Screeching the Surface: Don't Sell the Steak, Sell the Squealing

"To err is human; to forgive, divine." At least, that's what some schlub who messed up a lot would have you believe. The truth is, it's just this sort of "Whatever, man, I messed up and now you have to forgive me or else you're an asshole" attitude that is rotting our society from within. Low standards and lower pants are destroying this country, and it's why Canada's dollar can now beat up our dollar. We shouldnt' tolarate mistakes, and the mistake maker should be punished. Punished!

Having said that, I kind of sort of made a little mistake last Friday. Specifically, on the quiz I administered that day, this was the first question:

The correct answer, I had you believe, was the last one: "All of the above." However, subsequent to distributing the quiz I checked my Twittering account, and to my considerable embarrasmentitude I saw the following "Tweet" from the author of the actual review:

Egads! Going back to the review, I read it more carefully, and indeed the Mavic Ksyrium Delyrium SLR SL Exalith Monothith Deluxe-Tastic Crap-Sys wheelset is not actually crabon. It just looks like crabon:

The reason it looks like crabon is because it's coated with some sort of Smucker's Magic Shell-like stuff that apparently improves braking and but also makes the bike shriek like a rider with his "pants yabbies" caught in the drivetrain in the process. Yes, nobody does proprietary shrieking wheel technology like Mavic, who in recent years also brought us the Ksyrium "death squeal." I'm hoping Mavic saw fit to include that same crappy bushing in the SLR Exalith wheel with the Smucker's coating, because the freehub squeal coupled with the rim coating squeal would make these well worth the $1,800 price tag.

Anyway, the upshot of all this is that "All of the above" was not the right answer. I apologize for this, and as compensation for the inconvenience I'm pleased to announce that Mavic will give everybody who took the quiz a $1,400 credit! All you have to do is, instead of buying the SLR Exalith chocolate-dipped wheelset, simply buy a pair of Mavic's perfectly serviceable road rims and attach them by means of traditional spokes to a decent quality pair of hubs. That's $1,400 right in your jersey pocket. Plus, use a menstrual cup on top of that and you'll save so much money you'll almost be able to afford to visit Canada!

In any case, after discovering my mistake I was already feeling pretty bad about myself. Then, I made the mistake of watching this video from the Dutch Cycling Embassy, which transported me to a sad realm of utter despondency:

According to the video, the Dutch have embraced cycling because they place a high value on human life, and this is precisely why we'll never see this level of bike-friendliness in America. Unlike the Dutch, we're an enlightened society, and we only place a high value on things like durable goods and real estate. Human life is supposed to get out of the way.

Still, this doesn't keep us from trying, and as you may have heard New York City is finally getting a bike-sharing program next year. In order to soften us up for it, there was a sample station set up in Brooklyn this past weekend, and so I headed over to take a look. The Dutch cycling video was still fresh in my mind, and as I rode to the demonstration I thought to myself, "What can we do to make New York City better for cyclists?" Well, we could probably start by taking the lampposts out of the bike lanes:

If you're Dutch this might seem like a bad thing, but at least it helps keep the cars out of the bike lane.

As I stood there contemplating New York's cycling present, I looked across the street, and there was the future:


Yes, it was a real-life bike sharing station, just like the ones I used in London:

I'm very pleased we're getting our own bike share, and I'm also pleased that as New York City gradually tires of the "fixie" craze it is now foisting it on other cities, like Paris:


I made a quick count, and the word "fixie" (or at least some variation thereof) appears 20 times:

Clearly the journalistic "Fixiedex" is still rather robust--unlike, say, a Spinergy Rev-X, though amazingly Parisians still seem able to obtain them:

I find it remarkable that there are almost no regional variations in the "fixie" trend and that the conformity is nearly total, though to be fair the French do appear to add their own little cultural flourishes, such as the top tube baguette:

For the picnic later, some taped baguettes to the top-tubes of their fixies, with bottles of rosé and Burgundy lashed into tote baskets.

Maybe online vendor Funked Up Fixies should add that as an option:

Then your look could be stale on every level.

Apocalypse Now: All You Haters Dis My Topia

So this is it. The Apocalypse™ is finally upon us, and life as we know it is now coming to an end. Of course, we can't say we didn't see it coming. Indeed, in retrospect it was completely obvious:

March 10th, 2009: The fixed-gear scene is closed.

April 7th, 2010: Walmart starts selling fixies.

July 24th, 2011: Cadel Evans wins the Tour de France. (I'm still trying to wrap my mind around that one.)

These, then, were the signs--clearer than the ironic mustache on your face--that human existence was about to be transfigured. Now, there's no turning back, for it has begun. America's credit rating has been downgraded from Dura Ace to Ultegra. The stock market is plummeting so quickly that Andy Schleck should hire it as his descending coach. And in London and beyond, people have been rioting for days.

