Wednesday: The Fabric Of Our Lives

Further to yesterday's post, a commenter asked rhetorically and then answered himself:

Anonymous said...

So senior dickhead.... Did YOU go back and post a sign to warn other cyclists? Of course not...you're a New Yorker... Posting on your crappy blog doesn't count cause nobody reads it.

Oh, and Dyckman street... He he he...

February 12, 2014 at 8:26 AM

Yeah, right, like I'm going to go to the 99 cent store on a freezing winter day when I'm in a hurry so I can make a sign with oak tag and an off-brand Sharpie for some other hapless bike dork:

(Ordinarily I use a regular Staunion, but I splurge on the SUPER Staunion for important projects.)

Helping other cyclists?  Please.  That's something a Portlander would do.

And who wastes time laughing at the name "Dyckman Street" when the World's Greatest Intersection is only a few blocks away?

Total amateur hour in the comments, I gotta say.

Oh, by the way, while the greenways may only be half-plowed up in the land of Cumming and Seaman, you can be sure the Manhattan Bridge is not only clear as a Californian after a colonic, but it's also got about three million tons of salt on it, which could explain the city's recent shortage:

(Note Empire State Building is all red and engorged for Valentine's Day.)

Because we can't have the widdwe Bwookwyners swipping and swiding on their widdwe bikies and getting boo-boos, can we?  

No we can't.

Anyway, my commute yesterday became unexpectedly EPIC, which is really the only adjective with which to describe what turned out to be something like a 40-mile day spanning three boroughs on a Big Dummy with the curb weight of a Kia (the bike lock alone weighs at least as much as a steel road bike), during which I shared the road with many responsible drivers for whom visibility is paramount:

(The Automotive Snow Mullet)

There are three likely explanations for this configuration, as follows:

1) The snow was originally on the roof in the form of a "carcake," and as the vehicle warmed up it slid down there like a pat of butter on a baked potato;

2) The driver heard about this whole "Vision Zero" thing but took it all too literally;

3) The driver is a lazy idiot.

Pending evidence to the contrary I'm going with number three.

Oh, I also got to enjoy a "bike messenger shower," which is when a driver decides to clean his windshield just as you're riding by and you get sprayed down with washer fluid.

In other news, the cycling world has been shocked and appalled to discover that the average bicycle mechanic makes like $22K a year:

Bike Mechanic Salaries from Donny Perry

Now, I should say first that of course I wish bicycle mechanics made more money.  In fact, I wish everybody involved with bikes made more money.  (Actually, that's not true.  For example, I think professional bike racers should make less money, because what have you done for me lately?  Most other bikey people, though, sure, more money for you.)  In a perfect world, a typical bicycle mechanic would make more money than a typical Wall Street douchebag.  Well, actually, that's not entirely accurate, because I don't think bicycle mechanics should necessarily make millions of dollars a year.  What I mean is that a bicycle mechanic should make more money then he or she does now, whereas a Wall Street douchebag should make less.  But then you get into that whole "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" thing, and before you know it you're a communist country and you're hosting a "no-gays" olympics.  So I guess it's a slippery slope.

The point is I like bike mechanics.

HAVING SAID THAT (today I'm rendering all clichés in all-caps and rainbow colors), I got a few problems with this little slideshow.  Firstly, what's the point of comparing bike mechanics to high school drop outs?

Does he tell us the number of bike mechanics who graduated high school?  No he does not.  (Look, anecdotally we all know many bike mechanics went to colleges that cost twice their annual salary a year, but we need some hard numbers here.)

Secondly, it's smug as shit:

Because he can't believe a bike mechanic makes less than those "lowly" gardeners, janitors, and shoe repairmen:

To which I reply:

I mean, really.  Again, I love bike mechanics and wish they made more money, but why is it so outrageous that a gardener makes slightly more money?  That's hard work.  Plus, what happens when the lawnmower breaks?  He has to fix that shit, which is at least as hard as fixing a bike.  So it's at least two jobs in one.  Sure, we may hate the assholes who disturb the whole neighborhood because they pay someone to fire up a leaf blower the moment a single leaf falls on their lawn, but it doesn't change the fact that the people doing the actual blowing are working their asses off.

And janitors?  How come every time someone wants to beat up on a profession they pick janitorial work?  Think of the last airport bathroom you visited.  Now imagine cleaning it.  Would you do it for for $25K a year?  I wouldn't.  In fact, I wouldn't clean the bathroom at LaGuardia once for $25K.  So if anyone deserves a raise, it's the janitors.

The most outrageous one though is shoe repairman.  Have you ever been to a really good shoe repairman?  Those guys are incredible!  You don't think a decent shoe repairman has more skill than the mechanic at your LBS?  Please.  Not to mention a shoe repair business is usually one guy who has to run the whole operation himself.  Plus, a lot of people may ride bikes, but pretty much everybody except for this guy wears shoes, so arguably it's a far more invaluable service:

("Actually, I'm running to pick up my shoes from the shoe repair guy.")

Then there's a whole bunch of stuff about how the Rent Is Too Damn High:

Even though the idea that you have to pay over $3,000 a month for an apartment in New York City is completely ridiculous.  It's like saying you have to pay $8,000 for a bike--which brings me to the next vexing slide:

Okay, the reason an $8,000 bike costs only $80 to tune up is that a tune-up on a bicycle involves turning four barrel adjusters.  That's pretty much it.  Anybody can do it.  Sure, you can get the "pro" tune-up where they pull the bottom bracket, service the bearings, change the cables, and all the rest of it, but you'll pay accordingly.  Nobody's charging only $80 for that.  A complete bike overhaul will actually cost you a decent amount of change--as it should if you're choosing to outsource it.

As for the more complicated stuff, it can be pretty tricky, but it's not exactly car tricky.  For some reason people like to compare bike mechanics with auto mechanics (as they're doing in the comments on this slideshow), but it's not really a fair comparison, just as it's not fair to say "blah, blah, blah, stop complaining cyclists, because you have all the same rights to the roads."  Bikes and cars are very different machines, and bike mechanics and car mechanics have to do really different stuff.  Maybe it would be slightly fairer to compare bicycle builders with car mechanics, since both have to use some fairly serious equipment, and both can hit you with a multi-thousand dollar invoice as a matter of course.

As for how this can be changed, it's fairly simple: if you don't like how much your bike mechanic is being paid, hand him or her $100 next time they work on your bike.  Done.  Or, if you want an industry-wide solution, well, the guy who made this slideshow works for Specialized, so maybe every time the scarlet "S" sells an $8,000 bike they could throw an extra-special bonus at their dealers' mechanics?  And, you know, maybe the bike companies like them are partially to blame here, since they'd rather you buy a wheel out of a box than pay the mechanic at the bike shop to build one for you out of different parts from different manufacturers.

Just a thought.