Join us for a fast-paced hour of ideas, entrepreneurs and bikes, capturing the exciting things happening in the bike industry at DRAFT: NYC in Brooklyn.
Directions:
61 Greenpoint Ave., Greenpoint, Brooklyn
The nearest train is G. Stop at Greenpoint Avenue and proceed to Brooklyn Bicycle Co. We're in suite 638 - buzz 970 and walk around the corner to the elevator and head up to the 6th floor!
Program:
6:30 - 7:00 pm: Beer and banter
7:00 - 8:00 pm: Program + Speakers
8:00 - 9:00 pm: More beer and banter
Speaker Lineup:
- Paul Steely White, Transportation Alternatives
- Eben Weiss, Bike Snob NYC
- Courtney Williams, The Brown Bike Girl
Yep, there I am, one of the featured speakers. As for what "exciting things happening in the bike industry" I'll be speaking about, I haven't decided yet, but I'm open to suggestions. At the moment I'm considering a treatise on how to determine the correct tire pressure, but if I give away all my pneumatic curation secrets I'll have nothing else left.
Also, a reader was kind enough to forward me the following commerical:
In it, Dad comes down the drive in his shiny GMC douchewagon:
Delighted, his son comes running:
Oooh boy, Dad has something special! What is it? A new bike maybe?
Nope! Kids don't ride bikes anymore, silly! It's a plastic truck!
Of course the kid is delighted:
And immediately takes off in it while wearing a fucking helmet:
All of which raises an important question:
If kids are now expected to wear helmets while driving, shouldn't adults be expected to do the same?
It only stands to reason.
59 comments:
Can't wait to find out where I finished.
hi!
...DID I WIN?
Should I start wearing a helment when reading bike blogs too?
I saw that commercial the other day. I had blown it off so fast with a roll of the eyes I didn't even notice the foam hat on the kid.
Believe it or not I just went 2 years with no TV. No satellite no cable nothing. Recently put up an antenna and been watching some network stuff and PBS, Yep just as stupid as I remember. Although the digital OTA signal is beautiful high def and really is nice to look at. And best of all free. Well antenna cost me $40 American fun stamps. Fair enough considering the 1200+ I was spending annually for cable or sat.
Anyways Yes those car commercials just keep getting dumber and dumber if that's even possible.
-Synonymous
Yes bike helment when reading.
Pants optional.
Is it thursday already? I woke up with chainringarmpitgirl, so understandably I missed most of it..
mm
at least in my mind...
Helmets 24/7. Can't be too safe. That's why there are no drive in restrooms.
You late, brother!
Yes, can't stand that ad - nauseating beyond belief. A few points about it:
Why does the Dad drive a pick up like that anyway? Clearly the only thing that will ever be placed in the back is that awful "toy" his spoiled kid gets, and there is no way the Dad helped put it in himself.
The kid sits alone in his "modern mansion" all day with no other kids around - maybe he is the 2017 version of "Richie Rich" but instead of spending the money on the giant toy, maybe the Dad (and Mom?) should enroll the kid in school and/or have him engage in activities with other little kids, at the Y or something. Just sayin'.
The helmet while joy-riding in the giant toy is just too much. And it isn't even on properly - so Richie Rich is not only spoiled rotten, he is a rottenly spoiled doofus. nice work, Pop!
Don't forget to change the air in your tires. It's Autumn you know.
That looks similar to my white GM douchewagon that Bank of America owns until I finish paying them back. It smells bad when the motor is on.
Snobby, don't you know that without a helment, your head will assplode if you go over 5 mph.
I wear a helmet while looking for my helment.
I wear a helmet while searching for my helmet.
wcrm,perhaps daddy-o will drive to and then park that douchewagon in the spot in da Bronx where that abandoned car is,after it gets towed.
Eleventeenth? Scranus!
I can't make it to Draft NYC on Wednesday, please post a listicle of your talk on Thursday or Friday next week.
I wonder if Dad Of The Year bought a little balance bike for Junior to run into a ditch with his Junior-sized douchewagon?
A bicycle industry Draft! Are we finally going to war against the auto-industrial complex? Sign me up!
Password retrieval security question on government healthcare website:
what was the make of your first car?
I never made an account, and I've never had a car. I did not make up first question. I cannot log in to see medicaid status as a result. I suspect I will sort through this soon, but this is a tragic comedy. This is my health and life we're talking about.
I have to admit, if I had been given a toy truck like that when I was that kid’s age, I’d have been over the moon. Even if I had to pedal it to make it go.
Now? It does look like it’d serve to make a good big boy’s potty.
Holy shit, that stupid plastic truck costs $350 plus $50 shipping at Walmart. You can buy a ridiculously nice bike for your kid for $400. And when they outgrow the bike, you can sell it and get back a healthy percentage of what you paid. Not so with the truck - that piece of junk is showing up on the curb with a "free" sign on it in two years - which I suppose is fitting because UberDouche's $45k truck is going to be worth $15k in "trade-in value" when he gets tired of it and heads back to the GMC dealership for his biennial reaming.
