get all that free stuff because you're a bloggier, but not for those of us who are forking over hard earned rubles.

My most recent bike cost about 3 times my most recent motorcycle. 60 times the cost of my first car.

And the clothes! My jerseys now cost $12.99. And I have to go to campmor to get them at that price. My clippy shoes are already wearing out after 11-12 years and even on a closeout sale, they cost $10.

You're probably so insulated you don't even pay for the air for your pump.

But even though the sport is bleeding me dry, I still love it.


Now if you want a cheap sport/hobby move to naked shoeless jogging. That's cheap.

babble on said...

Heh heh.. enriched the internet indeed... and Snobbers? I will chuckle all day long at the thought of all of those choked retrogrouches with flowers woven through their beards, dancing arm in arm. :D

RF ++ :)

db said...

Pretty sure Specialized owns the trademark on Cycle of Life(TM)...

BikeSnobNYC said...

Spokey,

It's cheap if you let go of the delusion that it's a sport.

--Wildcat Rock Machine

Anonymous said...

I'm hoping I get the Extreme Ironing calendar for Xmas.

Jed said...

I interpret "no brakes" as meaning "no breaks". He would have spelled it correctly, but already had tats on his thumbs. So yeah, "no breaks", as in "I am living a life of serial bad decisions, and despite that, I still don't get any breaks". Hence, his earlier, visionary tat, "GAME OVER". Spondees' a bitch dude.

recumbent conspiracy theorist said...

ERGO SCUM

commentatorbot_23487 said...

DB,

Teh Salsa is okay.

The last time I looked, they were still doing their own designs built by an OEM. It's a good compromise between making a unique-ish product and keeping costs down by building the bike in Taiwan/China.

That is substantially different than ordering something the OEM is doing and getting your sticker slapped on it like Ritte. Lots of Rittes in the industry. Salsa is not one of them.

I've got to stop using my brakes!

All The Black People In Portland said...

Jens Voight is a banal scumbag.

Not so for much his career of dopage-- as if that's any kind of suprise-- but rather his inane attempts at deflection and denial...

And all the moronic "bikey" Americans who quote him like he's the Venerable Bede crossed with the Terminator.

Nothing says I'M AN ASSHOLE more than quoting "The Jensie" without equal parts irony and derision.

Cunt.

Schisthead said...

Perhaps the hydros would sell better with a disclaimer inspired by Roille on the package--"May be prone to sudden and unexpected manliness... you lame-ass fuckin' pussy"

Wish they would have put that disclaimer on the packaging for my Code...

babble on said...

Spondee dilemma:
If you love to have brakes though you prefer not to use them, do you get to distinguish between having a pussy and being one?

eedoperb 570

Anonymous said...

Here in Palo Alto it was a struggle to install bike racks Whole Foods. Outdoor tables for coffee drinkers, and parking spaces for cars were much higher priority for WF.

Anonymous said...

What are "nob rakes"?

babble on said...

painful?

Anonymous said...

Thanks, CBot.
I'll check them out after the holidays.
BTW: the record mission I'm on with my Dads LP's is ongoing. Very time consuming. Found a few diamonds in the rough, but most of the music is of no interest or already available.

crosspalms said...

So these failures that are unrelated to the original failure mode -- are they related to some new (predictably bad) failure mode? If my friend Murdoch lets me listen to the tapes of you talking with your lawyers about this months ago will I think less of you? How many failure modes are we talking here? Is a failure mode the same as a failure or is it a kinder, gentler fail?

Comment deleted said...

I know I'm a major pussy (Major Pussy reporting for duty!), but I've always considered caliper brakes, freewheels, and gears/derailleurs to be excellent inventions. The pinnacle of human achievement, even.

Anonymous said...

Salsa is one of QBP's house brands.

Surly is their house brand that markets overpriced "no frills" bikes with a hot topic-esque D.I.Y. punk rock ethos... which is why Bike Snob likes them so much. Salsa is more of their yuppie adventurer line.

Comment deleted said...

"Nob Raking" is an *advanced* technique for nudist male bass players.

Not recommended for beginners or the micro-peen'd.

crosspalms said...

Searching YouTube for "nob raking"...searching...searching

Anonymous said...

NOBR AKES on a downhill bike:
Action Cam by Sony: Casey Brown - Death Grip

What have we learned from this video?
Canadian women are more masculine than the typical typical NYC metro.

Woo hoo EH speed for Canadian girls without brakes is 96 kph.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Anon 2:34. I'll do some research later, but I come to you folks because you know your bikes.

Now, what is this nob raking?

