Tuesday, February 7, 2017

"Common sense," you say? Sorry, it's not ringing a bell.

As a semi-professional bike blogger, you can be sure that when someone offers me free content I take advantage of it:


With the latest acquisition of the US-based test lab Friction Facts, our team has been busy the last months working to release an improved formula of the fastest racing chains in the world - the CeramicSpeed UFO Racing Chains.

The new formula provides 15% less friction than the previous version and the lifetime of the optimisation is now prolonged to a minimum of 600 km/370 miles. 

By the way, Friction Facts is a subsidiary of Fake News LLC.

From pro cycling to claims of increased performance due to enhanced bottom bracket stiffness, the bike industry invented fake news and don't you forget it:



It's hard to decide which category is funniest, but I think I've got to go with "pedaling response," because what does that even mean?  Isn't that a function of hub engagement?  And how do you score that on a scale?  Either the hub engages or it doesn't and you destroy your crotch on your top tube.  I mean sure, some hubs engage more quickly than others (or at least sound like they do, which is what most Freds base their assessments on), but come on.

I do admit however that the entire scoring system is nothing short of genius.  Here's how it works:

1) Pick a vague, subjective ride characteristic;
1) Pick an arbitrary number (oh, I dunno, 15 maybe?) and make it the best;
2) Make sure you use decimal points when scoring the bike so the arbitrary scoring system seems incredibly precise.

And that's how you do pseudoscience.

In other bike tech news, here's yet another complete waste of money, time, and electronics courtesy of Kickstarter:


If you've ever used a bicycle bell, you know they're tiny unobtrusive mechanical devices that last roughly forever.  Fortunately, somebody's finally corrected this problem by making one that rings through your phone:


"When you are out riding, all you do is press the Bellio button, and a loud bell sound will come from your phone."

Jesus fucking Christ.  When I'm out riding, all I do is ring my bell, and a loud sound comes from my bell.  SO WHY CAN'T IT JUST COME FROM THE BELL???

I don't know, but the guy who invented it sure looks smug about his invention, even by Australian standards:


But don't worry, because here's the good news:


"And the good news is, is that the phone can be kept safely stored in your pocket where it already lives."

Yes, if your goal is to project sound to people in your path, I can think of no better place for the source of that sound than buried deep in the pockets of your sweaty club cut cycling jersey just a few inches north of your ass crack.

Just think, until now we've been placing our primitive analog mechanical bells on our handlebars.  What were we thinking?

I was also shocked to see that a bike video from Australia featured illicit footage of flagrant helmetlessness:


It was my understanding that this sort of thing was strictly forbidden by the Advertising Standards Bureau, so I've gone ahead and corrected it for them:


We can all rest easier now.  After all, had someone seen the original footage they might have been tempted to imitate it and learn the truth the Australian government doesn't want you to know, which is that it's possible to ride a bicycle without wearing a helmet and not die.

Still, there are some undeniable advantages to an electronic smartphone bell that rings from your tramp stamp area.  For example, it can bewilder people by making sounds that have nothing to do with bicycles:

"The Bellio bell sound is just like a traditional bell, but to give you some flexibility we have added some stretch goals to our campaign to make the bell sound configurable."

Such sounds include car horn:


Barking dog:


And rooster:


Because when pedestrians in urban areas hear rooster sounds the first thing that comes to mind is an approaching cyclist.

Really, if you want to take advantage of an electronic bell's potential to clear a path for you, why not have it make the sound of a gigantic wet fart?

This would also be highly effective in preventing bear attacks:



"With this feature enabled, the Bellio app will make your phone emit a continuous ringing bell, which is great for warning wildlife that you are approaching."

It's also great for making sure your phone is completely dead when you actually need it.

Incredibly, after all this, the inventor still expects you to give him money:


"Kickstarter, please help me bring the traditional bell into the future."

Absolutely fucking not.

Why don't you bring your look into the future, Captain Cargo Shorts?



On any given day, you can find a couple thousand riders pedaling away inside the virtual reality training game of Zwift. While the virtual courses of Watopia, London and Richmond will never compete with riding outside, Zwift can provide effective engagement for cyclists who are stuck riding inside on a trainer.

You're only "stuck riding inside on a trainer" if you're dumb enough to ride a trainer in the first place  Sure, in my deep dark days of Fredness I too used to ride a trainer, but then I realized that riding a trainer is stupid.  If you're stuck inside, why not do something that's enjoyable to do inside?  Read a book.  Watch TV.  Interact with friends, family, and loved ones.  Masturbate.  All of these activities are optimized for indoor enjoyment, whereas cycling--even with an avatar and an Ant+ sensor unit stuck to your scranus--is not.  Furthermore, there's no reason to attempt to maintain your fitness during spells of bad weather, because you totally suck, and it only takes like three rides outside to regain the meager, pathetic fitness you had before.

