If It Handles Like It's On Rails, That's Only Because It Is.

Hey, look, it's a bunch of bros bro-ing out in a no-bros-barred bro-down!


Yes, it looks like the new MASH movie will have everything that gets duders excited.  There's flat-brim caps:

Frantic spinning:

Tats-n'-flannels:

Beards:

Obligatory Dirt Segments (ODS):

Whip-skidzzz:

Jorts:

Gratuitous car-touching:

Rainbow farts:

Face tats:

And of course some good old-fashioned skitching:

All of which is enough to make anybody with any sense conclude, "Fuck it, I'm leasing a Hyundai."

I can't wait until the part where they slay a bunch of dirt trails on their fixies and then make really expensive coffee over a campfire.

Here's the cast, in case you were wondering:

Featuring: Dylan Buffington, Chas Christiansen, Walton Brush, Kyle Murphy, Evan Murphy, Rainier Schaefer, Matt Shapiro, Eddy Bach, Sean Geivett, and more.

Come on, those names have to be made up.  Is this a bike crew or the founding members of the Yale Glee Club?  Chas?  Walton?  Dylan Buffington?  Of the Newport, RI Buffingtons?!?  I'm pretty sure I went to Choate with his brother*.

*[Disclaimer: I did not go to Choate, hence my inchoate intellect.]

Of course, if all of this bro-tacular mishigas is too stressful for you, you can always opt for the more rustic and genteel world of rail biking:

The mechanical contraption is called a rail bike — metal vehicles, powered much like bicycles, that travel a six-mile stretch of abandoned track.

Personally I'm more of a handcar fellow myself:

But if you want to ride a recumbent on rails then by all means go right ahead.

I was surprised however to learn that rail biking was "invented about 200 years ago:"

Rail biking is not a new concept, at least not in other countries. Invented about 200 years ago, the bikes are used now for recreation in several European countries and in South Korea, where riders can explore defunct mining towns.

A claim that strikes me as spurious inasmuch the pennyfarthing was only invented in like 1870.

Though I guess the draisine is about 200 years old, so presumably primitive proto-Freds wasted no time in saying, "Fuck it, let's ride this thing on the train tracks!"

(Before there was MASH there was Captain Crotch-Crutch.)

And yes, of course there are rail biking "edits:"



Sure, there's no skidding or car-touching, but there is confusion and delay.

Speaking of urban cycling, some smug brainiacs are studying how much pollution we're sucking down while cycling in New York City:



To that end, they're wearing this sweet smog-measuring kit while riding:

I see two possible conclusions emerging from this study:

1) A recommendation that we cease cycling on the roads and instead utilize draisines in the subway tunnels;

or

2) That Strava should adjust its metrics to account for Air Quality Index (AQI):

After all, shouldn't your effort be worth more on a maroon day than a yellow one?

Meanwhile, in other smugness news, I was watching this show called "Difficult People" and in it one of the characters hits David Byrne with that which he does not own:

("Do I look like I'm laughing?")

Speaking of cameos (sort of), we can’t resist sharing this slight spoiler: the highlight of the first episodes comes when Billy, learning to drive, hits a cyclist on East 6th Street (right where a similar accident occurred in The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby) and the biker turns out to be David Byrne. He’s played by a stand-in rather than by the actual Talking Heads frontman and color guard fanatic. That’s probably because of lines like “Yes, David Byrne is fine, alive and well and ready to make music that reminds us he used to be good” and “I think he’s okay. I mean, some of his recent stuff has been pretty pretentious, but he gets a lifetime pass for Stop Making Sense.”

I have to say it was pretty amusing, because if you can't laugh at David Byrne falling victim to a hit-and-run then really, what's left?

(My life's ambition is now to get run over by a subway train whilst rail biking in a comedy show.)

Finally, I was reading All Hail The Black Market recently and was amused to learn that the always litigious Mike Sinyard will be the subject of the next installment of the "Ask A Founder" series:

I guess what I’m saying is Specialized is like the Stone Temple Pilots of the bike world. They are very successful, and make/market a product that is adored by people the world over, yet to my personal aesthetic, is a vague, and sub-par facsimile of something much better.

Should be an entertaining evening.