So I Finally Sit Down To Watch The Tour de France And It Turns Out The Damn Thing Ended Like 10 Days Ago.

"Aaand if a double-decker buuuuus, crashes into uuuus..."

Then we must be in Times Square!

Yes, for reasons I don't quite understand, tourism is Big Business here in the Big Apple, even though it's really expensive to visit this craphole and anybody with half a brain would go lie on a beach someplace instead.  But hey, money is money, hence the famous poem engraved on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty:

"Give me your hicks, your rubes, Your smarmy Eurotrash yearning to go outlet shopping..."

We also pander to this demographic in New York City by letting huge double-decker sightseeing buses run wild in the streets--you know, because there aren't enough massive deadly wildly-careening motor vehicles as it is.  Therefore, this Morrisey-esque crash should come as a surprise to nobody:

On Wednesday night, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said in a statement that preliminary tests of Mr. Dalambert for alcohol and drugs were negative, and that they were awaiting further results from a full toxicology report.

“We are taking this matter seriously and prosecutors in the office’s Vehicular Crimes Unit are conducting a thorough investigation,” wrote Joan Vollero, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr.

Wait a minute, there's a Vehicular Crimes Unit?  We should totally use that sometimes!

Also, the driver's license had been suspended a whopping eleven times:

A spokeswoman for the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission, Sandy Grossman, said on Wednesday that Mr. Dalambert’s license had been suspended 11 times in the past for infractions that included failing to have proper insurance and failing to pay child support. He had nine other suspensions, dating to 1993, involving registration issues that affected his ability to drive a vehicle registered in his name, Ms. Grossman said.

None of the suspensions were connected to dangerous driving, and Mr. Dalambert’s license was valid at the time of the crash, Ms. Grossman said.

Who cares what the reasons for the suspensions were?  I really wish someone would acknowledge the connection between being a general fuck-up and being a shitty driver.  If you drive for a living and you can't keep your license valid then clearly you're in the wrong line of work.

Time for this guy to start shopping for an Elmo costume.

Meanwhile, the end of summer is producing a bumper crop of Kickstarter campaigns, and for some reason now these people send me emails asking me to mention their projects, which seems about as prudent as asking the driver of that double-decker bus for a lift.  But hey, what the heck, I'm feeling magananmous magnanimus generous, and the first request comes from the inventor of the "Bike Lift&Carry:"



The Backstory:

Husband and Wife love to ride their bicycles:

However, Wife's giant bike weighs 400 tons, which makes it difficult to carry down stairs:

The Breakthrough:

Now, if I were her I'd simply roll the bike down the stairs instead.  In fact, you could probably just ghost-ride that tank off of a loading dock and it would be totally fine.  Nevertheless, Husband went ahead and devised a shoulder strap instead, and now all their bike-portaging problems are solved:

Here's Husband demonstrating how awkward it is to carry a bike up the stairs, especially when you're trying to make it look awkward:

(Note to all of you who discovered cyclocross last season: please keep your bike-portaging critiques to yourself.)

And here's how easy it is with the Lift&Carry:

The Conclusion:

This is an idea that exists.  I guess I can kind of see it for step-through bikes which are difficult to carry.  It is less annoying than this.

Here's another project the inventor asked me to mention, because he seems to be under the impression I have a thing for clipless pedal adapters:

Anyway, here's the basic idea:

Though I was more interested in the fact that the video happens to provide a perfect anatomy of a fixie dismount.  First, fixie rider approaches bar:

Then fixie rider skids, thereby reducing his speed from 3mph to 1.5mph:

Then he hops out of the seatbelts holding his feet to his pedals:

Next, he rotates his groin 90 degrees so that he is dry-humping his stem:

At which point he raises the leg and sweeps it over the bars:

Then he walks bike to pole:

At which point the "bro-down" can commence:

It's a scene that unfolds so often in the gentrified neighborhoods of the world that we seldom pause to appreciate how silly it looks.  Also, a note to the practitioners of this technique: if you actually do ride a bike a lot, there is absolutely no way in hell you will be able to lift a leg over your handlebars after the age of 35.  Sure, you can try, but instead of jogging into the bar afterwards you'll be limping into the ER.

As for why this is true, there are two reasons:

1) Years of riding will destroy your flexibility and render your body more or less useless for anything other than pedaling a bicycle;

2) Your bars get a bit higher every year and your racks and other accessories start to multiply, which is why by about age 50 your bike looks like this:

Not even Jackie Chan could swing a leg over that cockpit.

As for clipless pedal adapters, you'll have absolutely no need for them, since anything other than thick wool socks and Birkenstocks will wreak havoc with your bunions.

Take it from me, by 40 your podiatrist visits officially begin to outnumber your bike shop visits.

"But oh, the optimism of youth...," he sighed wistfully, and by way of illustrating it he linked to this:



When they reached out to me the first thing I asked was something like, "So what's the difference between these and all the other locking bolt systems already out there?," and they answered in the form of this chart:

So what do you think?  Are they on to something?  Let's put it to a vote:

YES, THEY'RE ON TO SOMETHING

NO, THERE'S A BUNCH OF STUFF LIKE THIS OUT THERE ALREADY

--click here to see results--

Just kidding, it's really just a rhetorical poll, but hopefully at least some of you thought your computers and smartphones were broken.

As for the Nutlock, sure, why not?

And finally, who knew that centering your saddle was so complicated?

So am I the only person who just basically  looks at it and then tightens the bolt?

Apparently so.

I smell a Kickstarter for a Saddle Centering System.