Now, there's nothing particularly funny about this sort of violence. To be perfectly honest, it saddens me deeply, and given the Apocalyptic™ state of affairs recently it's hard not to feel despondent. Nevertheless, I should share that readers have been alerting me to the apparent phenomenon of "hipster bystanders:"

Secondly, one of the most peculiar thing was the amount of hipster bystanders. Either shocked by the force of the police, or targeted by rioters. We witnessed one hipster’s fixed speed bike being stolen, as he protested “hey man you can’t steal my bike, that’s not on, that’s unfair” his mugger simply looked him dead in the eyes asserted the well known phrase “OR WHAT?” and rode off.

Hipster or no hipster, it seems to me that a looting victim is a looting victim. And then when you read stuff like this, it all seems like some Anthony Burgess near-future dystopia:

Youths used text messages, instant messaging on BlackBerry phones and social media platforms such as Twitter to coordinate attacks and stay ahead of the police.

This is frightening. Really, no matter where we live or how secure we may feel, we're all just a few "tweets" away from a socially networked wave of violence and destruction--and if the looters don't destroy your livelihood then the crumbling economy will. But don't blame the looters:

"This is the uprising of the working class. We're redistributing the wealth," said Bryn Phillips, a 28-year-old self-described anarchist, as young people emerged from a store with chocolate bars and ice cream cones.

And don't blame their financial industry looting counterparts either. They're just being the most awesome duders they can be:

The above video was forwarded to me by a reader, and it truly is a stunning piece of self-aggrandizement:

Legitimate daytraders, swing traders, and active investors are true masters of their craft, rising above human nature to churn out profits consistently from the market. Just like great artists, athletes, and professionals train years to become proficient, so do great traders, honing their skills of analysis, risk control, and mental discipline to gain an edge in the markets. While doing so they also benefit the economy by adding liquidity. Despite this, the independent trader and investor is in an industry where his/her needs are unrecognized and unmet. Our goal is to change that by addressing their needs like never before.

Like firefighters, they are true American heroes--even if churning out profits consistently for yourself despite what the market is doing is a skill akin to liberating a plasma TV from a burning store, inasmuch as both involve acting purely in your own self-interest on a moment-to-moment basis.

So what will the post-Apocalyptic™ world look like? Will socially networked looters and day traders in fortified Wi-Fi hotspots pick the landscape clean as hipsters look on with bemusement? Or are hipsters and looters both unwitting agents of our financial overlords, mere instruments of consumption, differing only in their methods and wardrobe? Most importantly, how will the rest of us flee, and to where? Frankly, thanks to the Upscalification of Everything, few of us can even afford basic survivalist tools anymore. Axes cost hundreds of dollars:

A decent "Summer Camp Care Package" full of cheap novelty shit to help you while away those lonely nights off the grid will set you back $145:


Even toy blocks for grownups are like $85:

There is some indication though that pods of hipsters may already have sought refuge in the wilderness and are even now living lives of pure idyll. Consider this video which was forwarded to me by a reader, in which some of them have formed a utopian hillbombing society:

Mountain Cream B&T from CREAM Bikes & Things on Vimeo.

In this mountain society, there are no laws, apart from the Law of Gravity:

There are also no brakes, which is why they "whip-skid" incessantly and can't make it down a single descent without completely destroying a tire:

I'm not one for fawning over bicycles, but I do believe that our bikes communicate with us, and what this bike is saying is, "You're an idiot."

So what do the hillbombers do when they need new tires in their mountain retreat? Perhaps they don't. Perhaps they "curate" them from nearby rubber trees, or else the tires simply fall from the sky. Also, when hungry, they cook their meat over an open flame, which they tend to using an artisanal hatchet:

The hillbombers know nothing of toil, or hardship, or responsibility. They know only the joy of endless libation:

And of looking through mirrored sunglasses upon the landscape while trackstanding in a state of perfect Zenlike tarck-tastic stasis:

Aloof, they flirt with death, whip-skidding their way out of dangerous situations:


Oh, how they whip-skid, free from the constraints of all common sense::


All they need is their bikes, and each other, and maybe an extra headband or two, and of course the willing woman whose job it will be to bear their children and carry on their legacy:

These, children of the future, are your forebearers. Forgive them, for they knew not what they did.

Small World: The Way We Were

Who among us has not occasionally longed to travel back in time?

