The Tintinnabulation of the Bicycle Bells

Further to yesterday's post about the High Bridge, I neglected to mention that Edgar Allan Poe used to frequent it:

Poe lived for awhile in a small cottage in what is now the Bronx, in what was then the rural village of Fordham, and if you're a fan of both Poe and cottages you can still go visit it:

If you do there's a really good Vietnamese place nearby, and if you ask nicely maybe I'll tell you where it is.

Anyway, I'm sure it was quite the little love shack*--until Poe's wife (and first cousin) Virginia died of tuberculosis in it.

Bummer, dude.

*[FACT: the lyrics to "Love Shack" by the B-52s were taken directly from an Poe poem called "Abattoir of Misery."]

Given all of this, it's worth pondering what sort of bike Edgar Allan Poe--one of those artsy types who's prone to sulking--would have ridden today.  I'd say either a Dutch-style bike like this one, since they go well with black capes:

Or maybe in his younger years a "murdered out" fixie like this one:

("Murdered Out In The Rue Morgue")

Incidentally, whenever anybody says "murdered out" I want to take the flat-brim baseball cap off their head and beat them about the face with it.

Also, speaking of yesterday, I rode home via the Hudson River Greenway, and just after the Fairway I encountered a woman blocking the entrance to the path with her stupid car for no apparent reason:

It was a beautiful day yesterday which meant there were lots and of cyclists using the path, so naturally the blockage was wreaking havoc with the bike traffic.  I didn't bother saying anything because I've learned over the years that people who engage in this sort of antisocial behavior are at best assholes and at worst lunatics, and that therefore it isn't worth it.  However, another rider did mention to her that she was blocking the bike lane, and her reply was as follows:

"KISS MY ASS!"

I was tempted to tell her that one would have to have a very large mouth to kiss that formidable posterior, but instead I continued on and thought about how miserable she must be to go around shitting on other people all day with her car and mouth.

In fact, she's probably almost as miserable as New South Wales minister for transport Duncan Gay, who is tearing out a protected bike lane in Sydney for no reason other than that he doesn't like cycling:

Duncan Gay, the New South Wales minister for transport, describes himself as “the biggest bike lane sceptic in the government”. On his journey in to the NSW parliament he has to drive past a $5m protected cycleway on College Street in Sydney’s central business district which was installed by Lord Mayor Clover Moore in 2010. Gay has ordered the cycleway to be removed, leading to consternation from cyclists in Sydney who point out that the College Street cycleway carries more cyclists in peak times than motorists on the adjoining road. They also point out that the path didn’t originally take a lane away from motorists so there has been no impact on travel time for motorists. (The College Street lane took the place of on-street car-parking.)

Wow.  I guess "bike lane skeptic" is Australian for "asshole."  I'd say that if anyone get killed after this it will be his fault, but of course nobody would blame him, because Australia has a helme(n)t law and their responsibility to cyclists ends there.

Meanwhile, some dumb magazine says Melbourne and Sydney are the 4th and 5th most livable cities in the world, in part because they "limit their nannying:"

“We’ve given extra marks to cities that limit their nannying and we’ve tried to give value to places where there’s something else we know is vital: freedom, grit, independence, a joy with life. We’re frustrated with city councils that are too quick to say no, places where parents never let their children run free and capitals that seem opposed to the odd late night out,” the magazine’s editor in chief, Tyler Brûlé, said in the magazine’s article.

Melbourne came in 4th, followed by Sydney, Stockholm, Vancouver, Helsinki and Munich. Last year’s top city, Copenhagen, slipped to the 10th spot, tied with Zurich.

Are you kidding me?  They have helme(n)t laws!  (As does Vancouver for that matter.)  The only way they could nanny people more would be to breastfeed them.

And speaking of Edgar Allan Poe (inasmuch as it is code for EPO) the trailer for the new Lance Armstrong movie has "dropped:"



Whenever anybody says a piece of media has "dropped" I want to force-feed them their collaborative sneakers.

As for the real life Armstrong, he stands to lose it all:

"I'm not going to be sorry for certain things," Armstrong said. "I'm going to be sorry for that person who was a believer, who was a fan, who supported me, who defended me, and ended up looking like a fool. I need to really be contrite and sorry about that. And I am. I'm more worried about Mary-Jane in Ohio, and Doug in Pennsylvania, or Liam in Birmingham, or wherever.

"Listen, if I could walk the world and face-to-face apologize, I would."

By the way, just to put a human face on it, here's Doug in Pennsylvania:

He is indeed feeling quite let down, but it has nothing to do with his cycling hero's downfall.

Anyway, when I read the part about apologizing face-to-face I had two thoughts, in this order:

1) What's stopping him from walking the world at this point?  He's been banned from every sport this side of cockfighting.  Walking the earth seems like a pretty good use of his time;

and

2) Specifically regarding apologizing to everybody, this:


"The Jerk" is without a doubt the finest film ever made on the subjects of hubris and falling from grace, though I suppose I can't blame the makers of "The Program" for trying.

Lastly, on the subject of disillusionment, Justin informs me that the Lone Wolf has forsaken his bedazzled Lotus autographed by dopers:

And instead taken up the fashionable pursuit of fat biking:

This represents nothing less than a fundamental shift in the very nature of cycling.