Anonymous said...

Wow, I see in that photo with Kramer that it appears there is a bike shop called "Special Cycles"! Not only that but they appear to be using the Specialized logo! Surely they are no longer in business, having been visited by a group of California lawyers...

Anonymous said...

Casey's brother, Sam, has an interesting story. They grew up on a hippie compound in the middle of nowhere, Australia. They moved to B.C. as teenagers, and Sam became a pro mountain biker, trail builder, and B.C. bud smuggler. He got busted flying a helicopter full of chron chron through a white out blizzard.

Rolling Stone wrote a pretty good story about him:

Death of a Freerider
Jason Priestly, the 90210 guy with the sideburns, NOT DYLAN, is making a movie about his life.

Anonymous said...

Listen to all those hammer-ons, pull-offs, and nob rakes! This guy's amazing!

As opposed to nob reaks, which just means you need a shower.

CommieCanuck said...

I thought his hands said NOB RAKES, some kind of sexual mutilation thing with garden tools.

So SRAM, how's that out-sourcing manufacturing and killing all those local jobs working out for ya?

Remember when cycling used to be about riding a bike and not an equipment sport for douchebags?

Jens Voigt... I really like this guy, but he grew up in East Germany and was in the Communist sports development program since age 10, a few pills more or less and he would have been a shot-putter named Gerta.

CommieCanuck said...

I'm not buying that electronic SRAM system until it has Bluetooth connectivity and can get porn. Otherwise, what's the point.

Anonymous said...

Took a look at the Salsa line... every single one of their bike has disc brakes... very interesting... I thought they had one "classic" steel road bike in their line. They have gone full retard on the gravel bike thing. I guess it's part of their Salsa/Surly marketing strategy. Rim brakes are for broke punk rock doods.

Disc brakes make a lot of sense on a commuter bike if you ride in the rain, with lots of hills. Discs brake commuters are all over Seattle. They work much better in the wet, and you don't tear through brake pads and rims.

Fairdale, Kona, Raleigh, Traitor all make pretty nice disc brake road bikes.

Anonymous said...

Clearly everyone is reading the knuckles wrong

Dooder is the king of no bra
see what I mean

Anonymous said...

babble,

As Betty White once stole "If you wanna be tough, grow a vagina. Those things can take a pounding."

So to answer your question: umm, no?

Anonymous said...

Know what I think? Fuck hydrolic dick breaks, AND -- bring back steel rims. True dat. No I mean literally.

Dooth said...

All this brake talk is making me...want to rap old school:

Brakes on a plane, brakes on a train
Breaks to make you go insane
Breaks in love, breaks in war
But we got the breaks to get you on the floor
And these are the breaks
Break it up, break it up, break it up!
Break down! Yo!

Samuel Jackson said...

I'm tired of all these mutha fuckin brakes, on this mutha fucking plane!

Samuel Jackson said...

The ones on the train however, are fine with me. What's in your wallet?

Olle Nilsson said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Olle Nilsson said...

Hey, I'll man up and buy the plastic bike with the liquid brakes and and the volticulary actuated shifting. Because when people pass me as I'm plodding along down the road, I want them to know the real reason I'm so slow. It'll be my xmas gift to all the Cat 6ers in town.

Anonymous said...

Same Freddy, although I blame having kids for the lack of upgrade. That said the electric thing offers a lovely auditory sensory experience that cant be found on cable actuated gear changing (i hear it as i spend the majority of my time sucking wheels).

PS America, it is spelled BRAKES! Unless you break something when the former fail

CommieCanuck said...

ok, so Campy is getting into the disc brake business..

"Campagnolo will no doubt want to monitor how well Shimano and SRAM do with their hydraulic offerings in terms of sales and any technical problems." I'm sure they are having a good chuckle right now.

Campy is located near Brembo brakes -guys that know how to make brakes.
SRAM consulted Nissin, who has been recalling their motorcycle breaks.

CommieCanuck said...

..and SRAM should spell it:" BREAKS.

"duchydj"

CommieCanuck said...

Rob Ford (remember him?) the nob brake personified, has been apologizing again. He didn't mean to call that guy a pedophile.

He thought pedophile meant bicycle rider.

The King of Park Slope said...

I'm disappointed at the lack of participation in Klaus' caption contest.

Tut ... tut.

mikeweb said...

King,

No reason to.

Your submission wins the internet today.

Anonymous said...

Brembo already dabbled in the MTB disc brake market a few years ago... they came out with a set that costed $1200 for the pair. Dirty mountain bikers everywhere said WTF MANG, those are dentist road weenie prices. I will stick with my Shimano XT's for $120 per wheel. Plus the fact the brembos were insanely heavy.