For example, what if you could ride a dinosaur? Or witness the signing of the Declaration of Independence? Or ride a dinosaur through the signing of the Declaration of Independence and upload video of your stunt to YouTube, which you now own, because you have a time machine, and you can do anything you want and the world is now a twisted product of your perverse whims, and the ensuing paradoxes are tearing the very fabric of the universe asunder? Or maybe this has already happened and what we perceive as "reality" is merely the construct of someone who has had or will have or will have had had a time machine and used it to meddle with history, and because of this we have no control whatsoever over our own destiny and merely dwell in a self-perpetuating perdition of temporal contradictions?

Fine, so maybe time travel isn't all that great. Still, at least you can safely experience what it would be like to travel way back to the year Two Thousand And Aught Seven, Anno Domini, thanks to a Canadian periodical called "The Glo Bean D Mail," which contains the following article forwarded to me by a reader:

Ah yes, 2007. People "boogied" to the sounds of Incubus and The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Audiences thrilled to movies like "Wild Hogs" and "Norbit." And newspapers printed articles about "fixies" which contained passages like this:

Popularized by bike couriers as a fast, simple way to charge around town, the fixie has become the ride of choice for young downtown cyclists – a personal statement and urban art form in one.

Amazingly though, the above words were not published in 2007. They were actually published yesterday(!), in the aforelinked "Glo Bean D Mail" article. So, too, were these:

Some come with stubby, shortened handlebars to make it easier to squeeze between cars. Some have swooping ram’s-horn bars of gleaming chrome, stripped of all handlebar tape. Others have wheel rims made of bright anodized aluminum in pink or gold. Still others have snappy whitewall tires. The latest thing is to have a coloured bicycle chain to match the bike’s colour scheme. A leather seat by Brooks, the storied English saddle maker, often tops things off.

After reading this, I have three questions for the writer, none of which has anything to do with "fixies:"

1) What's it like to be cryogenically frozen for four years and did it hurt when they thawed you out? (Okay, that's technically two questions, but whatever.)

2) Are you bummed you didn't get to see "Avatar" in the theater?

3) Michael Jackson died. How crazy is that?!?

Of course, those of us who have actually had to live through the past four years know how it all went down: first came the fixie fad; then the fixie scene closed; then all the fixie scenesters discovered bikes with gears and reinvented themselves as insufferable pedants. It was, in a word, horrible. But I guess it all seems perfectly delightful when you missed the whole thing because you're the Rip Van Winkle of the "bike culture:"

Still, the rise of the fixie is a healthy sign of a maturing bike culture in the city. Like high-school kids, urban cyclists are dividing into tribes. The nerds are the guys with panniers and reflecting vests; the jocks are the road-bike riders in spandex; the artsies ride vintage women’s bikes with flowers in the basket; the fixie riders, of course, are the cool kids.

Wrong. Wrong! They're all nerds. Have you really not figured that out yet? Or do you still have freezerburn on your brain?

Meanwhile, everybody knows that fixies are totally "out," and interesting hats are totally "in:"

On the train from Oyster Bay - w4m - 29 (City-bound on LIRR)
Date: 2011-07-24, 11:49PM EDT
Reply to:

You boarded the LIRR at Oyster Bay on Sunday evening with your bicycle, an interesting hat, and a copy of the Economist. I was the girl with a gray tank top and dirty blonde wavy hair, jabbering with my Irish friend, but too tongue-tied to talk to you. Did your bike survive the fall?

I've ridden the Long Island Railroad countless times and I've never seen anybody even remotely that pretentious. It must be a North Shore thing. A bicycle? Sure. An interesting hat? Possibly. A copy of the Economist? Perhaps. But all three at once? That's almost as impressive as a guy with a Swedish military bike and a weary Portuguese friend! But the big question is:

So how interesting was the hat?

I mean, was it really interesting, or just mildly interesting? For example, there was a time back in 2009 when I thought the "tricorne" was going to make a comeback, since I saw someone wearing one on the street:

So was the hat that interesting, or was it just "beer hat" interesting? Actually, maybe that's the guy she saw on the train. If so, I'm glad to have helped.

Speaking of pretension, I was reading the July 25th issue of The New Yorker recently and there was an article about "tiny houses:"


Evidently, there is a growing subculture of people who are into tiny houses, and it appears to be the next evolutionary phase of minimalism:

The occupants of tiny houses tend to be committed, and slightly self-regarding, citizens, who cook on little stoves and have refrigerators like wall safes. They shed years of possessions and keepsakes to get by with two shirts and two pairs of pants and two mugs and two forks, in order to occupy what amounts to a monk's cell, for the sake of simplicity, frugality, or upright environmental living. They often embody the zeal of religious converts.

And because shacks are too "Hatfields and McCoys" for minimalists, and cottages are too "Grimm's Fairy Tales," they've invented a new form of pretentious dwelling that splits the difference:

They aren't toys or playhouses or aesthetic gestures--a copy of Monticello as a sandbox in a field in East Hampton, say--and they aren't shacks or cottages, either. Shacks don't have kitchens and bathrooms, and a cottage is larger than a tiny house.

