BSNYC Friday Fun Et Cetera!

Happy Halloween, yeah, whatever, grow up.

Let's move on.

What with the new Antarctic Blue hats I'm hawking I fully expect to move into a higher income bracket any day now, so I'm already shopping for a new apartment in the $10 to $20 million range.  Naturally, I turned to the New York Times Real Estate section, and they had some good advice for me:

You can spend tens of millions on a high-end condo, but don't forget to budget for a place to store your skis or house your children's au pair.

Tell me about it!  Right now we're keeping the au pair on the top shelf in the coat closet, and I'm getting tired of rummaging around up there for her--then when I finally do manage to pull her out, the butler, maid, and landscaper come tumbling down along with her...followed lastly by a bowling ball for comic effect.

Fortunately, when you're house-hunting at my level, storage is a bargain:

With the starting price of $72,000 for the 36-square-foot storage unit at 56 Leonard, for example, the price per square foot comes to $2,000. “That kind of makes sense,” Mr. Miller said, when you consider the apartments there have been selling for as much as $4,000 a square foot.

Besides, he added, “What’s $72,000 on a $50 million sale? It’s a rounding error.”

Interestingly, $72,000 is a rounding error until the city wants you to pay a pied-à-terre tax or help fund public kindergarten, in which case it becomes a communist plot.  After all, why should the gub'mint get to dip into your cigar-lighting money?

Really, though, the point of all this is that you'd think people shopping for $50 million apartments and tossing in another $72K on storage would have nicer bicycles:

Seriously, what gives?  Looks like a a prop from the 1997 Nashbar catalog.

Meanwhile, the Village Voice reports that the NYPD may be harnessing the awesome power of gratuitous bicycle ticketing to wrangle those pesky non-whites:

"There are more sidewalk stops in the same neighborhoods where there are more stop-and-frisks," Stephan tells the Voice. "Institutionally the practice is even more nefarious, because people in these neighborhoods are starved of a resource [bike lanes] and then penalized for turning to the next logical option available. It's like the city failing to give a neighborhood a park and then criminally charging children for playing in the street."

A ticket for biking on the sidewalk can easily evolve from a traffic violation to a more serious crime if the accused fails to respond to the summons.

"What might seem like a matter of petty over-policing in neighborhoods of color is actually giving thousands of people of color a criminal record," Stephan says.

Conveniently, receiving a summons for riding on the sidewalk requires an appearance in court:

A summons requires a defendant to appear in court on a specific date to contest or pay his or her fine. If the accused misses the court date, an arrest warrant is issued, typically unbeknownst to its target.

Unlike killing a child on the sidewalk in front of her school with your car, which is perfectly acceptable:

But don't worry, because "Vision Zero" is here, and Mayor De Blasio assures us the NYPD is going to going to step up its bicycle enforcement:

De Blasio acknowledged that motorists striking bicyclists is the primary threat to bike safety and that increased enforcement against drivers who speed and fail to yield will also benefit bicyclists. He then pivoted to the administration’s efforts to ticket bike riders.

“We also know that there are some bicyclists who have acted inappropriately, and we have increased enforcement activity towards them,” he said. “This is going to be equal opportunity.”

Sounds about right.

All of this, of course, is why we're America's Most Bike-Friendly City:

I suppose next we'll see Monrovia topping Condé Nast Traveler's list of top-100 vacation destinations:

Speaking of which, Americans watched in horror yesterday as a perfectly healthy woman rode a bicycle through the least-densely populated state east of the Mississippi River (this is exactly how idiots think you get Ebola)--and astute bike nerds noticed that her boyfriend was riding a fat bike:

When it comes to bike-culture-meets-mainstream-culture moments, the fixie had "Premium Rush," salmoning had the Alec Baldwin arrest, and now the fat bike has The Ebola Ride Seen 'Round The World.

And now, I'm pleased to present you with a quiz.  As always, study the item, think, and click on your answer.  If you're right you are a genius, and if you're wrong you'll see someone traveling at just shy of Metric Fred "Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo!" speed.

Thanks very much for reading, ride safe, and let me know if you hear of any good mansions for sale.


--Wildcat Rock Machine

(That's his "Listening to REO Speedwagon" smile.)

1) Jens Voigt holds the cycling hour record.

--True
--False

(Cultural wasteland.)

2) A new report claims Canada has no:

--Cycling culture
--Doping culture
--Gun culture
--Agriculture

("Shut up baby!")

3) This morning, Jens Voigt announced his intention to come out of retirement and set the hour-and-ten-minute record.

--True
--False

4) What is this straphanger drawing?

--His fellow passengers
--Bikes
--Dogs
--Porn

5) Marco Pantani is the Italian Tupac.

--True
--False

(In Copenhagen, nobody even shines your shoes while you use the bicycle footrest.  What a freaking dump.)

6) The biggest problem facing Copenhagen is:

--Increased popularity of motor vehicles due to falling fuel prices
--A shortage of bicycle parking
--The looming threat of a bicycle butler strike
--Those filthy Swedes

(Woosie.)

7) E-bikes are out, _______________ are in.

--Solar bikes
--Vegetable oil bikes
--Pneumatic bikes
--E-bola bikes

***Special "Is The Aero Helment Really Necessary Here?"--Themed Bonus Video***