Sorry I'm Late, But I'm Old and Slow Now

After a night of uneasy dreams in which I was being chased by Roberto Heras:

I awoke in a cold sweat only to realize it's only a few more days until the Brompton World Championship race in New York City:

In which, as a budding Bromptonaut, I will obviously take part:

Plus, you know, I've got that suit:

As a semi-professional bike blogger I have scant opportunity to wear a suit, and if it weren't for the race I'd have to wait for someone I know to get married or die--or, failing that, my own demise:

Please bury me with my Brompton as it's the only bike that will fit inside my carbon fiber coffin.  Of course, it does technically still belong to Brompton, so if they want it they'll have to exhume me, which sounds like the premise for a bicycle-themed zombie movie called "Undead Fred."

In the meantime, rest assured that this very morning I weighed down the Brommie with ballast and headed out for some Cat 6-style bridge intervals:

Victory may be elusive, but I've already got intoxication in the bag.

Speaking of fashion, fancy shoe purveyor Christian Louboutin harnessed the awesome marketing power of bicycle polo to showcase a $995 pair of sneakers:

FLORENCE, Italy — Isolationists, take note. Politicians may build walls, seal borders, freeze passports and talk trash about international cooperation, yet the realities of our global interdependence remain unchanged. Though it may no longer be the world’s largest manufacturer of pig iron or steel, the United States remains a powerhouse thought generator whose cultural exports — think rock ’n’ roll, graffiti, Pop Art, software, computer gaming, skateboarding, surfing, sportswear, the list is extensive — are avidly taken up around the world.

Consider the spectacle that opened the 92nd edition of Pitti Uomo, the twice-yearly men’s wear trade fair that is not only the world’s largest such event, but also by far its most creatively adventuresome.

I'm not sure I'd include bike polo as a uniquely American cultural export.  Were we even responsible for it in the first place?  And if we were, did the current hipster variation actually originate in Seattle?

In a plaza set before the 14th-century basilica of Santa Maria Novella, in the heat of a Tuscan morning, polo grounds had been set up, complete with barricades, safety nets and goal posts. The playing field was not for an equestrian tournament but for its two-wheel variant, hardcourt bike polo — a growing and super-democratic version of the sport of kings, one with roots among off-duty bicycle messengers in Seattle.

“Bike messengers did it after work,” said Julian Aristeo, a mechanic who first trained as a graphic designer and who is a member of the three-man Gnarcats, a Seattle team. Though in ordinary play, hardcourt bike polo is notably unisex, for Pitti the teams were all male. “It’s a men’s wear show, after all,” Mr. Aristeo said.

Well I don't know if Seattle's where this current iteration of bike polo started, but as far as who actually invented it in the first palce, according to a popular online user-edited encyclopedia it was proto-Fred in Ireland by the name of Richard J. Mecredy:

The game was invented in County Wicklow, Ireland, in 1891 by retired champion cyclist Richard J. Mecredy, editor of The Irish Cyclist magazine.

Though my own research points to Francis Wilson of New Rochelle, NY:

I suspect however that neither of these are true, and I'm working on a theory that the game was in fact invented by a Cleveland cyclist who needed to transport a ham home from the butcher shop by bicycle.  The ham was too unwieldy and succulent to carry, and his bike was not equipped with a basket or rack, and so he used a broom to push the ham home while riding alongside it

And that's how bike polo was born.

Lastly, after a failed Kickstarter campaign, Velo Visor is back with a flashy new video:


Originally the were looking for six thousand of your British Pounds Sterling:



But now they've lowered their goal to £300 (or three hundred eighty-two of our American Fun Tickets) which hardly seems worth it:



Wonder if I can get one in time for the Brompton World Championships.