In other words, a tiny house is basically an artisanal mobile home, and people pay up to $54,000 for them:

The tiniest house that Tumbleweed Tiny House Company sells is the XS-House, which is sixty-five square feet, and costs sixteen thousand dollars to build yourself, or thirty-nine thousand dollars if Tumbleweed or someone else builds it for you. Tumbleweed's most expensive house, the Fencl, is a hundred and thirty square feet; it costs twenty-three thousand dollars to build yourself and fifty-four thousand dollars to have built.

Of course, the tiny house movement is a reaction to the McMansions and jumbo mortgages and bursting bubbles and crushing financial burdens that characterize life in modern-day America:

According to Greg johnson, the publisher of a tiny-house Web site called ResourcesForLife.com, to inhabit a tiny house "you have to remodel your sense of what success is and how important it is to you to convey to the outside world 'Hey, I have a big house and big car and I'm successful.' If you have a piece of inner tranquillity, you don't have to prove anything to anybody."

I can certainly understand that people want to liberate themselves from excess and live more modestly, manageably, and efficiently. To that end, I've come up with a revolutionary idea. Imagine if, instead of living in garden sheds, people lived in sort of "tiny house collectives"--large structures containing multiple tiny houses within their walls. Not only would such structures be more efficient than single-family dwellings, but they would also foster a sense of community and even allow for cooperative ownership arrangements. We could call these tiny houses "apartments," and we could call the tiny house collectives "apartment buildings."

Now, imagine multiple "apartment buildings" in close proximity to each other, and the dynamic communities that would result--hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people living in tiny houses and sharing ideas and experiences and creating economies and forming governments. I haven't come up with a catchy name for these communities yet, but I'm thinking either "cities," or else "people nuggets." Then, if for some reason you decide you actually need or want more living space than the people nugget contains, you can just leave it and move into a normal fucking house.

Unfortunately though, tiny house minimalists can't seem wrap their minds around the concept of living in a place that suits their needs. Instead, it makes much more sense to them to live in a miniature version of the McMansion that offends them so much, possibly with one of these on their microscopic front porch:

(America 2.0: Tiny Houses and Tiny SUVs)

In other words, the minimalist/tiny house ideal seems to be to return to the way life was back in the Middle Ages by transforming America into a land of fiefdoms dotted with designer hovels in which the inhabitants have no equity.

Of course, whatever sort of dwelling you inhabit, you should make sure you lay your head on a cycling-specific pillow, as forwarded to me by a reader:

I predict pillows for cyclists will reach prices of up to $5,000 in the next few years, after which urban cyclists will reject pillows and begin sleeping without any sort of head support at all and we'll start seeing articles about a new "fixed-head sleeping movement," and about how some of these crazy urban sleepers are even running their beds blanketless.

Just make sure you don't sleep without your helmet.

The Grand Scheme of Things: A Bold Caper

In yesterday's post, I discussed the implications of non-hipster-on-hipster crime. Certainly there is no greater tragedy than when youthful idealists are forced to confront the realities of urban living.

Or is there?

What happens when hipster actually robs hipster, which is what happened not too long ago when the MASH store in San Francisco experienced a break-in and a couple of bikes were stolen:
Despite the outfits, I'm actually not totally convinced that this was the work of hipsters, since hipsters love "authentic" accessorizing and this seems like an irresistible opportunity to finally wear some super cool "vintage" villain clothes à la Black Bart in "A Christmas Story:"

Then again, they were stealing bicycles, and riding in burglar clothes would have offended their sensibilities. I wish I had been present as they hatched styled the caper over $5 coffees on Valencia Street:

Burglar 1: "So what should we wear?"

Burglar 2: "Like, villain clothes, obviously."

Burglar 1: "But we can't ride in villain clothes. Will there be time to change into tight pants and cycling caps?"

Burglar 2: "Probably not. OK, let's just wear tight jeans and cycling caps then."

Burglar 1: "Can I at least wear a giant Chrome bag that says 'SWAG' on it?"

And so forth.

By the way, if you're wondering what the MASH store is, it is not a shop that sells action figures of B.J. Hunnicut, "Hot Lips" Houlihan, and Corporal Maxwell Q. Klinger:

Rather, MASH is a fashionable bicycle-themed design concern that puts their "M" logo on Cinelli stuff and produces videos of themselves running lights while wearing backpacks:

("Out of the way! Can't you see I'm wearing a backpack!?!")

