BSNYC Friday Fun Quiz And Hiatus Announcement!

Before anything else, we've got some scheduling business to attend to, so everybody take out your calendars and your crayons:

Please note that after today I'll be gone (from this blog, anyway) until Tuesday, May 26th, at which point I will resume regular updates.

Oh, relax.  You'll manage.

By the way, while all the letters on that Hello Kitty calendar look somewhat obscene (I think it's the little hairs), I probably should have censored that "A" because it's particularly suggestive:

Then again, I may just be particularly suggestible.

Anyway, when I decided to become a semi-professional bike blogger I clearly went into the wrong business.  Sure, I've got a cushy contract with myself that allows me to take time off whenever I need it, but I've got nothing on this guy who takes Freds riding around New York City for money:

This is a lucrative niche, because everybody knows Freds get incredibly antsy when they don't have ready access to plastic bikes, electronic gadgetry, and sickly-sweet boutique energy fuel:

He found early success by making riding easy for visitors. Customers can go to his website and choose from six routes based on their fitness and available time. After they add their frame measurements and book a time, Phillips shows up at their hotel lobby with a bike and leads them on their selected rides so they don't have to worry about missing a turn or getting lost. 

Phillips uses a fleet of BMC bikes and provides helmets from Giro. Customers also can choose Look Keo, Shimano Dura Ace, or Speedplay pedals; recieve a Garmin 800 to use; and the bikes even come with bottles filled with Skratch labs.

This is a great service for people who would rather dork out on a loaner bike in New Jersey than spend time experiencing one of the greatest cities in the world with the person to whom they made a lifelong vow:

Last August he launched The Domestique and has been catering to a variety of New York City visitors. “I work with a lot of executives in the city on business, people on vacation, and husbands attempting to get out of carrying their wives’ shopping bags,” Phillips said.

Assholes, in other words.

If this guy adds a divorce attorney component to his business I predict it will go public by the end of the year.

Still, if he can get upwards of $250 just to take people out on River Road then he's doing something right:

The 40-mile River Road option is the most popular, but Phillips’ favorite ride is the hilly 90-mile Bear Mountain option. The service costs between $250 and $450, depending on the route.

Either that, or he's simply a prostitute, which would explain why these guys can't wait to ditch their wives.

Anyway, I headed over to his website, where I watched this video:

Which seems to be an advertisement for both his services and this $250 jacket:

Sure enough, his routes include all the standard-issue New York City area Fred rides, including three (3) laps of Central Park:

If this guy is getting paid to take people for rides around Central Park then that's just fucking incredible.

Meanwhile, schmuck that I am, I'll be "curating" a ride for free at the BSNYC Gran Fondon't this weekend, and yesterday afternoon I headed out to "preview" the route:

The course is lovely, but I don't have much confidence in the ride leader.

And now, I'm pleased to present you with a quiz.  As always, study the item, think, and click on your answer.  If you're right you're better than everybody, and if you're wrong you'll see helme(n)ts.

Thanks very much for reading, ride safe, and I'll see you back here on Tuesday, May 26th.



--Wildcat Rock Machine

(Race organizers generally spread sawdust out on the course after Cipollini comes through.)

1) Giro d'Italia maglia rosa Alberto Contador was injured in a crash caused by:

--An overenthusiastic fixie rider
--An amateur photographer with a long zoom lens
--A triathlete
--A grease slick left by the preternaturally unctuous Mario Cipollini

(Ask your soigneur for smooth, crisp, refreshing AmgenⓇ brand Erythropoietin.  Because if it ain't AmgenⓇ it ain't EPO.)

2) Tour of California organizers have relocated the time trial due to:

--Snow
--Rain
--Drought
--Tech company employee luxury coaches

3) Which is not one of the ways you're completely destroying your bike according to the alarmists at Bicycling?

--Failing to wash it, which will result in sugar from your energy drinks eating away at your bottom bracket
--Using too much chain lube, because lube is the silent killer
--Not changing your handlebar tape, which will cause your bars to disintegrate
--Riding the bicycle, which will cause excessive wear and tear

4) Not to be outdone, Lennard Zinn says flatulence can cause your saddle to deteriorate.

