Guilty Pleasures

Life can be overwhelming, and at one point or another we all feel ourselves buckling under the crushing weight of work and responsibility.  Add to that a few dispiriting news stories and it's enough to stop you dead in your tracks.  That's why it's important to indulge yourself in a guilty pleasure every now and again, and some of my favorites these days include eating ice cream and crying, crying, and watching TV while eating ice cream and crying.

But I'm extremely fortunate that my most favoritest of guilty pleasures is also part of my job as a semi-professional bike blogger, and it it this:

Riling up the readers of Outside magazine.

By the way, note that I said "riling up" and not "trolling," since it's an important distinction.  See, trolling implies saying something that has no redeeming value just for the sake of upsetting people, but what I write for Outside does in fact have redeeming value because it's expertly curated artisanal content and it will only upset you if you're full of shit or stupid or both.  Consider my last column:

It's clear to the thinking person from the title alone that some hyperbole is about to follow, and if you missed that then there's the subtitle to really drive it home:

Why it will destroy cycling, society, and the planet if we let it

It should also be doubly clear within the context of our time, because while both the title and the subtitle may be objectively true of, say, our president, they are obviously not true of, say, a squishy fork.  And of course, anybody with any sense could tell the point of the article is that rigid bikes can be lots of fun and that the prevailing notion that you need suspension at all times is simply not the case.  Nevertheless, just as I knew they would, the "adults who play with toys" demographic got all hurt in their butts on Outside's Facebook page and it was a joy to read:

Brian, you sound like kind of a putz, so by all means don't wait up.  And Mike, what's wrong with having a 1997 Gary Fisher?  Anybody still riding a 20 year-old bike is awesome.  Thanks for the tech advice on the lockout though, I'll totally get rid of my rigid bike and start riding a locked-out suspension bike isntead.

Another common type of angry bike commenter is the frustrated tech weenie:

You do realize Outside pick the photos, right?  Spoiler alert: I didn't choose the font either.

And then there's always the person who wants to dismiss everything as youthful folly:

Nope.  Wrong, Paul.

Also, you're the one using emojis.

In any case, all of this proves something I've always believed, which is that when it comes to being simpering gear weenies the Mountain Bike Freds (or "Barneys") are a thousand times worse than the roadies.

Speaking of everything that's wrong with society, you may have heard about that bike lane protest in Minneapolis, but if not you can read more about it over on the Bike Forecast:

You'll want to click here once you have.

Meanwhile, up in America's Ceremonial Head Covering, an Ottawa driver has some damning evidence indeed that cyclists are profoundly reckless.  Here's the description:

This was shot from my dashcam near Algonquin College and is why I believe fine for bicyclists should be twice that of an automobile driver.

And here's the shocking video:



Cover your eyes in horror, but peek through your fingers as at 28 seconds a cyclist with panniers rides slowly through an empty intersection:

Seems to me the most dangerous moment in the video was when the driver yelled at him.