Title: A Descriptive Or General Heading!

Stand up from your desk, café table, bus seat, or toilet and go to the nearest window.

Go ahead, I'll wait.

Now, open that window, uncover your genitals, and expose them to the outdoors.

So what do you feel?

The faint hint of autumn in the air, that's what!

(Unless you feel a sharp, concentrated burning sensation, in which case a wasp has just stung you on the penis or vulva.)

There was once a time when those first crisp suggestions of fall made me think of only one thing:

Cyclocross!

Sadly, cyclocross has reached "peak frat boy" now, and my patience for it has worn thin, like a pair of 10-year old Nashbar half-shorts.  Instead, I go "full Proust" around this time of year and allow the fall breezes to transport me all the way back to my school days.  It's all I can think about lately.  I remember walking to class wearing a leather motorcycle jacket and an off-brand Walkman, my cigarette and expression both smoldering as I dragged the heels of my 8th Street Doc Martens past the kosher pizzeria.

It feels like it was just yesterday, though in reality it was a full seven years ago, when I took that "How To Be A Bike Blogger" class at the Learning Annex.

Of course, all of that hard work eventually paid off, and I'm now internationally known--which I can prove, because according to my analytics someone in Canada accidentally clicked on my blog last week.  In fact, I'm so successful that I've become a selling point in Craigslist ads, as a Twitterer has informed me:

Here's a closer look (emphasis on the relevant portion mine):

52cm Bianchi Limited Shimano Nexus 3-speed Flat Bar Road Bike - $170 (West Madison)

Up for sale is a Bianchi that I've turned into a 3-speed. Frame is a 1981 (+/- a year or two) Bianchi Limited. 52cm seat tube, 54.5cm top tube, some sort of Tange Cro-moly tubing, Suntour GT dropouts, made in Japan, accepts 47-57mm brakes. 

Wheelset is a Shimano Nexus 3-speed coaster brake rear hub, alloy sealed front hub leaced to a set of nice looking brown rims. 

SR Apex crankset
Sakae TCO 26.8mm seatpost (Apparently belonged to BikesnobNYC at one point)
Selle San Marco Island Saddle
Ergon Grips
Promax Dual Pivot front brake

Bike has been built up by a professional bike mechanic

That's right: just imagine the thrill of owning a bicycle equipped with a seatpost that was once owned by you'rs truley, and knowing that a pair of vanadium seat rails and a centimeter of foam and vinyl were all that lay between it and my scranus.  (Well, except for the time I forgot to tighten the saddle rail clamp, at which point there was nothing lying between it and my scranus.  For two weeks after, I walked like I was wearing road bike shoes, even when I in sneakers.)

The only problem here is that it's completely untrue, and I have never owned this steatpost.  In fact, I have no idea what a "Sakae TCO" even is, though it sounds like something that you might knock back after shouting "Kampai!!!," or maybe a Japanese version of Teddy Pendergrass's "Love TKO."

So caveat emptor.  And remember, you should never, ever purchase a bicycle or component purportedly owned by me unless the seller can furnish you with a hand-numbered certificate of authenticity proving its provenance:

And if you're a seller, please note that I will happily sell you a bogus certificate in order to legitimize your endeavor.  Simply click here to purchase.  It doesn't even have to be for a bike part!  No reason someone wouldn't spend top dollar on a BikeSnobNYC-owned Cuisinart, right?

Right.

Speaking of Cuisinarts, here's one for your crotch that was spotted by a reader outside of a diner in Hondo, TX:

Either this person is expecting some serious trouble, or else that's a handbrake that also castrates you.

Whatever the case, it's no surprise the diner was forced to post this sign: 

After the fourth or fifth time a customer runs into your shop bleeding profusely from the crotch you stop taking legal responsibility.

Though is losing your "pants yabbies" to the knife you store underneath the nose of your saddle really an accident?

I guess that depends in part on whether or not you believe in "God," and when I did an Internet search for "Hondo, TX" here's the first thing it came up with:

This is a perfect example of "Good message, bad underlying concept."  Drive carefully?  Sure I can get behind that.  Do it because this is "God's Country?"  By that reasoning then I can speed up again as soon as I leave town because fuck those shitbags in Uvalde, right?

Though maybe I'm overthinking it--or else I'm underthinking it, which is sort of the same thing.

Another example of the "Good message, bad underlying concept" concept is this article which was forwarded to me by the author:

Basically it says that cars and bikes are different, and therefore it doesn't make sense to apply the same rules to drivers and cyclists.

I couldn't agree more.

However, for no reason at all he's got to add stuff like this:

The car drivers and I have that hatred in common. Just because I am riding a bike doesn’t mean I am nice. I wish I was the only one on the road too; no bikers primping in their skin-tight pants while they do their group rides and block the right lane, and none of those look-at-me bicycling parents with precious junior in that bike trailer they are dragging around. They bug me too, along with cars that buzz by me a foot from my elbow at 45 mph when no one else is on the road.

Speaking as someone who often rides in "skin-tight pants" or with a child (though, it should be noticed, never at the same time), guess what?  I don't want you to look at me.  What kind of nutcase rides around town thinking everyone else on a bike is trying to taunt him with their asses and children?  

The kind who thinks you should have a license to ride a bike, that's what:

Now that we have that out of the way, we can go back to hating one another (and maybe more so). Next we can determine if I should need a license to ride my bicycle on the roads. I’m all for that. But because we base our licenses on weight (more weight causes more road damage, which is why trucks pay more), let’s set a fair market license-for-bikes fee. Based upon me and my bike weighing about 250 pounds total, and a 4,000 pound passenger car charged $34.50 in Ohio per year, I figure my cost should be about $2 a year.

First, I think he's confusing "license" and "registration."  Second, I don't care if a license (or registration, or yellow badge, or whatever they want us to carry) costs two cents a year.  I'll move before I sell out my independence to The Man!

("The Man."  And by "sell out" I mean "give him money.")

But otherwise, yeah, the writer's right on with the red light thing.

Lastly, here's a Craigslist "Missed Connection" that can't fail:

u jogging..while.i bike - m4w - 35 (prospect park..)
age : 35

Seeing ur.georgs nokout...body.and..big..titees... While I bike. .tried to wink..at..u just so shy...u pull me out of bed make want to see u every day......just wish...I can feel u closer. ...love ur..muscle. .and..you're beautiful body. Please. Let's meet. .up

Makes Shakespeare's sonnets look like Ikea instructions.