Anyway, a crime like this is not only a violation of the law, but it's also an egregious violation of the social contract. By charging extra for stuff with a logo on it, Companies like MASH provide an essential branding service in the hipster community, and when rogue hipsters refuse to pay a premium for this service it threatens to undermine the entire hipster economy. Worse even is the loss of trust, for the hipster community depends on its members constantly validating both themselves and each other. We can't have them regarding one another with suspicion. A house divided cannot stand--even if that house is in a fashionably distressed and rapidly gentrifying part of town.

By the way, while I may be making light of the theft, I certainly don't condone it. However, in the grand scheme of misfortune and injustice it is a fairly minor occurrence. Some broken glass, a missing fixie, a pair of fugitive hipsters bickering over which boutique hotel to hide out in and whether or not being "on the lam(b)" is technically vegan... Despite all this, life in San Francisco will continue on as it has for years: smugly, and with an overinflated sense of self-importance.

The truth is, there are places in the world where people are far more accustomed to hardship, and where tragedy is a way of life. Needless to say, I have never been anywhere near any of these places, but I do like to read about them in comfort and safety in magazines like the New Yorker:

In fact, I am currently reading the issue above, and in it is a very interesting article about cycling in Rwanda which looks like this when it's lying on my floor:

I haven't actually finished the article yet because my helper monkey, Vito, is reading it to me and he has an irritating tendency to get distracted by matters of simian onanism. However, I've been quite engrossed by it (though not as much as Vito can become engrossed by himself), and among the riders profiled in it is Gasore Hategeka:

Gasore Hategeka bought his first bicycle in 2008. It cost thirty-five thousand Rwandan francs, roughly sixty dollars. Gasore, who was about twenty years old, had worked for nearly half his life before he could afford it.

After buying the bike, he becomes a "taxi-biker," and eventually "Cat 6"es his way onto Team Rwanda under the tutelage of Jonathan Boyer. If nothing else, it serves to put all those "must-have upgrades" into perspective, and it's the sort of article that should be ready by every Fred who has so much as contemplated buying a $2,000 set of wheels. It's also a welcome respite from the idiotic musings of John Cassidy:

("I think, therefore I douche."--Douchecartes)

Speaking of fostering cycling, the National Interscholastic Cycling Association is in the midst of its "East Coast Outreach Tour:"

The goal, basically, is to make mountain biking a high school sport:

NICA’s mission is to bring the sport of mountain biking to high schools coast-to-coast by 2020, and a major step in that direction is the NICA East Coast Outreach Tour. Matt Fritzinger, NICA’s Founder and Executive Director, will be joined by our new Development Director, Ben Capron, for a 6-day whirlwind tour of the East Coast. Stops have been chosen because supporters there are already dreaming of a NICA league in their state – NICA wants to make that dream a reality!

Each stop will include an evening event, sponsored by a local organization, to include a presentation, Q&A, drinks and snacks. Come out and see what NICA is all about. Let’s bring NICA coast-to-coast!

Racing bicycles (albeit of the smaller-wheeled BMX variety) was very important to me in my youth. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it was something of a salvation--a life preserver that saved me from drowning in a sea of thick accents, thicker hair gels, and impossibly lavish Bar Mitzvahs. They may have it tough in Rwanda, but they know not the horrors of being trapped in a temple as an unironically bemulleted band belts out the greatest hits of the 1980s and aging garmentos dance to lukewarm renditions of "Celebration" by Kool & The Gang. Therefore, anything that makes bike racing more accessible to our youth and offers them an alternative pursuit is all right by me.

So get involved--because I won't, but I do like the idea of someone doing it for me.

But while I would love for cycling to become more mainstream, I still have my reservations about those tourist rental bikes with which the bridges are always teeming at this time of year--even if the bike rental facilities are staffed by "blond bearded dreamboats:"

Blond Bearded Dreamboat at Brooklyn Bridge Park bike rental stand - w4m - 28 (Brooklyn Bridge Park)
Date: 2011-07-06, 10:58AM EDT
Reply to:

I was all lost on my bike on a Sunday, so I went to the bike rental booth and asked your co-worker gal for a map and how to get to the Kent greenway...aka Williamsburg. She was all what do you mean yeah I have no idea because I live the opposite direction but this dude probably knows, he lives in Williamsburg. And you DID know, it was so helpful. I focused on your wonderful directions and I pretty much had them down UNTIL you like, smiled at me or like maybe slightly a little bit looked into my SOUL before I turned away to leave and oh my gosh you have blue eyes and wait a minute where am I oh yeah my bike I'm leaving now what was that?
So yeah, that was intense dude! Did you do that on purpose?

You live in Williamsburg. I live in Greenpoint! Email me! Let's go on a bike adventure!

ps your directions were totally helpful! Despite you having disoriented me with your all that soul-looking, I remembered them and totally made it home super easily. Thanks! I seriously would've been literally lost without you.