--True
--False

5) In addition to National Bike Month, May is also:

--National Electrical Safety Month
--National Golf Month
--National Masturbation Month
--All of the above

6) Who'd-a thunk it?  Time still exists--though they're really scraping the bottom of the barrel for contributors.

--True
--False

7) New York City's next batch of Citi Bikes will be designed by:

--Ben Serotta
--Dario Pegoretti
--David Byrne
--Paul Budnitz

***Special "When Scooterists Attack!"-Themed Bonus Video***

The More Things Change The More I Don't Care

First of all, as of this very moment, consider "registration" for the BSNYC Gran Fondon't "officially" closed:

You're probably wondering how I can close the registration to a ride that is not organized or sanctioned in any way, and for which there was no registration in the first place.  Well, "leading" a group of this size into the suburban wilderness is uncharted territory for me, so I want to make sure we can pull it off.  Therefore, I will not be responding to any RSVPs I receive after this post:

If you did RSVP before this post then you should have received details.

And don't worry, if it's not a total disaster we can try to put another ride together at a later date.

Secondly, regardless of where you ride this weekend, make sure you do so while wearing a proper pair of flatulence-filtering shorts, as forwarded by a reader:

I'm assuming these filter the odor out of your gaseous expulsions so you don't render the rider behind you unconscious, though I don't know why they're inside out.  Also, while I've heard of "shooting from the hip," I've never heard of "farting from the hip:"

It must happen though, otherwise they wouldn't make special shorts for it, now would they?

In other news, someone has launched the eleventy billionth "smart bike" project on Kickstarter:

This one's called "Vélosophy," and it's a bike, and smartphones, and apps, and who the fuck cares?

"It's no wonder that cycling has been virtually the same since its invention about 200 years ago."

Exactly.  I love how the first 30 seconds of most Kickstarter videos explain exactly why their product is completely unnecessary.  Except...200 years ago?!?

Now, I was never too good at the maths, but if I'm not mistaken 200 years ago it was the year 1815, which is two years before the Laufmaschine, or dandy horse, or crotch crutch, or whatever you want to call it:

The pennyfarthing didn't even come along until the 1870s:

So yeah, I'd say cycling has changed a fuckload over the past 200 years.

Nevertheless, despite solidly establishing the utter futility of their endeavors, these Kickstarter inventors persist in foisting their unfiltered brainfarts upon us:

"Vélosophy is about urban pedaling, technology, and social footprint."

First of all, why is he in a kitchen?  Second of all, what is a "social footprint?"  Are we just putting "footprint" after everything now?  Given the excessive use of words like "footprint," "curate," and "hack," 21st century English is beginning to make Orwellian doublespeak seem like poetry in comparison.  It's infuriating.  I'm about to curate my angry "emotional footprint" right on somebody's ass.

So what makes the Vélosophy so technologically advanced anyway?  Well, it tells you when it needs to be serviced:

I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking, "How fucking hard is it to glance at your tire tread occasionally?"  Well, sure, but why do that when you can visualize your "pneumatic footprint" in pie chart form?

Then you can make an appointment at the bike shop:

And after you're walking away you can decide, "You know what?  I'd really like to change my bike's 'aesthetic footprint' too:"

"Oooh, yeah, my 'coolness footprint' is really going to increase with these red accents!"

Et voilà!  When you pick up the bike your whims have become come reality:

Or, you know, you could have just called the bike shop, but presumably when you do it this way it posts photos of your stupid bike to Facebook, and Twitter, and Instagram, and Tinder, and Grindr, and Hoagie, and all the rest of them, ensuring your "social footprint" remains robust and engorged.

At this point however my "indifference footprint" is big enough to stomp out the sun.

Oh, the other revolutionary thing about it is that it has a basket:

Oh, sorry, it's not a basket.  It's a "scalable system that allows you to carry your things."

I guess I'm revealing my "ignorance footprint."

And yes, good for them that they're giving bikes to UNICEF, even if that part seems a bit tacked on:

Why not just cut out the middleman and the goofy bike business and just send them a check?