I will enjoy some beer and banter next Wednesday, but it will be from the comfort of my couch. I will wear a helmet in case the banter gets a little too bantery. I'll also be wearing high-waisted culottes.
I actually would like to hear what the speakers say, but my scranus can't leave Ohio just for beer and banter.
Wildcat, do you ever consider curating a YouTubing channel for your speaking engagements?
Regarding: "As for what "exciting things happening in the bike industry""
I would go for the continuing rise of Bike Share Bikes in more and more cities, and the accompanying rise of upright bike riding, and the reduction of bike hellmunt (sp) usage (relative to niche bikes) on Bike Share Bike facilities which stay in business, and the extraordinary safety record of Bike Share Bikes; safer than in the Netherlands where only 0.1% of people wear helments (sp), though 13% of hospital admissions are hyllmint(sp) wearers. I would also mention that the only 2 fatalities in the U.S. on Bike Share Bikes were wearing bike hullmutts (sp), and the only fatality in Canada was also wearing a hillmoot, but (and here's the punch line....wait for it...); Canadians don't really count. I would quickly state that Canadians are worth nearly as much as Americans, the Dollar exchange rate is a good place to start.
You'll probably go with something less morbid though......
Well, if your head sticks out of the top of your truck, or you drive a convertible perhaps you should wear a foam hat if you insist that cyclists wear 'em?
The bigger question is why, when the kid's barely learned to walk do we shove him into an electric buggy (a plastic GMC truck) of some kind..and then when he's too old and feeble to walk we shove him into another (like the Rascal)?
It seems a good name for a Rascal Fred would be "Hank". Seems old-timey. "Haha, that old Hank ran that guy with a walker into a ditch!"
Not really sure i get the punchline, comic. Maybe because i'm canadian. Thought of you, snob as soon as i saw that stupid fucking commercial.
Is "Dad" now a verb?
The funny thing is that Dad's douchewagon is also largely comprised of plastic. Little boy toys, big boy toys => same difference.
Looks like you rattled the hard core shreder's cage over at pinkbike :P They wouldn't have responded if they didn't feel threatened.
https://www.pinkbike.com/news/riding-rigid-is-ridiculous-opinion.html
Rule number one -- If you're not wearing work clothes, why the hell are you driving a truck?
gonna need a dual overhead door tool shed to store that mini monster truck. and somewhere to hang the helment.
dadding is a verbing nowing
truing thating!
As a "circus tall" doofus who's cracked his head off many low hanging tree limbs, heating ducts, etc., I'd be somewhat fascinated by an healement fad. Everybody, everywhere: "bump caps" galore. Kinda' like those Popular Mechanics visions of The Future: Jump suits and flying cars.
Yes!! Yes Yes Yes please! Speaking for those rare idiots among us (oh, am I the only one? Quelle surprise!!) who need to wear a plastic lid whilst sitting on the fucking toilet, I'm all for a law requiring those oh so entitled, budget draining, planet sucking murderists to wear one, too. Fair's fair, after all. And I did get my kid a stoooopid fucking expensive plastic jeep when he was 4 or 5, which was crazy since we both rode bikes absolutely everywhere. (I'd put his in the Burley when he was pooped out, and he's pass out while I hauled his ass around and made these massive muscles dragging boy bike and trailer up and down those mountains.) He never, ever got into a car on my behalf, but he wanted that Jeep something fierce. And he loved that fucking thing, too. Drove his little girlfriend around in it for years... Around the park, the driveway, and the garden, For Fun, while we rode bikes for transport, just like today: everywhere we went. Bass ackward mummy awards here...
BUT. That one just moved to SoCal to work for Mr Zuckerburgh, and when they hired him, they said "Nobody is invited to drive to work here at Instagram. Here's your bike." Heh heh heh.
The sweet taste of triumph. Heh. That son doesn't even want a driver's license, bless his millenial hipster heart.
Still standing, Mr Comic? Word is that over 70% of ALL head injuries admitted into hospital (here in Canada, and down there in that orange madman's playpen alike) are those inflicted upon people who have just been in, wait for it, a car crash!! So if there are ANY hellmutt laws, they really ought to pertain to those lazy assed folks sitting in motor vehicles, and not those on bikecycles.
Vernon Felton on pinkbike took the bait and wrote a piggyback response piece entitled "Riding Rigid is Ridiculous". However most of the pinkbike Barneys think "fully rigid" means a hardtail frame with suspension fork. Or something they wake up with in the morning.
Dearest Snob,
Your Pro-Rigidity column from a few days hence has been noted and rebutted by 'the powers that be'. How do you plead?
https://www.pinkbike.com/news/riding-rigid-is-ridiculous-opinion.html
I don't mean to brag, but my dog got us into the very exclusive Tour de Bronx this Sunday.
It will be just us and approximately 6,000 other riders.
Plus anyone else who shows up at 164th St and The Grand Concourse (near the Bronx Courthouse two blocks from Yankee Stadium) on Sunday morning at 9 AM if you haven't registered and checked in yet (or 10 AM if you have).
