Wednesday Rolling In With The Autobus

Just as water takes the shape of the vessel into which it is poured, so does cycling adapt to your current lifestyle.  For example, before my days were consumed by child-curation, I used to spend hours and hours swaddled in Lycra and racing about on bicycles of crabon.  Now, if I'm lucky, I can maybe squeeze in a half-hour of Category 6 Citi Biking to get my competitive cycling fix:

(One of my rivals doing intervals on the stationary trainer.)

While I may eschew Strava, wattage meters, and the like, I do check my Citi Bike times, for in the Cat 6 universe this the only metric that matters.  And while my quasi-career as a semi-professional bike blogger has taken me as far as Jersey City on those bikes of blue, my personal fitness testbed is the York and Jay to MacDougal and Prince segment.  So after last night's run I logged in and was pleasd to find that my form is coming along right on schedule:

(Other trips blurred because my whereabouts are a matter of national security.)

The most recent trip is on top, and you'll notice that with each ride I'm shaving at least a minute off my previous time.  Clearly I've got good legs after the Brompton World Championships, and I only wish there were some other goofy novelty race coming up because I'm clearly peaking.  Alas, in the absence of formalized competitionI may just have to ride back and forth over one of the East River bridges asking other riders, "Do you want any of this?," at least until such time as I'm arrested.

Of course, when you're talking about competitive cycling you can't ignore the importance of equipment, and it helps that last night I arrived at the station just as they were unloading some fresh bikes:

This meant that:

1) I had my pick of the litter;
2) The bikes had been freshly tuned;
3) Presumably they'd been disinfected as well, making it slightly less likely I'd contract some sort of illness or horrific Froome-like parasite that could put paid to my entire racing season.

Anyway, when you're out of the saddle on a Citi Bike and it isn't creaking like wet rattan or slipping out of gear then you know you've chosen well:

At this rate I expect sub-18 minute times by September.

In the meantime, by way of a recovery ride I pointed my bike towards some dirt this morning, only to be greeted by a brace of tick-ridden sentinels:

Both of whom regarded me with vacant, expressionless faces:

Which, it's worth noting, is pretty much the same look you get from a typical roadie:

When I first started riding up this way I found the deer sort of beguiling, but now I realize they're common as squirrels, and I guess they're so pervasive because they have no natural predators apart from people who drive pickup trucks with TRUMP stickers on them.

Anyway, even my recreational cycling is conforming to the somewhat confining vessel which is my life, because I'm currently doing what was once unthinkable, which is riding with flat pedals:

I put them on a few weeks back for a leisurely afternoon eating-and-drinking tour of Brooklyn my wife and I did a few weeks back, and since then I can't really think of a good reason to take them off again.  While I certainly don't intend to dispense with clicky shoes altogether, I've also come to realize that they're mostly pointless a fair amount of the time, and only now am I beginning to truly embrace the joy of cycling in "regular" clothes--though it goes without saying that I plan to upgrade to titanium pedals immediately:

Then I'll need a pair of those $995 sneakers, and of course a special gravel-specific frame protector:



Please.

Frame protection is for "woosies."

Speaking of Kickstarters, here's one for a tool kit that goes in your steer tube:


I'm partial to tool rolls these days myself, but if you don't want to spoil the clean lines of your ugly-ass mountain bike (yes, all mountain bikes are ugly) this might be for you.

And sorry, Freds, it doesn't work with crabon:

The Dialed Cap is compatible with any metal 1-1/8'' Steer tube. Currently NOT compatible with carbon steer tubes.

Lastly, as a parent of a balance-biking toddler, I was simultaneously amazed and horrified by this video which was forwarded by a reader:



It's like watching a bunch of zoo seals at feeding time.