If Campy was smart, they would team up with Formula.

Basically, what it comes down to, is companies charge what the market will bear, and road weenies are mechanical retards with no sense of cost/benefit ratio.
Seriously, Shimano charges nearly 2X as much for equivalent road product; ie Ultegra vs. XT, despite the fact that the XT product has more going on....
Why the fuck do road cranks cost twice as much as mtb cranks???

BLAME DENTISTS

Mark said...

I am definitely a retrogrouch.

commentatorbot_129437 said...

Salsa is one of QBP's house brands.

It is indeed. Wikipedia's entry on Quality Bicycle Products says so.

That shows you how long I've been out of the industry!

My post-buyout salsa is good!

DB,
Good to see you chipping away at the stacks. Remember, the album art is "a thing" by itself these days.

Euro Spondee said...

Making drivers ride a bike - that would be pretty nice, might open some eyes. I always thought that recidivist speeding motorists should be put on the back of a motorbike with a skilled pilot and taken around at the same speed, just to see what it felt like without the cage.

Anonymous said...

Me too. Them newfangled safety bicycles with the chains and freewheels ARE STRAIGHT PUSSY STATUS.

WOOD RIMS FOR LIFE!1!!!!!

Pneumatic tires are just one more unneccessary gizmo. Tires & tubes?!?! Fuck that noise, solid rubber nailed the the wood rim is all you need.

babble on said...

Mark - yeah, but are you dancing right now, with flowers woven through your beard? Cause really, how grouchy can you be if you're not?

babble on said...

Oh! And the grouch in me spent time this weekend on a retro-fred cycle exploring Vancouver's harbour defence system.

No beard. No flowers.

McFly said...

I like the dicks braeks on the MTB for the simple fact that leaves don't get jammed up as much and send my OCD into full tilt boogie.

Can I get a HERE HERE for the gentlemen that are down with some 3rd trimester SOFT LOVN In a FULL OVEN?

I remember when this blog used to be about having epic sexy times with a preggers wife. Times they are a-changin.

Anonymous said...

There comes a point in every person's life, when they say, enough if enough with this newfangled techmology shit. This point is when you are officially old.

How retro grouch are you?

P-far vs safety bike?
solid tire vs. pneumatic?
freewheel vs. fixed?
nutted axle vs. QR?
one gear vs. hand lever shifting vs. shift lever on the bars?
wood rim vs. steel rim?
tubular vs. clincher?
steel rim vs. aluminum?
Lugged steel frame vs Tig welded?
Aluminum frame vs. steel?
Indexed shifting vs. friction?
Threadless headset vs. threaded?
Brifter vs DT or bar end shifter?
crabon fork vs. metal?
Cassette hub vs. freewheel?
Electronic shifting vs. cable?
disc brake vs rim?
cable vs. hydro?

Some of these advancements are straight up better ways to do it. Ie. stronger, lighter, easier to manufacture.

Anonymous said...

Babble,

When China takes over the western world, we can blame Canada first.
FUCK BURNABY, SRSLY.


Anonymous said...

McFly,

If I slipped one past the goal keeper, I would be hitting it HARD, as much as humanly possible, with countdown urgency. Once that 8 lb bowling ball gets squeezed out of dere, the sacred yoni will never be the same.

Anonymous said...

Anal vs vaginal
Oral vs hand
Spit vs swallow
Missionary vs doggystyle
Backseat vs hood
Dildo vs vibrator
Shower pulse vs finger
Sister vs mom
Soccer mom vs MILF(same diff)
36c vs Thick ass(both please)

Anonymous said...

Giving up on newfangled, complicated, non-durable, frequently-replaced, profit-siphoning gear, means you're old, or poor, or sensible, or all of the above.

Hopefully like two minutes before the economy collapses, I'll have procured some solid tires and steel rims... the ones I will NEVER BE ABLE TO REPLACE.

alloy: not durable
wood: not durable
steel: durable

McFly said...

Nothing like a 20 mile roading ride in a light jacket in December WITHOUT ONE VELOCITY REDUCTION CONTRAPTION FAILURE. I did have this obnoxious big ass lab/beagle mix barking at me like a mofo and was in my personal space so I back-handed it like a pimp and immediately felt bad. It was on a tough climb so I was not in the mood for his personal brand of bullshit heckling.

Anonymous said...

Roille, do you have any first hand experience riding or working on crappy old ten speeds? Steel rims fold like a wet paper bag.