Back in the olden days when we were free-range kids with no smartphones they gave us cardboard UNICEF boxes for Halloween, we took them with us when we went trick-or-treating, and people filled them up with money.  That's HARD CURRENCY, baby!

What the hell was wrong with that!?!

Speaking of our shared wank-tastic future, Strava has launched "Strava Local," which presumably lets area Freds CURATE their own ride guides:

Strava has launched Strava Local, a new data-powered and athlete-curated travel guide for cyclists available in 12 cities worldwide.

Over 38 million Stava activities and billions of GPS data points from London, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, New York, Milan, Denver, Melbourne, Sao Paulo, Barcelona and Sydney have been used to provide locals and visitors with the best cycling (and running) routes in each city along with top coffee stops, places to buy gear and great photo spots.

Amazing.  That's a lot of "data points."  Can you imagine if the Freds of the world actually channelled their energy into something useful?  If just a fraction of them strapped cardboard boxes to their handlebars and collected some scratch for UNICEF then world poverty would be a thing of the past.

Strava product manager, Andrew Valko, said: “City guides have long been a valuable tool for travellers and locals alike, but ours are based on actual data. We have been able to work out where, when and why athletes tend to stop, which we have used to curate a selection of Top Stops and photo spots for each of the 12 cities.”

Really?  You need 38 million "Strava activities" and "billions of GPS data points" to tell you why "athletes" (read: Freds) stop?  Everybody knows they stop for two (2) reasons:

1) To drink coffee;
2) To pee.

Wow.

Perhaps next they can explore the causal relationship between these two activities.

Then again, "Strava Local" could be the think that finally gets me to join.  I figure if I "curate" a one-way ride over the George Washington Bridge, across the Delaware Water Gap, and into the wilderness I can rid New York City of its Fred population once and for all.

Just call me the Fred Piper.

Lastly, a Twitterer tells me that Mario Cipollini was on RAI talking about motors in bikes.  Unfortunately I don't understand Italian, but I did appreciate the Italian bike rap intro:

Also, a group of people gathered around Cipollini to soak in his wisdom (and assorted other bodily fluids) is an image that transcends language:

It's like Caravaggio painted "The Last Supper" on velvet.

And here's Cipo himself:

Again, I don't understand Italian, but I can make a pretty good guess as to what he's saying:

("My glandular footprint is huge!  I don't know about the bikes, but 'Li'l Cipo' has a motor that keeps him running all night long!")

You can't spell Cipollini without "pol(e) in," and you can't cure Cipollini without Cipro.

I would have posted earlier, but I dropped my phone in the toilet, then I lost my smart watch while trying to fish it out.

You know how sometimes you're just riding to work when all of a sudden some "Premium Rash" putz on a fixie appears out of nowhere and nearly takes you out?

Well, it's no different if the job you're riding to is the Giro d'Italia, because apparently one such putz managed to cause a crash after jumping into the peloton towards the end of Stage 2:

"If I get hold of the dickhead that had the brilliant idea of diving into the peloton on a fixed bike with 10km to go, causing us to crash…" he tweeted, adding a couple of angry emoticons.

Please note the rider above is Alafaci and not the fixie dickhead.

These kids today with their tattoos and their fancy hair, who can even tell the difference?

Details on the incident are still sparse at this point, but I suspect douchetastic international fixed-gear sensation Patrick Seabase:



Yes, Seabase's heroic exploits have inspired thousands of young cyclists the world over...to get derailleurs, because nothing looks dumber than being spun out on a fixie.

Even recumbents are dignified in comparison:

("Hey, thanks for that, it means a lot.")

Yeah, don't mention it.

Oh, and while you're down there would you change the oil in my car?

Thanks a lot.

In other news, last Friday I posted this video:



Which includes an appearance from a certain meh-vivant and semi-professional bike blogger:

Well, after watching it over and over again because I love myself, I couldn't help noticing that not only are there other people in the video, but one of them has an actual story about how his bike got stolen, and it's well worth watching:

To many of us, it's a mystery how bike thieves manage to take advantage of us so effectively.  Therefore, this surveillance video is an invaluable tool, because it shows how all they really need is a really long bar and some elbow grease.  Furthermore, the fact that pretty much nobody gives a shit about what they're doing allows them to work uninterrupted.