It's bad enough that most of the the people who rent these bikes can barely ride them, but it's even worse that some of the staff can't give directions from the Brooklyn Bridge to Williamsburg--and that those who can are lauded as heroes. Perhaps scariest of all though is that the person renting the bike is not a tourist and lives adjacent to Williamsburg in Greenpoint, yet can't find her way home. I mean, how did she get there in the first place?

She might as well just ride backwards for all the attention she's paying:

It's the new frontwards.

BSNYC Last-Minute Holiday Gift Guide: Putting the "Pro" in Procrastination

With only five more shopping days left until Christmas, you may find yourself looking for that last-minute gift idea for the cyclist in your life. To that end, I present this brief and hastily-"curated" gift guide for your shopping convenience. If a cyclist is not absolutely thrilled by any of these gifts, then he or she simply isn't doing it right.

A New Wheelset

As any cyclist what's on the very top of his or her wish list and the answer will almost certainly be "A new wheelset." In case you're wondering what a "wheelset" is, it's just a pair of wheels that costs too much. As for wheels, those are the round spinny things that make our bikes roll, and in order for our bikes to roll good our wheels need to do three things:

1) Be round;

2) Have bearings (or, in Craigslist parlance "berrings") that are reasonably smooth;

3) Be round.

All of these qualities are very easily attainable using components that are readily accessible and affordably priced, and assembled correctly your wheels will be round, have bearings that are reasonably smooth, and be round--plus, as a bonus, they'll also be both durable and lightweight. However, "readily accessible," "affordably priced," and "durable" are all abhorrent to cyclists, which is why most of them spend thousands of dollars to downgrade their wheels almost immediately. Of course, the question is: "Which wheels?" Yesterday's exotica is today's "training" wheelset, and last year's "staggeringly expensive" is this year's "reasonably priced," so it's vital when purchasing wheels for the Fred in your life to get the Wheel of the Moment. Also, they have to have a cool name that looks cool in giant cool letters on the rim. That's why, for what's left of 2010, you can't go wrong with "Mad Fiber:"

I know what you're thinking: "Mad Fiber?!? That sounds like a breakfast cereal for constipated rappers!" (I can see the commercial now: "This cereal has Mad Fiber!," exclaims a delighted Lil Wayne as his thunderous bowel movement positively demolishes his toilet.) However, Mad Fiber isn't cereal at all; it's a pair of wheels that are "lighter, faster, stronger, better wheels optimized for athletes who are passionate about performance." How do we know this? Well, not only are they made with "Aerospace Engineering Rigor:"

(Guy in sweatshirt holds Mad Fiber wheel while his friend inserts a generic cartridge bearing, just like how NASA builds the Space Shuttle.)

But they're also "optimized:"

(Carbon is actually "optimized," not marginalized, victimized, or criticized as it is in other wheelsets.)

And, best of all, there's no rider weight limit:

This is vital, because it means even the most bloated, over-fed cyclist can "run" them. Actually, the biggest problem facing the bicycle industry today is engineering a carbon fiber wheel that can support the considerable heft of the typical "Fred," who stands to gain absolutely nothing from it in terms of performance yet insists on owning the stuff anyway. It's like Victoria's Secret having to design a line of sensual lacy undergarments for a bunch of Hell's Angels. In any case, Mad Fiber claim to have done this, and to have answered the following question:

What if? Rather than using carbon fiber to replicate wheel components originally made of metal, what if wheel design was optimized to realize the maximum potential of carbon fiber?

Actually, when you do that, I'm pretty sure you wind up with an un-true-able rolling gimmick, like this:

Though admittedly Mad Fiber have significantly reinforced the price tag with an all-important extra structural decimal place.

A New Bike

Are you the owner of a corporation or small business looking to make an empty gesture that evokes trendy ideas like "sustainable transport" and "supporting a healthy lifestyle?" Do you like the idea of a tax write-off and instant press? Do you use the terms "bikes" and "riding toys" interchangeably? If so, why not give the gift of a crappy bicycle?

Sure, shipping thousands of one-size-fits-few bicycles from China to America where they will spend the next 20 years slowly rusting in the garage next to that old treadmill isn't all that "sustainable," but then again if all you did was give your employees a gift certificate that let them purchase their own bikes locally you wouldn't get local news footage like this:

Cheap bicycles are already poised to overtake pens, keychains, and windbreakers as the most popular form of corporate-branded giveaway junk in America, so be sure to act now while they still have some cachet.