He also says I'll get a special commemorative orange vest and all I have to do is change flats and fix dropped chains.
The ride is free, but he's charging me for something called "VIP Bottle Service." All I have to do is give him my free pizza and T-Shirt at the end of the ride.
That seems fair.
beer and batter? pancake or baseball? If I was in the city I'd go to find out
thatadsucks - butIthinktherareworsecarads
Dearest Snob,
It appears the cognoscenti have taken note of your anti-squish stance and have responded in kind. Watch your back!
https://www.pinkbike.com/news/riding-rigid-is-ridiculous-opinion.html
Huh? What?
Wendell Montgomery and others,
I definitely care what Pinkbro thinks about my article and have nothing but respect for their wonderful community.
--Wildcat Etc.
Surprised to learn pumpkin is in fact a fruit "botanically" speaking
I hate pumpkin ale, and the pumpkin as a beer dispenser looks like a fun pinkbike project
Wow - just read the pinkbike link - glad I've never wasted a click on that bullshit site
And I can't wash that f'd up bike review analogy from my eyes - is Weinstein a PB contributor?
And it's been decades since my college days but my faded memory is people who drank too many shots banged into things, made anoukey mess and then crumpled up - not features anyone should want in a bike
Ugh... Pinkbike. I'll read a lot of dumb stuff. Hell, I've written a lot of dumb stuff. Everytime I follow a link to Pinkbike, I can feel my eyes about to roll right out of their sockets.
I went and read the Pinkbike article that the other commen-taters posted, and Pinkbro clearly missed the point.
I like how his form of "fun" is legit but anybody that wants something different is clearly doing it wrong. Right on, Pinkbro!
Clearly some folks' delicate sensibilities are becoming frayed at the Wildcat's ridiculous way of thinking!
Snob, I just artisinally shopped these ridiculous pants for you.... "Once your ride ends, you simply zip the back panel up and your jeans returns to their original everyday fit." https://www.resolutebayclothing.com/bike-shop/rb3-mens-cordura-cycling-jeans
N/A, if you're on the couch you don't need high waisted culottes. The high waist is for plumber's crack coverage and I assume your couch has a back.
Also, Leroy. I'll see you on Sunday, maybe. I'll definitely be there on the 40 mile route, but I'm not sure I'll see you on account of the other 6,000 people. And thank you for marshaling. Marshals make it so I don't even have to feign caring about people having mechanical problems.
If we all wore helments while driving in our infernal confusion machines, we'd survive a lot more accidents, that's for sure. But that commercial sure makes me quiver with indignation. Gawd, what ISN'T objectionable about it?
Who unloaded the plastic truck out of the plastic truck? Professional grade garbage
Okay, I only occasionally watch the videos but I had see the commercial and now I have questions. Like, where is the mother? I've got nothing against single fatherhood, but with that kid being alone all day, the absence of any other adult started to be glaring. Here's my take.
First, I'm not sure that is the kid's father. I mean, if you grab a kid to raise him as some sort of clone, you're going to keep him out of school to keep from getting caught. You're going to keep him away from TV and the internet where he could get ideas about forbidden things like "other kids," "moms," "school," and "grandparents." And the helmet plays an important role as a subtle reminder that the world is dangerous, so stay away from the windows when the mailman comes. In short, I think he does use the cab of his truck, just not for lumber but for hauling super-sized plastic bags of "junk" to the swamp. Alternately, he could be the boy's father and the mother just barely escaped with her life or is under the petunias because she brought a Yuba home. Either way, he's clearly grooming the boy to be the next "Architect Killer." I'm sure the lack of human contact will help the kid see his victims as slightly less human. Chilling.
I haven't seen the listicle for what to wear for beer and banter, so it's going to have to be high-waisted culottes since I sunk all of my clothing budget into them.
Also, I think somebody is enjoying Wednesday on a Friday, if you know what I mean. And I ain't talkin' 'bout Leroy's dog.
janine "Stephen King" dm,
Would it help to know that the actors portraying the perfect all male family unit are real Father and Son? No?
To everyone wondering about SuperDad only carrying the toy truck in the bed of his plastic truck: the truck in the add is only a 1500, out here in the square states that's considered a compact. If you actually want to haul loads you need at least a 2500.
Dear janinedm - I look forward to maybe seeing you in the sea of humanity on Sunday. I'll marshall the 40 mile ride. The weather looks good; there should be a crowd.
If we meet, my dog wants me to ask your opinion about a script idea he has based on the truck ad and your hypothetical. I don't know the details just yet, but he's calling it a Django and Boba Fett Family Christmas.
I almost forgot: ride safe all!
Wildcat,
I saw about 6 matching fat bikes riding together today. Must be some kind of fat bike share service...
Maybe you could poll your audience on the proper term for a group of fat bikes riding together in the city. Is it a herd, a flock, a gaggle, a swarm, or maybe a murder when seen in Minneapolis?
Best bumper sticker ever "Nice truck, sorry about your dick"
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