Yet instead of learning this important lesson Freds will no doubt pass their ridiculous behavior on to their kids:



If your bike-loving tyke wants to be "just like Mom and Dad"—especially when you're crushing your trainer ride on Zwift Island—then Fisher-Price has a product for you: the SmartCycle, a stationary bike that's designed to help kids learn through educational electronic games. 

Horrifying.

63 comments:

  1. I'll get back to you. Nice day out there. Goin' riding.

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  2. Oh. And The F in Fucking is caps with Jesus Fucking Christ. One of those things. Now I'm going riding.

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  3. ...topus tenus... after a hi-8-tus, snob is early-us

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  4. EEW. Who farted?

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  5. 1956 TdF Champion Roger Walkowaik dead at 89.

    France announces National Day of Mourning; Transit Workers declare strike in remembrance.

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  6. "This would also be highly effective in preventing bear attacks:"
    Someone let Betsy DeVos know this. Then she can advocate for this instead of guns in schools.

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  7. The Tri-Dorkus Maximus Foul Weather Training Program:
    -Breast strokes in the bathtub
    -Treadmilling
    -Zwifting

    Ain't no time off for an Ironman!

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  8. These ceramic chain things are getting ridiculous. I've been known to use a $5 chain from Walmart before, and it surprised me to learn that it actually worked. Furthermore, my bikeen speed and whatnot was no more, or less, craptacular than with the $15 KMC chains that I normally use.

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  9. At least not at the end

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  10. top SCORE as me buddy ole abe would say

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  11. Ted K. apparently won't be here today because he's presently getting buggered by a horse and it's not clear when the horse is going to be done with him. Ted K. is the stallion's little bitch and Ted LOVES it that way.

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  12. I think I just groked what those cell-phone based bells are about. First, it's not for the people in the promotional video any more than Swiffers are for clean homes full of natural light. It's not for chill, helmet-less cyclists on steel bikes. It's for Freds. Freds whose bikes frames are a shaped like a series of trapezoidal stingray dicks. Now half of these Freds will not want a bell messing up the beautiful lines of their Calatrava bikes and the rest won't have room for a bell because all off the space is taken up with tiny screens displaying speed, power meter data, heart rate and scrotum temperature (Fredericas would measure their luteinizing hormone levels).

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  13. "Weasels Ripped My Flesh."

    -Frank Zappa

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  14. TIL: Stingray dicks are trapezoidal.

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  15. I'm nostrum about stingray dicks, but I canny for a fact that wombat poop is cube shaped.

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  16. Furthermore, there's no reason to attempt to maintain your fitness during spells of bad weather, because you totally suck, and it only takes like three rides outside to regain the meager, pathetic fitness you had before.

    I must differ. It takes 3 consecutive weeks of riding 3 days a week to reach my pathetic plateau.

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  17. Lieutenant ObliviousFebruary 7, 2017 at 12:14 PM

    Wait, masturbation is optimized for indoors? You could have told us that a long time ago!

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  18. A lot of 'innovations' in the bike business can, at best, be characterized as solutions in search of a problem. See, e.g., electronic shitting. Cable actuated shifters work great, they're easy to repair and can be repaired by any shop anywhere in the world, and they don't rely on a stupid battery to work. But in order to milk Freds out of their $$, Shimano and their toadies in the bike media created the perception that cable actuated shifting was insufficient and that Freds would be subject to ridicule from their fellow cat6ers if they didn't upgrade. These idiotic Kickstarter projects like phone bells, 'smart' locks, or 'smart' lights are of the same ilk but divorced of market pressures and common sense.

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  19. I give this post 14.8/15 for comfort, 14/13 for readability, 24% for radiance, 12/24 for sheen, and on a scale of 1 to 11, a B.

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  20. Excuse that last post, I'm a Bowling Green survivor.

    FAKE NEWS

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  21. So that Bike Phone/Bell comes from Australia????....Now I know why Fearless Leader hung up on that guy..........PS. "fake News" started with Patent Medicine in the 1800's.....(Or maybe luxury timeshare pyramids in 1800 B.C.)

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  22. Technical FAQ: Why do my three bikes handle differently?

    One used the Rooster? On the other the barking dog? Maybe? And of course the third had all the weight of a 'bell' up there on the cockpit! Duh...

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  23. Oh Apple's auto-correct! I'm not sure about stingray dicks, but I know for a fact that wombat poop is cube shaped.

