Fixedgeargallery...of disembodied hands.

While swinging through Fixedgeargallery this morning I was arrested by this entry. No, it had nothing to do with the untenability of the brakeless/platform pedal setup. We're all used to this by now, for better or for worse. (Adherents to this particular combo swear by the "Jamaican skid," though I'd think you'd be more likely to wind up doing a "Texan dismount" when you're thrown from the bike like a cowboy from a bronco, and then waking up in the hospital and executing a full "Regarding Henry.") What really made my heart skip a beat was the mysterious hand present in every shot.

Just who is at the end of that appendage? Maybe you can tell yourself it's just a guy with really banged-up shins, but I can't. The first thing I thought of were those creepy two-handed tambourine-wielding arms in the old Escape Club video. (For those of you who don't remember or were lucky enough not to have been around, this band was produced in a lab in the late 80s to serve as a replacement for INXS should their tour bus ever crash.) Then I calmed myself by thinking maybe it's just a regular guy, his best gal in one hand, his Pista's rim in the other:

The bike's picturesque placement also suggests that it could be part of a new London monument to fixed-gear freestylers.

Or is something more celestial at work here? Has this bike been placed here by God himself?



Or is the bike God, and are we the collective Adam, grasping its wheel so that we may be transported heavenward when it finally ascends?

Does it forego foot-retention of any kind to atone for all our sins?

Or could it belong to an aging Pete Townshend?

Of course, I could just read the guy's entry, but I'm not one for facile explanations.

Manifest Destiny: Wither Cycling Bliss?

I left town this past weekend. If you’ve had ever had a pleasant dream only to awake abruptly and see it dissipate like a squirt of octopus ink into the ocean of reality, then you know how I feel after returning to New York after a trip. I cling to the bliss for as long as I can, but like one of those rubber water snakes the tighter I squeeze the quicker it slips out of my hand. Of course, in times like this it is tempting to ask myself if perhaps I should move, but generally the bitterness subsumes me before I can get very far along in my planning. As of right now though the negativity has yet to reclaim me fully, so once again I find myself plotting my escape. And although I didn’t leave the East Coast this weekend, my thoughts inevitably drift westward. Here are the possibilities I'm considering:

Northern California

Pros:

--The cradle of mountain biking civilization
--Mild weather
--Progressive bike culture
--San Francisco is a cosmopolitan city, so no big city withdrawal
--Great places to ride

Cons:

--Expensive
--Everybody in New York seems to be from the Bay Area these days, so something must be wrong with it if they actually want to move here
--The palpable undercurrent of hippiness frightens me

What I could do there:

Open a cycling school for Bay Area residents planning their inevitable move to New York. Classes will include light-running, pedestrian chicken, and sitting in for the sprint. The final exam will involve being pursued for six straight hours by a minivan whose driver suffers from a rare combination of narcolepsy, rabies, and myopia.

Southern California

Pros:

--Warm all year round
--I can’t think of anything else

Cons:

--Car-centric
--I like beaches, but I don’t like beach cruisers
--Too many people with flat-brimmed caps and bandanas on their top tubes
--San Diego is there

What I could do there:

Showbiz! Currently I’m working on a stand-up act. Actually, it’s more of a ventriloquist bit. A rusty Schwinn conversion named “Jeff Fixworthy” with a Budweiser beer cosy for a top tube pad takes the stage and I provide the voice offstage in a southern drawl. His “You Might Be A Roadie” routine should kill. “If you spend your day with your nose six inches from someone else's butt and you’re not a proctologist or the President, you might be a roadie.” (Cue groans now.) Who doesn’t love paceline humor? The sitcom offer should be forthcoming.

