I Came, I Saw, I Participated

It's the tail end of a New York City winter that hasn't seen much snowfall until now.  However, it looks like nature has decided to sell off its excess inventory, because as of last week it seems to be coming down every few days.  In fact, in a cruel bit of irony, the first bicycle-cycling race of the season was supposed to happen this past Saturday, but it got cancelled due to snow.

Of course, in the 21st century you're supposed to blame global warming for this sort of thing, but the truth is in this case it's all my fault.  As you know, I'm in the throes of a midlife crisis, which in my case means a return to doing stupid stuff like effing up my foot on a skateboard and waking up at 3:30am to get dropped from bike races in Central Park.  So severe is this crisis that I even procured a new crabon Fred Sled recently, which was to become my dedicated park racing bike:

(There's no need for me to take a photo of my bike because it's exactly the same as the one pictured; I haven't changed a single thing besides adding pedals and bottle cages and leaving a single spacer beneath the stem.)

Alas, despite my entreaties to not take riding bikes seriously and stuff, I am in truth a massive hypocrite.  See, as of the end of last week the streets were pretty messy, and despite the fact that I got this bike specifically to use for racing in the park I didn't want to get it dirty while racing it in the park.  (I am still clinging desperately to the intoxicating quality of whatever the bicycle equivalent of "new car smell" is.)  And so, last Thursday, I sacrificed some of my precious cycling time to get my Ritte back into rideable condition, figuring I'd use that instead:

This bike was my workhorse at this time last year, and as a result of slush and road salt it had become so befouled that the brakes and rear derailleur had seized up to the point where they were no longer useable.  And so, rather than take the time to free them up again, I simply replaced them with older units I had in my parts bin.  It all came together pretty well despite my haste, and I daresay if you squint it even looks like one of those titanium bikes you may have read about in the Wall Street Journal:

The clean aesthetic of a titanium frame, hand-welded by an artist, adds a refreshingly romantic note to bikemaking in an era of "lab-tested sterility" https://t.co/hTp44rwbxW

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) March 3, 2019

I confess I haven't read the article, but what says "lab-tested sterility" more than a titanium bike, which is basically as close as you'll come to the aesthetics of a surgical implement?  Unless you lived during Victorian times or you're going to a steampunk surgeon to get your moles removed, when was the last time you saw a lugged steel scalpel?

In any case, once I'd gotten the Ritte back into rideable shape I thought to myself, "Wow, that looks pretty good."  Then I took it for a test ride ride around the block and thought to myself, "Wow that rides pretty good too!"  By this time I was pretty excited to ride it in Saturday's race, but then the race got cancelled and since then we've only gotten more snow, which means I haven't been able to ride the thing at all--divine punishment, obviously, for being the kind of terminal Fred who curates two basically identical bikes because he doesn't want to get one of them dirty.

And that's why this shitty weather is all my fault.

Meanwhile, this year's winter workhorse has been my Milwaukee:

Which as been so versatile and dependable that it deserves some sort of award:

Though so far I've repaid it with nothing but neglect:

Nevertheless, it has carried me dutifully through a winter which, at this point, is getting pretty freaking old already:

As a season, winter certainly has its charms, but by the time March rolls around it's mostly just dismal:

I definitely deserve some kind of award.