The future is bright, but it's always brightest before the burnout.

Good news!  The things that are specifically designed to kill people may finally start killing more people than cars!

Guns will surpass cars this year as the leading killer of under 25s in America http://t.co/bEOaWWmFLj pic.twitter.com/uhF6k9sdV6
— The Economist (@EconBizFin) January 11, 2015

Well done, America!  Way to re-focus your murderous efforts.  If we stay the course, one day we will finally live in a country where getting shot by your toddler while shopping at Walmart is more likely than getting run down by an SUV in the parking lot.

Nevertheless, here in New York we're not about to let that happen.  See, our draconian gun laws prevent most of us from arming ourselves like God, Jesus, and the Second Amendment (drafted by Jesus) intended.  Therefore, to make up for it, our legislators allow us kill whoever we want whenever we want--just as long as we do it with our cars.

This is a great deal if you're a sociopath, but incredibly not everybody's happy with it:

Data tracked by Streetsblog revealed last week that while there have been 400 pedestrian and cyclist fatalities in three years, only two cases led to a DA filing any homicide charges against drivers—motorists are rarely criminally charged if they fatally strike or injure someone and there's not one or more aggravating factors involved (such as a hit-and-run, intentional hit, or intoxication.) 

Two deadly drivers charged out of 400 over a three-year period?  Sounds about right.  Pretty much the only way to get into trouble for killing someone with your car without sending a certified letter to the police announcing your intentions beforehand is to ram a police car six times and then flee:

The cab driver backed into the squad car and rammed it about six times while the officer was still inside, and took off, police said.

A half block away at 45th Street and Vanderbilt Avenue, the cab driver got into an accident with another yellow cab while fleeing, police said.

Amazingly, fleeing the scene after ramming a police car and then smashing into another car in the process still counts as an "accident" to the local news.

If you're not from America, please note that the film "Anchorman" was a documentary.

Speaking of America going to hand in a hellbasket, our shopping malls--once the very pinnacle of our great consumerist society--are now little more than pyramids, lifeless monuments to a moribund way of life:

The upbeat music of “Jingle Bell Rock” bounced off the tiles, and the smell of teriyaki chicken drifted from the food court, but only a handful of stores were open at the sprawling enclosed shopping center. A few visitors walked down the long hallways and peered through locked metal gates into vacant spaces once home to retailers like H&M, Wet Seal and Kay Jewelers.

“It’s depressing,” Jill Kalata, 46, said as she tried on a few of the last sneakers for sale at the Athlete’s Foot, scheduled to close in a few weeks. “This place used to be packed. And Christmas, the lines were out the door. Now I’m surprised anything is still open.”

Somewhere, anti-suburbanist David Byrne is gloating:

(Byrne's concept album, "The Empty Parking Lots of America's Ghost Malls Are Filled With The Cars I Don't Own" will be out later this year.)

Indeed, like determined little sprouts emerging from the cracks in the sidewalk, people are even using these materialist mausoleums for riding bicycles:

In some cases, local residents have come up with their own uses for dead or dying malls.  Marcus Ragsdale and his wife take their son and daughter to an empty parking lot at Owings Mills so they can ride their bikes.  “It’s a dead mall, but it’s free space,” Mr. Ragsdale said.  “We live in a townhouse nearby, so it’s good for the kids to ride around here.”

The positive way to look at all of this is that, after decades of car-specific suburban planning, Americans are rejecting this spiritually disengaged lifestyle, repurposing the detritus, and returning to existence on a more human scale.

On the other hand, the negative view is that these crumbling malls represent the erosion of the middle class, and that suburban banality has merely been supplanted by a more insidious form of urban banality for those who can afford it.  The soul (or lack thereof) of the mall has merely shifted downtown and gotten more expensive.  It's a shell game of vapidity, and the banks and chain stores always win.

It's enough to make you give up in disgust and move off the grid, and I'd do so myself if only the grid weren't so full of movies and TV shows:

I can't quit you, grid.

Moving from grid to gravel, it had to happen--that's right, it's the word's first gravel-specific shifting system:

--Compatible with Shimano’s most current 10 speed Dyna-sis and Shadow Plus MTB derailleurs.
--GX Shifters are compatible with most if not all cable braking systems.
--Provides both long and short pull brake leverage to work with any cable fed system.
--New aesthetics and cable angle dropped 10 degrees for a sleeker cockpit.
--GX are sold as a complete pair. Left mount and shift lever removable for use in a 1X set up.
--Gevenalle Crash Warranty: No Questions asked, Rebuild/Replace as needed for $34 a unit including shipping in USA
--GX shift levers not backwards compatible with CX mounts due to their larger size.

Okay, that's actually pretty cool.  

The long-or-short pull option seems particularly nifty.

Still, if I read the word gravel again, or see another orange-and-camo bike--or, worst of all, encounter both of these things together--I'm going to puke.

By the way, you may remember Gevenalle as Retroshift, who first began garnering attention with their clever cyclocross shifter:

In other words, it's basically a Campagnolo shifter by way of Portland.

Even so, I still find it about a thousand times more interesting than electronic shifting.

Lastly, some roadies have invented a new Fred wheel, which as far as I can tell is no different than any other Fred wheel that has come before it:


"The design and concept has been proved out in a matter of a half an hour."

Yep.  Round things roll.  What a concept.

Spoken like a true pro cyclist.