Meanwhile, people are constantly interrupting me while I'm blogging, which says to me that I should probably blog while stealing bikes because that way people might finally leave me alone.

Anyway, the other interesting scene is when Brian Vines goes to talk to the police:

You'll notice that as he does a couple of men walk by:

One of whom turns to look at Mr. Vines:

And then moves further down the sidewalk, where he continues to stare and linger:

It's quite chilling.

Now I'm no criminal-ologist, but everybody knows that the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime.  Therefore, it's fairly obvious to me that HE'S THE ONE WHO STOLE THE BIKE, GET HIM, GET HIM, GET HIM!!!

If you'd like to hire me to investigate the theft of your bike I'm available for a modest fee of only the full retail value of your bike or else the current price of a Specialized McLaren Venge-Schmenge, whichever is higher.  Rest assured I will use only the most advanced crime-solving techniques, including but not limited to psychic detection, for which I will require something that belonged to your missing bicycle and two days in a suite at The Pierre.

Lastly, in a sure sign that society is diseased, the people who came up with that bike light that looks like balls have already raised almost $20,000:

Meanwhile, Dulcie Canton barely cleared five grand:

That's just fucked up.

BSNYC Friday Fun Quiz!

Next Sunday, May 17th, is the Gran Fondo New York:

(Pro for a day, Fred for a lifetime.)

So why does this matter?  Because I'll be "leading" an alternate ride that very same day called the BSNYC Gran Fondon't:

(Click here for theme music.)

So what is the BSNYC Gran Fondon't?  Well, first of all it has no association whatsoever with the Gran Fondo New York.  If anything, it's the anti-matter that resulted from the creation of the Gran Fondo, and if it helps let's compare it to the GFNY 50 miler:

Note that for US$299 (plus an additional $14.95 they just call a "fee") the GFNY will graciously allow you to ride a bicycle to Bear Mountain or wherever, including return transportation.

On the other hand, for US$0 (plus an additional $0 I simply call "nothing")* the Gran Fondon't will involve riding 50 miles on the opposite side of the river from the GFNY.  Furthermore, the BSNYC Gran Fondon't will provide no return transportation or indeed any transportation of any kind, though we will finish close to where we start.  (Feel free to use the subway, the Metro North, the car that you own, lease, or finance, or any other form of transport that is in no way my problem, responsibility, or concern.)  Also, the Gran Fondon't is not a sanctioned ride, nor is it being held under the auspices of any organization.  Rather, it's simply going to be people who enjoy riding bicycles (and who happen to read this blog) meeting at a certain place and time in order to go on a ride together, at the end of which we'll finish up someplace where we can purchase and consume beer.  (You buy your own beer, cheapskate.)

*[I will, however, ask you to make a completely voluntary donation in the amount of your choosing to a non-profit volunteer organization in order to help support some of the trails we'll be using.]

So, in short:

BSNYC Gran Fondon't!

When: Sunday, May 17th, 7:30am;

Where: Starts uptown.  Way uptown;

What: 50-ish (?) miles of mixed terrain north of New York City and east of the Hudson, figure around four hours of riding, nothing crazy;

Who: People who enjoy riding bicycles in a somewhat spirited but not antagonistic fashion;

Why: Because I said so, that's why.

If you came to the "Super-Secret Early Morning Ride" last week you've got a pretty good idea of what to expect, except this will be a couple of hours longer, we'll go farther north, and we'll take in some more inspiring "countryside," such as it is.  This isn't a "no-drop" ride, but the pace will be civil.  (I define "civil" as "comfortable for me.")  Yes there will be dirt, yes your road bike will be fine, no you don't need to buy special equipment unless you're looking for an excuse to do so, in which case go ahead and buy some handmade Paris-Roubaix tubulars and a custom gravel bike.

Oh, and if the weather sucks I'm canceling, life's too short for slogs and death marches.