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  24. Stingray dicks and wombat poop. Man, I'm going to have some weird Googles when I get home from work!

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  25. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  26. Lieutenant ObliviousFebruary 7, 2017 at 1:34 PM

    Stingray dicks are always small, that's why they buy Corvettes in the first place. You need a microscope to find a Porsche dick and an electron microscope to find a Ferrari or Lamborghini dick.

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  27. Ive already got Bellio beat. I simply set a bike bell sound as my text message alert. Then, when im ready to go for a ride i tell my girlfriend, "hon, im going for a ride, i wont be able to read and answer texts for a while." Next thing i know, my phone is in a state similar to the Bellio "continuous ring mode"...

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  28. Bell protects you from potential Grizzlies.

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  29. The ceramic chain lasts how many miles??? [Guffaws and then spits out water.]

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  30. Friction facts just sounds dirty.

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  31. To paraphrase the great Crocodile Dundee:

    That's not a Bluetooth bike bell. This is a Bluetooth bike bell: http://www.timeout.com/london/blog/thisbluetooth-bicycle-bell-sends-an-email-tothe-mayor-of-london-about-dangerous-roads-061516

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  32. I hate myself a bit - took a ride around the city at lunch...one of the shops I stopped off in had a bike set up on a trainer and a TV with Zwift running. I took it for a spin and enjoyed myself. WTF. It's real easy to ride 23 mph when you have zero wind resistance!!

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  33. Ringa ding ding!

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  34. I want my faux bell to sound like a kaaah hoohn!

    --le Correcteur

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  35. Totally just looked at the dolphin dick

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  36. I think that dolphin was driving a black kia Sorrento in statin island

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  37. For whom the Bellio honks, barks or cockadoodledoos...they'll probably laugh themselves silly.

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  38. Nothing to Crow AboutFebruary 7, 2017 at 5:03 PM

    If you want to sound like a rooster, just give your cock a squeeze. (male riders only)

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  39. Step 1: Find existing mechanical produce that works well, is inexpensive and durable.
    Step 2: Replace with electric model that doesn't work as well, is expensive and fragile.
    Step 3: Profit!

    Who wants to help kickstat the Electric Bicycle Chain? It puts out more watts than you put in!

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  40. "Bellio gives you all the functionality of a bike bell in a slim package" apart from the bell. You need to buy a 600 buck smartphone for it to mooch off. So none of the functionality of a bell then.

    It doesn't even reproduce the absence of two (2) battery based points of failure that every analogue/retro bell doesn't have. It isn't even a fucking invention. It's a bluetooth button paired with a fart app.

    Suddenly the state of US politics starts to look like the least of humanity's problems. What time is Ow!, My Balls! on? Still, I'm the old man yelling at clouds so perhaps I'm the cunt here.

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  41. Thank-you for making me laugh today.

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  42. I think of Peter, who whenever he heard the sound of a rooster-call bikebell, would weep bitterly.

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  43. Freddy Murcks,

    I could use some electronic shitting today.
    The cable actuated shitters aren't holding their position.
    I think I may just shit manually though, I bet things will work out in another day or two.

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  44. Helmetless woman in Bellio video can be explained by the fact that many of the shots in the video were filmed in Europe. Note cyclists riding / bus shelters, etc on the right side of the road. In Oz, it all happens on the left side of the road.

    Fairly sure the wallaby in the closing shot was in Oz, though.

    Fun fact: snakes aside, Australian animals aren't anywhere near as dangerous as your bears, cougars, etc. But, cuddly as some of them might look (koalas), don't be fooled - they are all hostile.

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  45. If we spent all of our time reading your sharp-tongued, insightful and utterly hilarious stories, we'd never get anything done.

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  46. Man...not that I'm retro or anything, but my phone is still in my house, hooked to a line that goes to a plug in the wall (and we have DSL too...is that slow?). I wonder if I can that phone sound like a bike bell? That would be cool!

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  47. How fredly is the bellio? Very, especially clamped over the front shift and brake cables.

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  48. Commie 12:21 you must have gone to a Charter School. A+

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  49. bad boy of the northFebruary 8, 2017 at 10:47 AM

    #whatfakebellareyouusing.

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  50. #whatringtonedoesyourfakebellhave

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  51. Think I could configure the Bellio to replace my mechanical cloppers from Trotify?
    http://www.trotify.com/

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  52. Think I could configure the Bellio to replace my mechanical cloppers from Trotify?
    http://www.trotify.com/

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  53. I give this post 1 14.8 for build and a 14.2 for handling. It was a little noodley with some goofy tiller effect.

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