The Pacific Northwest

Pros:

--Huge bike culture
--Has actual cities as well as natural beauty
--Thriving cyclocross scene

Cons:

--Wet
--Portland sounds like Williamsburg, Brooklyn if it were exposed to radiation
--I’m haunted by the 1992 Cameron Crowe film “Singles”
--People who obsess over coffee like it’s wine drive me even crazier than people who obsess over wine

What I could do there:

Open a shop called “The Fenderia” that only sells bicycle fenders.

The Southwest

Pros:

--Dry

Cons:

--Dry

What I could do there:

Start a company called Custer's Last Trackstand that makes Native American-inspired beaded top tube pads, messenger bags, and riding moccasins.

The Rockies

Pros:

--Great riding
--Hotbed for bike racing
--Stunning landscapes, rugged beauty

Cons:

--Epic climbs make wheelsucking impossible
--Snows too much
--Frequent references to cowboys and ranches are unsettling

What I could do there:

Open a dude ranch for fixed-gear freestylers called the The Lazy Q-Factor. Visitors can wear chaps and practice calf-roping and cattle-herding on their fixed-gears. With the popularity of bike polo, stunting, and branding, fixed-gear rodeo sounds like the next logical step.

The Great Plains

Pros:

--No climbs to get dropped on
--No urban cycling trends to taunt me

Cons:

--Daunting expanses
--Tornadoes
--No urban anything
--Too much wheat, not enough gluten

What I could do there:

Start a Velospace-type website called “The Bikes of Wrath” where people submit Dorothea Lange-inspired photographs of their weathered and beaten bicycles and lament their lots in life.

Roadies in Winter: Making the Most of the Off-Season

For roadies, there’s something called an “off season.” This is the chasm between fall and spring during which there is no road racing, and around these parts it pretty much starts now. While some cyclists foolishly squander this time by enjoying themselves and doing different types of riding, roadies are above such frivolity. Not content to simply be squirrely on their bikes, they’re also squirrely in that they’re collecting metaphorical acorns for next season by putting on base mileage, doing LSD (the boring kind) and working out in gyms. And as any good roadie knows, there’s always something else you should be doing, and you better be doing it too lest your competitors get a jump on you. Here are some ways to maximize your off-season that you may be missing out on:

Cross Train

Every season some coach, pro racer, or publication decides there’s some hot kind of cross training you should be doing over the winter. Whatever that may be this year, figure it out and do it. It used to be fixed-gear riding. Then it was cross-country skiing. Then speed-skating. Then it was weights. Then weights were bad for you. Then one year Chris Carmichael said it was single-speed mountain biking, but the roadies were afraid to get dirty and that never really took off. I don’t know what it’s going to be this year. It could be Pilates, or gardening, or wrestling shaved pitbulls in kiddie pools full of Vaseline. I’m not going to do your homework for you. Just keep your ears open and stay ahead of the curve.

Sandbag in Cyclocross

Are you a higher-category road racer with no results but a little bit of form left? Well, take that form, head to the nearest C race, and grab yourself that elusive victory! There’s nothing more fun and vindicating than lining up alongside a bunch of junior racers and their grandfathers and beating them all. It’s a good way to stay in shape and a great way to pump up that ego for next season. Plus, you’ll earn the instant respect of the regulars. You'll put the "d-bag" back in "sand-bag."

Reconnect With Your Spouse or Life Partner

This is particularly important for the married male roadie with a non-cycling spouse. As important as your accomplishments on the road may be to you, they’re not nearly as important to your wife, no matter what she tells you. She is not bragging to her friends that she is married to the King of the Park, she does not like that you go to bed at nine and wake up at five, and she does not still reminisce about that time you won a $20 prime and bought her an omelette. So take this time to remind her that she’s important, or she might find someone else who actually likes to have fun. Remember: behind every good roadie is a good woman, and behind her is a mountain biker.

