Titles Are The Pie Plate of Literature

I'm not on the Facebook, but subsequent to the publication of my Outside thing about the Tour de France I went to their Facebook page, which Zuckerberg and Co. graciously let non-Facebookies look at provided they are willing to peer around this annoyingly-placed rectangle:

In so doing, I was bemused to find hundreds of incensed comments beneath the link to my piece, most of which were some variation on the theme that I'm stupid because the Tour is awesome and so should return to my "safe space."  If this represents the typical Outside reader I find this highly encouraging, since if they're this easily upset it should be great fun to continue taunting them for as long as the magazine will continue to have me. In fact I'm already at work on my next missive, tentatively titled "Fuck Mountaineering."

By the way, I'd be willing to bet that 90% of those Facebook commenters have not watched a Tour since 2005.

Then again, I should probably work a little harder to understand the outdoorsy demographic, since I'm assuming there's got to be something in between the types of people who buy stuff from Best Made and chop wood in photography studios:

And the potbellied cargo-shorted suburbanites who shop at REI and buy racks they'll never use for their meticulously detailed SUVs.

However, if there is I have yet to encounter it.

Alas, I'm a lot more familiar with the cycling demographic--who, when you retweet a found stolen bike:

Recognize this bike? #BikeNYC

We arrested 2 males stealing this bike, locked to a street sign on York Ave & E 78 St. #UpperEastSide #UES pic.twitter.com/ELoi1pVtVa

— NYPD 19th Precinct (@NYPD19Pct) July 10, 2017

Reply with comments about bike setup:

Or smugly tell you how things work in France:

There are a lot of annoying people on the Internet, but we cyclists truly are the worst:

(Via here.)

Hey, I practically invented making fun of fixies, but it's 2017 now and I just wanna see that person get their bike back.

Speaking of the Tour de France, yesterday's Stage 9 was certainly exciting, but not for the right reasons:



Prompting another one of Outside's know-it-all pundits to call out the race organizers:

Knowing a route like the back of your hand comes into play in the Tour de France. While I thought today’s 182-kilometer course into Chambéry was really stupid—a supposed “queen stage” that doesn’t end with an epic climb—the GC contenders still needed to know it like they do their home terrain. A twisty-turny descent as critical as today’s demands that you and your team ride it in training three to four times. I mean, you really need to know it. Not to say Porte didn’t know the downhill, but today either an overcorrection or a bad line sent him to the ground, and then straight across the road and into both Dan Martin and the rocky hillside. No way for Martin to save that crash, and Porte goes to the hospital, reportedly breaking a collarbone and his pelvis. I totally disagree with this kind of dark, moist, dangerous downhill before a queen-stage finish. Because of it, the 2017 Tour has lost another one of its big names.

Other outlets were critical as well:

Questions must be asked of race organisers Amaury Sports Organisation (ASO) for including a treacherous final descent after one of the toughest climbing stages in recent Tour history. Rather than settling for a typical summit finale, ASO opted for the stage’s fourth technical descent and a finish in Chambéry. Porte was one of 11 riders to fall during the day, with Froome’s lieutenant Geraint Thomas also suffering a race-ending shoulder injury. Martin, who completed the stage despite crashing into Porte, offered guarded criticism of ASO afterwards. “I guess the organisers got what they wanted,” said the Quick-Step Floors rider. Cycling is an inherently dangerous sport, but this was just gratuitous.

Criticizing a stage that not only takes out a favorite but results in serious injury?  These people really need to return to their "safe space."

In other crash news, Esteemed Commenter Daddo One informs me a driver slammed into a Hubway station in Boston:

According to police, officers responded to the intersection around 3:59 a.m. Saturday where they found a black Cadillac “in the middle of the Hubway Station with multiple damaged bicycles surrounding it.’’

The vehicle was unoccupied.

Seems pretty innocent to me.  Clearly the driver decided to exchange his Cadillac for a bike so he attempted to dock his car and then rode off.  Hey, I read the Hubway instructions, and nowhere do they explicitly say the docks won't accept Caddies:

If anything we should welcome this driver into the fold and gift him with a "One Less Car" sticker.

Lastly, Bret sightings continue unabated, and here's one via a reader in which he's inspiring students at a London secondary school to pursue a career in biology:

Given Bret's omnipresence and ability to bend space and time physics would seem a more appropriate course of study, but then again his soul patch no doubt harbors untold biological mysteries, so I'll allow it.