Today's Wednesday Is Made From 100% Reclaimed Water Tower Wood

Yesterday I tried that Fly6 camera again, and on the way home I figured I'd try it on the front of the bike for a change:

I had to put it upside-down in order to account for the fork angle, and I wouldn't use it at night because few things annoy me more than "light salmon" (people who use red lights up front or vice-versa), but otherwise it worked fine, because why wouldn't it?

One or two commenters yesterday expressed a wish to see actual moving footage, and once I've wrapped my tiny mind around how to edit and upload short videos maybe I'll do that, but in the meantime I can assure you that you're not missing anything.  For example, the most exciting thing that happened to me on my return trip was that I dropped a bag of chips:

They fell out of the pocket of my Inspector Gadget jacket, forcing me to turn around and rescue them from the wheels of an approaching Subaru.

Then, when I got home, the cat used the Fly6 to take a "selfie:"

Coincidentally, this is also the very first thing I see every morning, which is why I'm slowly unraveling.

By the way, what with the Internet age and the global appropriation of "messenger culture," "urban cycling," and all the rest of it, there is only one (1) remaining style of bicycle that is (at least as far as I know) unique to New York City, and that is the food delivery bike:

New York City food delivery bikes tend to be mountain bikes or hybrids, and the GT "triple triangle" frame is especially coveted.  The extra-high "cat in heat" fender and taped frame are typical hallmarks, but this particular bike had a couple of interesting features.  Firstly, it had a side-pull brake conversion in the rear:

And no front brake at all in the front:

I may sound like I'm being catty (again with the cats?) but I'm totally not, because again I think these bikes are probably the last remaining bit of cycling uniqueness in New York City.  Even our bike share bikes are the same as everyone else's (apart from the sponsor):

(Same bike, different bank.)

There was a time when a bike with super-narrow handlebars and a front Aerospoke was a uniquely New York bike, but that was many years ago, and the style has since gone global and is now pretty much completely out of style--though you do still see it in barf-worthy promotional videos:


Patagonia Bowery Surf Shop NYC from Indoek on Vimeo.

Look at those bars!  I've written with pens longer than that.  Seriously, what year is this?!?

Though I guess you need bars that narrow to clear those bollards at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge:

Couldn't be more than five feet, after all.

Still, if your handlebars are shorter than your brake lever, get longer handlebars:

Wait, why am I even saying this?  Nobody does this anymore except for him.  Take his friend, John the Baptist, for example:

He rides a skateboard:

And what about his other friend, Jason Schwartzman?

He also rides a skateboard--but it's a tiny skateboard, which has a secondary use as a doorstop:

And together, they all work at the Patagonia store, which is what this video is promoting:

I'm old, so this is incredibly fucking depressing.  See the black awning currently shielding the John Vulvanus store?  Well, that was once CBGBs, which makes the Patagonia store what was, in my day, the "CBGB Record Canteen:"

(I could not for the life of me find a photo of the CBGB Record Canteen, so here's an older picture without it.)

Look, I know things can't stay the same, and admittedly the Record Canteen was a poor business model.  See, it was foolish to buy a record before a show, since if you brought it inside it would get smashed.  And while theoretically you could always buy a record after the show, the fact is that when your ears are ringing that loudly it's hard to think about buying records.  It's kind of like shopping for wine with a hangover, or browsing the Nashbar closeouts after a 140-mile "epic."  Sure, if you're really far gone you may be up for it, but most people just wanna go to bed.

Now, though, you can go to that same storefront and buy a surfboard from "reclaimed water tower wood:"

And they'll put your surfwax made by a husband-and-wife team in Red Hook in an artisanal reusable shopping bag:

Then after work they'll go surfing:

And camp out on a rooftop:

Inside a ready-made designer teepee:

Yeah, seriously:

No wonder Spike Lee is so angry.

Speaking of the globalization of pretty much everything, the New York Times is onto fat bikes now, which means random people at work are going to start asking you about them:

Where trails are too soft for regular mountain bikes, or too sparse to protect skiers from subsurface obstacles, fat bikes are filling a gap. Riders do well on mixed terrain, including on trails where the snow is too thin for skiing and on south-facing pitches where dirt is exposed during a low-snow winter. “It’s opening a new way to be outdoors,” Chris Estrem, a Ketchum physical therapist, backcountry skier and world bicycle traveler, said. “It’s made me a better mountain biker. I want to ride it all the time. I love it.”

Apparently, they're taking off in Idaho because there hasn't been enough snow to ski.  Meanwhile, here in New York we need them this winter because there's too much snow, which means the fat bike is now the official bike of climate change, and thus the final harbinger of the apocalypse.

Who'd 'a thunk it...