The braking surface does last considerably longer than aluminum, however, the fact that it has shitty coeficient of friction, means your rim brakes barely slow you down.

If I was building a post apocalyptic bicycle:

I would stockpile rema tip top patch kits like Elaine did with the Today Sponge.

COASTER BRAKE > all in a shit hits the fan situ. STEEL BRAKE PADS ON A STEEL BRAKING SURFACE. No cables, pads, rims to worry about wearing out.

BamaPhred said...

Flowers in the beard, Cowsills, Roll over.

I love the flower grouch
Oh, I don't know just why
He simply caught my eye
I love the flower grouch he seemed so sweet and kind.
He crept into my mind.

Everyone who has not been around the sun at least 50 times resume listening to the Hives, or whatever collection of hoots, barks, and growls it is that passes for grindcore.

Howze that for retro-grouchy.

Anonymous said...

Coaster brake - even better!

Olle Nilsson said...

If it requires effort, thought, or money to be retro, I'm out. Easy and cheap to service and preferably don't have to buy a new Park tool because it's different from the same component on my other bikes.

Anonymous said...

This is one of the better deals out on a SHTF bike.... or just a simple lock it to a pole city bike.

Gran Royale Union Flyer Single-Speed Comfort Bike $140

I like this bike. Incorporates improved technolgy like:
1 1/8" threadless fork, with alloy stem and bars.
Aluminum double wall 700c rims with 38c tires.

with simple old tech like:
steel frame & fork (tig welded hi-ten)
One piece steel cranks.
All cone and cup bearings with steel cups.
Coaster brake.

I also like this bike, because it is identical to a $350-400 "bike shop" bike, but it is from a failed "urban" marketing company.

Anonymous said...

No doubt that anti- brake bravado anonymous commenter is a dyed- in-the-selvedge fixie hipster who just discovered the old zen- like, one with the road feeling. Tell me something I don't know. I rode fix at six years old.

Rake versus Squeezed said...

Some women like em squeezed, don't know about raking.

Spellcheck said...

BRAKES not BREAKS! When is it going to stop?

Anonymous said...

DISC not DICK! Oh lord blablabla?

babble on said...

When did you change the header, snobbers?

Dream Job said...

Admittedly, did not have brakes in college. but that was a combination of ignorance cheapness and recklessness. Only got hit by a car once, and lived!
PUNK ROCK 1973

Anonymous said...

Aw, boo hoo hoo, you spent a thousand bucks on hydro-dick brakes and they failed when you road on a cold day.

And now you can't even swap out your wheels, or your brakes, to make your bike rideable in the interim.

That really really is a big bummer. I bet SRAM is super, super, super, super, super, super, super sorry. For themselves.

Hey, but you got to be cool for a few weeks.

Dumbass.

Anonymous said...

Cold, wet, snowy day, and I saw a guy using his running shoe on the tire behind the fork to slow down before hopping a tall snow bank to cross the street.

1000X more respect to that guy and his riding skill than the Fred with his now-recalled hydro brakes.



Unknown said...

lip seals can play an important role in two directions' seal and is applicable for different seal media such as oil, water, gas, chemical medium and other mixed media.

Anonymous said...

Why does knuckle tattoo guy not have any hips?

Serial Retrogrouch said...

what is GA MEOVER?

McFly said...

He must be wearing rare earth magnet earrings. Its the only thing that can help that stud belt hold those skinny jeans up.

Anonymous said...

More cellphone daftness . Now just add SUV and assorted traffic and then you have a no criminality death machine.

babble on said...

She must be a Canadian, poor daft thing... first thing out of her mouth was "sorry."

Anonymous said...

@SR,
It's GA(y) MEOVER.

There's a diacritical mark you can't see in the picture.

Vernal Magina said...

Podium?

Freddy Murcks said...

Anonymous @ 3:56 -

Calling those bicycling slowing devices "breaks" instead of "brakes" is one of those inside jokes that persists here at BSNYC. I believe that it stems from a CraigsList ad that Wildcat posted a while back where the person who wrote the ad accidentally (I at least assume that it was an accident) referred to the brakes on the bike as "dick breaks." You will often see that phrase repeated here as well.

Hope this clears it up. We're not idiots.

Sincerely,
Freddy

eiroeao 19

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Unknown said...

The same cannot be said about brakes. Brakes are one of those touchy things in a vehicle that just can't be messed around with. You need brakes for a very important reason: stopping. If they fail, your vehicle won't stop. It's that simple. This makes brakes very, very important.
With this in mind, how do you know if your brakes are in need of repairing?

Unknown said...

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