If you're interested email me at bikesnobnyc (@) yahoo (dot) com with the subject line "I DON'T DON'T WANT TO DO THE FONDON'T!" and I'll send you full details when they're ready.

Speaking of riding bikes, as someone who doesn't use Strava I was pleasantly surprised to read this tweet from Bicycling:

How to break the addiction to data--and discover the sweet thrill of riding unencumbered: http://t.co/TkoBBXGrKq pic.twitter.com/AU8ORAQwTK

— Bicycling Magazine (@BicyclingMag) May 8, 2015

That is, until I read the article:

And discovered that, in lieu of Strava, Freds and Fredericas need to engage in self-bribery, psychological trickery, and even good old-fashioned hoarding behavior in order to convince themselves to ride their multi-thousand dollar bicycles:

You're Financially Motivated
Drop coins or dollar bills into a jar after every ride. Use the cash to buy a new piece of gear at the end of the year.

You Like Souvenirs
Pick up a pebble or a rock on every ride and add it to a pile near your doorstep, creating a cairn of your rides.

You Just Want Memories
Keep a handwritten diary of your rides. Note distance, destinations, milestones, and revelations.

You're Glued to Social Media
Create a unique hashtag, then tweet or post photos to Instagram every time you get on the bike. At the end of the year, you'll have a stream that doubles as a ride log.

Are you kidding me?  Stick-on stars?!?  Are these adult cyclists or kindergarteners learning how to tie their shoes?  If you need to pay yourself or build a midden by your door in order to ride your bike then just give up.  Really.  Nobody's making you do any of this.  It's supposed to be fun!  Me, if I'm lucky enough to have a window of a couple hours I can't wait to jump on the bike--I don't need to add another clipping to my toenail collection before doing so.

And now, I'm pleased to present you with a quiz.  As always, study the item, think, and click on your answer.  If you're right that's great, and if you're wrong, that's not great, because you'll see some fucking asshole scare an entire school off their bikes.

[Also, please note that QUESTION #7 IS A SPECIAL INTERACTIVE QUESTION, and if you get it right and follow the directions after the question YOU WILL WIN A PRIZE COURTESY OF CLASSIC CYCLE!]

That's right, the stakes just went up.  A lot.

Thanks very much for reading, ride safe, and happy quizzing.


--Wildcat Rock Machine

1) Alberto Contador says he has the necessary confidence to do a Giro-Tour double this year because:

--He won the Vuelta last year
--He has a newly-designed bicycle
--He's breathing freely thanks to the strips on his nose
--Drugs

2) What's going on here?

--A tall biker is chucking a u-lock at a driver
--A driver is chucking a u-lock at a tall biker
--The guy on the right is throwing the lock because the driver is heckling him for his socks
--God hates Portland, so He is cleansing it with a hail of u-locks

3) What are these "Spoke Fins" for?

--They're supposed to help you true your wheels
--They're supposed to help maintain spoke tension
--They're supposed to increase aerodynamics
--They emit a pleasing sound when you hit Fred "Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!" speed

(Robbie McEwen, feelin' the PEAWAH!)

4) What is "PEAWAH?"

--Australian for "power"
--A female peacock
--A guitar effect
--An energy bar made from peas and water

5) This man wants $100,000 for:

--A "Loud Ass Bike Horn"
--A "Big Ass Bike Tire"
--An "Ass-Haulin' Bike Motor"
--Foghat tickets

6) Should you drill a hole in your crabon frame in order to turn the downtube into a hydration bladder?

--Oh yeah, absolutely, sounds like a great idea.
--What are you, a friggin' idiot?

7) What year is this Schwinn Grey Ghost?*

--1968
--1970
--1971
--1973

*First person to email me at bikesnobnyc (@) yahoo (dot) com with the correct answer wins a prize courtesy of Classic Cycle!  Use subject line "IWONIWONIWON!"

Prize has been claimed, thank you for playing!  Stay tuned for more exciting opertunity's to win!

***Special Bike Theft Report With Appearances By Your's Truley!***

Not bad, but could have used more me.