2014: The Year of the Fred

First of all, I'd like to start 2014 off on a positive note.

Recently, the Magazine of Bicycling published a column I wrote:

Which prompted someone with the handle of "SCOTUS" to leave the following two (2) comments:

SCOTUS Sun, 2013-12-22 20:25
boring

SCOTUS Sun, 2013-12-22 20:27
i hereby submit my request to stop printing this guy. he already has his own blog...

So here is my one (1) reply:

Hey SCOTUS,

I hereby submit my request that you blow me.

Turgidly,

--Wildcat Rock Machine

I guess it's going to be that kind of year.

Anyway, raise your hand if you took a New Year's Day ride, because thanks to new Technology™ I've implemented everyone else reading this blog can see you now:


Okay, great, looks like a lot of you, except it looks like little Jimmy's playing with himself under the desk again.  I too enjoyed a New Year's Day ride, during which I came to two (2) conclusions:

1) I love riding my bicycle;

2) I cannot stand other people who ride bicycles.

So here's what happened.  Even though it was like 25 degrees Fahrehenhait Frarenhite American I elected to ride my bicycle with the curved-type handlebars like they use in the Tour de France.  See, ordinarily my rule is that if it's below 30 degrees I scamper off into the forest for some woodland-style bicycling on a bike with fat knobbly tires since you stay much warmer that way, but somehow braving the open road and getting windburn on my thighs seemed like a more appropriate way to start the new year, and I have to start building those base miles for no reason whatsoever.

Anyway, I was supposed to meet some people at the George Washington Bridge, from whence all Fredly rides begin, and while I was waiting a car like this pulls up:

From the trunk rack (naturally) hangs a crabon time trial bike complete with rear disc wheel, and out steps a gentleman wearing a Gran Fondo New York jersey and tights that have gone extremely baggy at the knees, rendering any aerodynamic benefits conferred by the bicycle completely moot.  I did not photograph him, but here is a courtroom-style sketch of the defendant rendered in Crayola:

To be perfectly honest I don't remember if he was actually wearing a teardrop helment, but I've included it anyway.  Also, I don't think he was wearing a pair of fresh Cazal (?) glasses, but I haven't attempted to draw a full person since middle school when I used to draw graffiti in my notebook during class, so it's the only way I know how to reproduce the human visage.

I should also mention that I was cranky because it was colder than a witch's labia piercing, the people I was waiting for hadn't arrived yet, and I'm now officially middle-aged and thus deep in the throes of male menopause (or "man-o-pause").

So at this point aero-Fred calls out to me something like, "I need you to pump up my tire."  In no way was this an entreaty.  In fact, he said it imperially, the way you'd tell a gas station attendant to fill up your car.  It was as though he though this was some sort of charity ride and I was a marshall stationed there to help wayward Freds fix their flats and wipe their noses.

I was overwhelmed by a powerful urge to tell him that I could not help him, and that if someone with a state-of-the-art time trial bike that probably cost something on the order of $10,000 cannot inflate the tires himself then he does not deserve to ride it.  However, I am a coward, which is why I'm a blogger, so instead I simply bent over for the guy and helped him.  So embarrassed was I that I don't think I said a single word to him during the process, and instead suffered in silence like a yeshiva student getting molested by the Rebbe.  Believe me when I tell you I still feel dirty as I type this.  In fact, I think the only way I can work through it is to tell you what happened, sort of like that yeshiva student pointing to the parts on the doll where the Rebbe touched him.

Basically, I guess he couldn't put air in his tire because he had a stupid valve like this:

Which sits in a stupid hut like one of those Virgin Mary statues you see on the lawns in Valley Stream:

Now, I have virtually no direct experience with this kind of clitoral hood valve set-up, because even when I was at my most deeply-deluded as a bike racer I refused to partake in any event that might require a disc wheel.  However, as I understand it, in order to get air into the clitoris on these things you need a valve head adapter, which any reasonable person would only use for the consumption of the "Wednesday weed:"

And what was happening here was that Gran Fondo Fred couldn't keep the valve head on the valve and pump at the same time, so he needed an assistant.

So Gran Fondo Fred finally gets his dumb bike off his dumb car, and he's got all kinds of pieces of dumb cloth on the bike to protect the delicate crabon, and he retrieves his floor pump, and he puts the weed bowl on the valve stem, and then he tells me, "Now pump."

That's right.  On top of all this, he expects me to do the pumping.

Scowling, I walk up to the pump, and I swear on every bicycle I own he then tells me, "I need to get it to 116."

Not 115.  116.  I can only imagine some stupid iPhone app told him that this was the ideal tire pressure for the day based on the atmospheric conditions combined with the weight and density of his scranus.

I looked at him with what I hoped was disgust, yet despite myself I actually took the pump handle in my lobster-gloved hands and pumped.  Now I was disgusted only with myself, and as I thrust on the handle I felt like I was clutching the Rebbe's schlong and bringing him to climax.  At this point even the Gran Fondo Fred could tell I was humiliated, because to be honest I think I was crying a little, and as the needle started tickling the 110 mark he stopped me and said, "That's enough."

On top of all this it turned out I'd missed the people I had been waiting for in the first place, and so I set off on my own, and as I did I tried to figure out why exactly this bothered me so much.  On one hand, he's just a guy trying to have some fun on his bike, exactly like me.  So why shouldn't I help him?  On the other, here's someone who seems to feel as though his personal recreation should be a collaborative effort, and that the cycling community should rally around his complete inability to do the most basic pre-ride preparation on a pice of extremely expensive professional sporting equipment.  That he just took off a car.

Soon though I forgot about him, and in an effort to stay warm sought out all the hills that I could.  The ride ended up being quite enjoyable--until later, I was approaching the bridge, when Gran Fondo Fred himself blew by me on his time trial bike with nary a nod.

I'm sure he'd have passed me even quicker if I'd gotten his tire to exactly 116.