Shop for Holiday Gifts For Your Coach

Many roadies feel the need to pay somebody to tell them when and how to ride. If you are one of these roadies, take this time to make your coach feel appreciated. After all, not every coach has a long roster of pro clients and a book deal. In fact, most of them live hand-to-mouth and are pretty much the equivalent of ski bums. Did you notice that the car your coach drove to that stage race last summer cost less than your front hub? Or that his SRM cranks look suspiciously like a pair of Sears torque wrenches fastened with a carriage bolt? Or that he’s collecting your used gel packets, cutting them open, and scraping out the remnants? Meanwhile you’re riding around on an Orbea that would make a pimp blush, buying chamois cream at Kiehl’s, and using Ksyrium SLs as training wheels. So give your coach a gift this holiday season. He probably needs it.

Join the Adopt-a-Pro Program

Your coach is like Jay-Z compared to a domestic pro, though. These people earn less than minimum wage—in Liberia. And thanks to the Adopt-a-Pro program, for the cost of just one pair of high-end racing clinchers a month you can change the life of one of these athletes. If you’re the kind of person who keeps his Colnago in a climate-controlled garage and arrives at the roll-out to the local training ride in a BMW only to get dropped by guys with pro contracts who can’t afford new socks, you might occasionally feel a little embarassed. And you absolutely should. So assuage that slightly by adopting a pro today.

Eat Something

If you’ve ever eaten with a bunch of roadies, you know it’s like eating with a bunch of teenage girls. There is nothing quite as annoying as watching adults titter guiltily over eating half a pastry or taking a sip of beer, and there’s nothing quite as disgusting as watching someone blot the oil from a slice of pizza. Worse yet is when they turn nutritionist on you and tell you what you’re eating and why it’s too fattening. I’d rather eat veal with a vegan than just about anything with a roadie. So please, do the rest of the cycling world a favor—loosen up and eat something. And please, please, please don’t tell us about how bad you were at Thanksgiving. Unless you ate a turducken-stuffed manatee your Hiltonesque nibblings are not noteworthy.

Head to the Southern Hemisphere

Winter is a great time for mountain biking. You’re out of the wind, you get warmed up quick, you learn bike handling skills, and you have fun. Of course, if you’re like most roadies, you don’t like to get dirty, you can’t handle your bike and have no intention of learning, and you certainly don’t like to have fun. So if you absolutely must live in complete denial and pretend the road season never ended, do what the pros do and head southern hemisphere. It’s a crazy, mixed-up world where winter is summer, left is right, black is white, toilets flush in reverse, and the deer hop on two legs. You’ll love it! We'll miss you, though...

The Indignity of Commuting By Bicycle: Looming Vehicular Obstructions

Of the many things at which I fail to excel, I'm especially bad at three: bike racing; social interaction; and photography. However, I'm a firm believer in persistence in the face of failure. I continue to race and get dropped and I continue to leave people with vile tastes in their mouths, so I might as well continue taking pictures as well. Of course, one of the most difficult things about taking photos is choosing your subject. I figure it's always best to start with things you know, and if there's one thing I do know it's what annoys me. Since my commute is a nourishing pasture of annoyance, I figured I'd bring a camera along and graze. I invite you to come along for the ride:

You're joining me well into my commute at this point. If you live in New York this is old news, but for the rest of you Brooklyn is the land of double parking. During alternate-side parking it is perfectly acceptable to leave your car double parked for hours at a time. When coupled with a dumpster this can make for some serious traffic back-ups. (And there's always a dumpster--if every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings, then every time a Subaru beeps a Park Sloper renovates his brownstone.) When the patented rush-hour trash pickup takes place, nobody's going anywhere.

But if there's one thing we New Yorkers pride ourselves on, it's never being outdone. That's why we've recently introduced triple parking. It's the Enormous Omelet Sandwich of parking.

Pardon the pun, but there's a delicious irony in the fact that many of the trucks that try to kill you in New York are delivering organic food. Here outside the Park Slope Food Co-Op, giant idling rigs are the norm--especially during rush hour. Coupled with the fire house right next-door and the impatient traffic trying to get around the trucks, this usually makes for some interesting shenanigans. (I'm cowering in a tree with the rest of the squirrels.) Why don't I choose a street with a bike lane instead? Because the bike lanes are full of double parkers.