A Giant Neck Sweater

If you have a friend, loved one, or family member who's a "hipster," here's something you may not know: "Hipsters" are highly susceptible to neck chills, especially when they're riding their bikes. They may not use brakes, and they may have no use for bar tape, but as soon as the mercury plunges below 65 degress they will wrap up their necks like they're Michael Hutchence about to auto-erotically asphyxiate themselves. This is because they're constantly assaulting their throats with American Spirit cigarettes and cheap beer, which means even the slightest chill can induce week-long "Ratso" Rizzo-like coughing fits. So don't let your favorite hipster get cold this holiday season. Instead, go to your local bike shop boutique and buy them a giant neck sweater:

As you can see from the above photos, the hipster neck grows cold way before the rest of the body, which is why he's wearing a giant neck sweater with just a flannel shirt. Plus, hipsters also love being the world champion, so be sure you purchase a neck sweater that includes the coveted "dork en ciel:"

("I'm the world champion of having a warm neck!")

The giant neck sweater--it's like a doggie sweater for hipsters!

A Giant Neck Tattoo

If you have a friend, loved one, or family member who's a "hipster," here's something you may not know: "Hipsters" love neck tattoos. A neck tattoo is like a regular tattoo, only it's more authentic because it's worn on the neck, as the name suggests:

Prior to the advent of the neck tattoo, the knuckle tattoo was the authentic hipster tattoo of choice. However, there are two problems with knuckle tattoos: 1) Too many people have them now so they've officially become "uncool," like tribal bands and "tramp stamps"; and 2) They limit the number of characters in your message to multiples of five. Neck tattoos, on the other hand (so to speak), are still unusual enough among people with liberal arts educations that they will attract a second look at the bar.

However, you should keep in mind that, even though you can technically incorporate any text you want into a neck tattoo, there are informal rules that govern what constitutes an acceptable "hipster" neck tattoo message. Since putting a tattoo on your neck is a big commitment, the message should have an inverse relationship to this level of commitment and be something indifferent or even inane. This underscores how daring the "hipster" is, and how blithely he or she approaches important decisions. Appropriate neck tattoo messages include:

"A-Okay"

"Whatevs"

"Meh"

"My parents sent me to Sara Lawrence College and all I got was this stupid neck tattoo."

So make sure to get your favorite hipster a neck tattoo now, while they're still edgy enough to evoke prison. (Or at least a state-run institution, like UC Berkeley.) It's the perfect permanent undershirt for that giant neck sweater.

Something to Make Cycling Less Enjoyable

There are a lot of problems with cycling, but probably the biggest one is that it's tremendously enjoyable. It's cheap, it's easy, and there's only a simple machine between you and the road. Over the years, people have come up with many ingenious ways to make the whole endeavor less enjoyable and more "serious." Some use electronic monitoring devices that constantly inundate them with data that quantifies their poor performance; others remove the brakes from their bicycles so they have to writhe and backpedal and skid to a stop. But few of these methods are as absurdly sublime as PowerCranks.

PowerCranks are like ordinary cranks, only they're far more expensive, and they don't work. Here's a compelling video which shows PowerCranks in action:



The key to PowerCranks is that they allow you to pedal with both legs on the same plane, so that you look like a kangaroo in a hurry:

This can result in tremendous performance gains for amateur cyclists, though these gains are more mental than physical. This is because, for some reason, mediocre cyclists think that doing something pointless and inconvenient during the "off-season" will somehow allow them to to dominate their hobby next year. And what could be more pointless and inconvenient than riding on broken cranks? Basically, the more irritating the training tool is to use, the more effective it is, so at this rate I expect PowerCrank unicycles to be the hot "training" set-up for 2011.

Of course, PowerCranks do have tremendous physical benefits to athletes who compete in sports that are based on producing power while keeping your legs together, like sack racing:

I for one would be thrilled if sack racing were to replace the cycling leg in triathlons, if only because the remount porn would be even more entertaining. Watching people attempt to straddle pro-level time trial bikes is amusing enough, but watching them struggle and flail as they attempt to step into $2,000 carbon fiber potato sacks would be positively sublime.

So this Christmas, give the roadie or triathlete in your live the greatest gift of all--the gift of inconvenience.

Tempting Fate: Look Ma, No Hands

(A reader's AYHSMB vanity plate in the eye-catching Massachusetts "colorway.")

Bicycle photography is a rule-bound art form, governed as strictly as any haiku or sonnet. Consequently, bicycle photographs generally include certain elements: among these are the drive-side shot; the Obligatory Robust Bottom Bracket Shot (or ORBS); and the "Wow, I'm a genius, I built up a fixie with a straight chainline" shot. However, my personal favorite is the "disembodied hand" shot, which I mentioned in yesterday's post.