And when the undernourished co-op volunteers finish slowly unloading that first truck with their weak and spindly arms, the fun continues. There's a hummus truck waiting in the wings.

As I've mentioned before, lately the city is covered in skid marks. Why? Because brakes are for losers. One popular spot to lay down a skid is the entrance/exit to the Brooklyn Bridge on the Brooklyn side. Note how the skidders practice their art along the white line. Mad skilz are in evidence.

A little further along the Brooklyn Bridge bike path. Always comforting to see skid marks at a pedestrian crossing. I guess the blood cleans up better than the rubber.

The run-in to that pedestrian crossing. If you're on foot take comfort in the fact that many of the cyclists approaching you do not have any brakes. (By the way, Fat Cyclist, if you're reading I passed a woman running in one of your jerseys shortly after this. Sorry I didn't get a photo.)

But the real fun begins in Manhattan. Here, Floyd Landis has a better chance of being cleared than a bike lane does. Here's an unmanned FedEx truck parked square in the middle of the bike lane just over the Brooklyn Bridge. Note the ample curbside parking of which the driver chose not to avail himself. He was probably afraid of getting blocked in by a UPS truck.

Here's two more bike lane subletters a little further along. Note the official plate. Yes, it's official--you're an idiot.

I asked him to smile but he didn't. The shot didn't come out anyway.

The guy in front of him just hid begind his B-pillar when I asked him to smile. (Wait--is that a bicycle I see reflected in the forest green paint?)

These moronic cubicle monkeys spent what seemed like an eternity getting into and out of this cab. "Hey, why wait until we get to the office? Let's have ourselves a conference right here in the bike lane."

I took this shot moments before as I passed, the doors flapping in traffic frantically like the fins of a tropical fish out of water.

Buzzbomb, comin' at'cha! (A better photographer would have also gotten the rider sipping a Starbucks who preceeded him, but I was too busy trying not to collide with him and get covered in frappucino.)

Mmm! Sweet, refreshing Snapple. Sure, I'll gladly share my bike lane with deliciousness, thanks for asking.

They really should make the little painted bicycle guy look less like a wheelchair, because apparently this mini-bus is confused.

As I made my way around it I nearly collided with this strange bicycle which was traveling prudently in the wrong direction. I'm happy I got the shot, though I didn't manage to capture her look of utter disregard for the fact that we nearly had a head-on collision.

Anyway, thanks for riding along. I'll be fine from here on my own. Can't wait to do it again tonight in the dark.

And Finally...Paying Tribute To The Tribute Bikes

While we're on the subject of rolling tributes, I think we'd be remiss if we didn't take some time to honor what is essentially an entire subgenre of bicycle: tribute bikes. If you've ever watched "American Chopper" or any other custom motorcycle fabrication show, you know that this sort of thing is common in the motorcycle world, and it would appear that the cycling community is following suit. As such, I'd like to take a look at some of the most moving tribute bikes out there today. Some I have featured before (as recently as this morning, in fact) and some I am posting for the very first time. But they all share one thing in common: enough emotional wallop to knock you right out of your saddle. Once you've browsed them, cast your vote for which tribute caused you the most tribulation. Then we can tuck the whole ugly subject in and put it to sleep.

Who could forget The Riddle? When I featured this bike in a post awhile back the response was nothing short of incendiary. A folk tale come to life, this is bike is tribute bikes.

Who knows what Candy Cane Bike owner's grandfather did to make his grandson resent him so much. Did he yell at him for getting Frito crumbs on the couch once? Did he bore him with one too many stories about the war? Or did his car just plain smell like old person? Whatever it was, it was enough to inspire this fierce and irreverent anti-tribute to imperialism and war crimes.

USA! USA! If Candy Cane Bike's Grandpa were to ride a bike, this would be it.

This Italian-American steed is a simple but powerful tribute to the immigrant experience--a humble peasant draped in the Stars and Stripes.

Lubing the chain on this tribute gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "Brazilian Wax."

There's nothing neutral about this bike--it's pro Swiss, baby! Not only does it sport the flag tape, but it's also chocolate brown, and like the knives for which Switzerland is famous, it's built to do anything. I think I even see a built-in toothpick.


This tribute to iconic 80s comedienne Whoopi Goldberg is nothing short of awesome. I immediately get nostalgic for her many stints hosting "Comic Relief" on HBO. The Robin Williams hairy arm applause-o-meter is going off the charts for this one.

Further to Yesterday's Post...

Judging from some people's comments, the Candy Cane Bike featured in yesterday's post seems to have succeeded in stirring up just the sort of controversy and resentment its owner intended. The resulting acidity was not at all what I had in mind when I included it. And if there's one thing I think I may have learned in science class, it's that the way to neutralize an acid is to mix in some base. But with this much acid, you need some serious base--the Ace of Base, if you will. Fortunately, a reader just sent me this. Let us bask in the splendor of this rolling tribute and leave the history to Ken Burns:

Fixedgeargallery...of charismatic velos.

Ultimately the popularity of fixed-gears should benefit the sport of track racing, right? Well, as a reader recently brought to my attention, maybe not. But one thing's for sure--fixed-gears these days are brimming with personality. Here are a few bikes that could be in a sitcom together:

This bike has the guilty bearing of someone who has managed to get a woman up to his apartment under the pretext of showing her his record collection. His guest should not get too comfortable though. As soon as he drops the needle on that first LP he'll be pawing at her with those yellow Ourys like he's a cat and her sweater is filled with catnip. The black and yellow color scheme is meant to evoke bees, but this fixed-gear freestyler is way more "smarm" than "swarm." I'm not sure when people are going to realize that riding a bike with chopped risers makes their elbows stick out in such a way that they look like peasant farmers urging on mules, but judging by the number of them I see every day it's not going to be any time soon. And it's going to take more than colored Velocitys and colored vinyl to keep this guest from leaving, because despite the "High Fidelity" charm once Rossin puts on the moves she'll be out of there faster than Cusack skiied the K-12 in "Better Off Dead."

This bike also made me think of "High Fidelity." Not the movie, but the unfortunate musical adaptation. In 30 years when annoying rich people are looking for early 21st century kitch to decorate their lofts with, they'll pay top dollar for something like this. This bike is to right now what lava lamps were to the 60s, disco balls were to the 70s, and rampant androgyny was to the 80s. I'm sure it's waiting by the door for its friends BMX and Nishiki Conversion to show up. Then they'll listen to some Def Leppard, throw on their top tube pads and hit the bars.

The owner says "your grandpa's gonna hate this bike," but unless he's a diabetic and can't eat sugar I don't see why this rolling confection would offend him. This would be an ideal steed to take on a trip to Candyland. Just put on your stripey riding kit, strap on your marshmallow helmet, lock it up to a giant candy cane with some licorice string, and frolick among the gumdrop hills, caramel lakes, and cotton candy houses that line Lollipop Lane. If you're lucky, you may even meet King Kandy himself. And hopefully when you get back to your bike it's not crawling with ants.

This bike, like so many others, makes me sad. Forlorn, it waits by a rusty mailbox for a message that never comes. Does it wait for news of a loved one? Is it expecting a new bottom bracket from Nashbar? Or is it so desperate for companionship that it's donned that strollopy leopard print halfshirt in an attempt to seduce passers-by with its bare midriff? Whatever it's doing, I don't see much hope. It's only a matter of time before it hits rock bottom, takes heed of the sign down the road, leaves its passed-out partner in the background, and is finally born again.