The disembodied hand shot is my favorite precisely because it is whimsical and improvisational, and consequently an antidote to the contrived stuffiness inherent in most bicycle photography. This is why I occasionally catch myself slavering over disembodied hand porn, and why I was pleased to receive this example from a reader:

Sure, intentional disembodied hand parody shots like the ones I mentioned yesterday are entertaining, but nothing is as satisfying as the real thing--especially when it's in the classic Michelangelo "Hand of God" style:

("All You Deities Finger My Fixie")

Speaking of disembodied hands, another reader forwarded me this interview with a top hand model, whose manner of speaking is so ethereally lilting that she seems to be hypnotized by her own gesticulations:



"I can make a full-time living off about five inches," she reveals to Katie Couric while her hands twist slowly like shwarma on a skewer:

This is quite impressive--even more so than adult film star and total über-Fred Jack Lawrence, who also makes a living off of a single appendage, though presumably with a few more inches:



But still, nobody tops Adam, who managed to father the entire human race with little more than a centimeter:

Put that in your hand and model it, Ellen Sirot.

In any case, if you enjoy disembodied hand shots you owe a debt of gratitude to the fixed-gear "culture," whose obsession with photographing their crappy bikes has resulted in a veritable disembodied hand bumper crop. However, I'm not sure this makes up for the rest of their excesses--though you've got to give them a disembodied hand for continuing to find increasingly stupid things to do with what are essentially very limited bicycles. First there was the awkward herky-jerkiness of "fixed-gear freestyling," then there was the senseless knee abuse of long-distance fixie touring, and now there's the utter mindlessness of "hill bombing," as evidenced by that guy on the Stelvio, as well as these riders in San Francisco:

Potrero Hill Bombing from Lester Lyons-Hookham on Vimeo.

In it, we see a rider who looks less like an actual "hipster" than he does someone who has dressed up as a stereotypical hipster for Halloween:

Next, this parody of a hipster rides down a hill, skidding occasionally in order to scrub off speed and to show off his Daisy Dukes:

The object being, of course, to blow a stop sign and experience the thrill of almost being hit by a car:

I'm not sure why you'd make a video like this and put it on the Internet unless your goal is to figuratively urinate on the graves of every cyclist who has ever been killed by a motor vehicle through no fault of his or her own. Presumably they're working on a sequel in which they take one of those "epic" fixed-gear trips to an impoverished country in order to burn a bunch of food and money in front of the villagers. Anyway, you'd think that if your favorite pastime was riding down hills and skidding to a stop you'd at least put some thought into tire choice, but even this seems to be beyond them:

You'd also think that, in a city like San Francisco, climbing hills quickly would be the true measure of cycling prowess, but I guess water and stupidity always find their own level.

Now, I'm not one to wish crashes on people, but I can't help thinking that cycledom might be better off if these riders were to fall of their bikes and vow never to get back on again. Nothing serious, mind you--just enough to dent their fixies and their pride. Speaking of which, while I languished in the shed last week, the New York Times published the following article on just that, only with "Traditional Freds" instead of the "Nü" variety:

In it, the writer chronicles the events leading up to her own traumatic crash:

My crash came 8.9 miles into a 100-mile ride (of course I knew the distance, because of course I was watching my bicycle computer). My friend Jen Davis was taking a turn leading; my husband, Bill, was drafting — riding close behind her. I was drafting Bill when a slower rider meandered into his path. Bill swerved and I hit his wheel. Down I went.

Clearly this was a "clusterfred" of the highest order, but I'm not sure we're getting the whole picture and I think this testimony still requires some Johnny Cochran-esque cross-examination. Setting aside for the moment the fact that she was staring at her computer instead of watching what was going on around her, I'm not sure how, if she was drafting behind Bill as she claims, his swerving would cause her to hit his wheel. The only plausible explanation would be that they were attempting an "echelon," a maneuver that no Fred should ever attempt. In fact, I'm not even sure most Freds should attempt regular drafting, given that they're generally rapt by their various computers and gizmos like crows are transfixed by shiny things, and in addition to cars staying three feet away from them they should probably also stay three feet away from each other:


The only objects that move more erratically than Freds on Pinarellos are hummingbirds and UFOs.

Meanwhile, when I'm not browsing disembodied hand porn you can be reasonably certain I'm looking at ZBCs, or "Zany Bicycle Cockpits." Sure, the contest is long over, but fortunately for all of us ZBCs will continue to bloom on bicycles like flowers of absurdity. Moreover, the ZBC is not confined to the tinkerer's shed, and can even be found in the realm of elite competition. Consider this pair of hydraulic brakes, modified to work in tandem with road levers and documented by Cyclocross magazine:

Where there's a will, there's a kludge.

Lastly, I was pleased to receive from another reader what may be the most "epic" fixed-gear video to date:

Helps put all that hill bombing in perspective.