A Knock Came At The Door. He Opened It. There Was Wednesday, In A Pair of Clown Shoes.

Well, life is not always kind, and for the second time this month I'll be going to Pennsylvania--this time to Philadelphia:

(Cute skyscraper.)

Where I'll be mouthing off on something or other at the Philadelphia Bike Expo:

My talk will take place on Saturday, October 27th at 11:00am ,so make sure you put it in your schedule so that you can avoid it.  This will be my third visit to the Expo, and I've always enjoyed it, though there is a first time for everything, so who's to say this visit won't resemble something out of my worst nightmare?  (My worst nightmare, incidentally, is having to ride a stationary trainer while listening to Chris Carmichael read aloud from his book, "The Time-Crunched Cyclist.")

In any case, I hope to see you there.

Also, remember yesterday when I said I was going to increase my product coverage?  No?  Well, perhaps you're taking too much of the "pot."  Either way, are you looking for some handlebar tape with which to tape up the handlebar controls of your two-wheeled bicycle cycling bike machine?  Well, why not try this stuff, which a reader tells me is actually endorsed by
the time-traveling t-shirt-wearing retro-Fred from the planet TridorkBret:

Here's the "low down:"

Made with cutting-edge technologies from the finest materials, Velo’s innovative wrap series offers soft and highly durable handle bar tapes for every cycling preference. Advanced materials enhanced by patented technologies give cyclists superior control and the highest level of riding comfort.
wrap tapes help you conquer any terrain with confidence.

Now, I'm a fickle consumer, so all of this raises a couple of questions.  Firstly, if the tape is so awesome then why isn't Bret even holding it?  Secondly, if you look closely, it appears that Bret's bars are wrapped with electrical tape--which, while frugal, is not exactly "cutting-edge" technology.  Are we to infer that Bret prefers electrical tape to this Velo stuff?  Then again, maybe this is a stroke of marketing genius, and the insinuation is that Velo tape is so grippy that all you need to do is gently rest your forearms on it and you'll form an unbreakable bond with your bicycle.

Speaking of cutting-edge materials, one material that isn't cutting edge (unless you take the term "cutting edge" literally) is wood:

And a reader informs me that you can own the above assemblage of crudely-glued broomsticks for the low, low price of $4,000:

Here's the story:

Light-weight 19lbs, single speed- 19th Century style bicycle, exceptionally stiff frame; hemp fabric composite lugs which are both internally and externally butted for maximum strength; components include Shimano Tiagra brake calipers; Tipo Uno leather saddle--19th Century style. non-adjustable seat tower for 32 inch inseam. frame is 56 cm; features Generation 8 single-speed crankset. Rims are 700 x 23C

This bicycle is exceptionally fast and the frame damps all road vibration, like riding on a cloud. It is a modern interpretation of the classic 19th Century 1898 Oak framed Chillion built by J.D. Stebbins. Hand crafted with the same attention as the original, there are 350 hours in the construction of the frame. Adorning the headtube is a pure copper red oak leaf and acorn headstamp. It's a head-turner and built to be ridden hard. The original oak frame track bike still holds the indoor Velo Drome record for wooden bikes.

The frame is finished in Swedish Tonqinoise denatured linseed maritime varnish and hand-rubbed to a golden luster. This work of art is proof that 19th Century technology is still viable and competitive today.

$4000 OBO

More detailed pictures will be posted soon.

Yes, it certainly is exquisite.  Nice parts selection, too.  Basically, it's like a Bikesdirect.com bike, only flammable.  Also, it's finished in "Swedish Tonqinoise denatured linseed maritime varnish and hand-rubbed to a golden luster," which is funny because I was making the universal sign for "hand-rubbing" the entire time I was reading the ad.


Of course, if you prefer the dull sheen of titanium to the hand-rubbed golden luster of Swedish Tonquinoise denatured linseed maritime varnish--and you're prepared to spend an extra sixteen hundred bucks--you can always skip the wood bike and go for The Budnitz.  Indeed, a few weeks back, Old Man Budnitz himself articulated his philosophy on "bikeen" in a blog post entitled "Nostalgia Is Death" that has received a bit of attention.  It starts with Old Man Budnitz establishing his "street cred:"

During the 1980’s and 1990’s city cycling was primarily a kind of rebel subculture, something practiced by bike messengers, Chinese food delivery men, and a few lunatics like myself who rode because it was fast, fun, and dangerous.   

I wonder he's talking about cycling in Berkley, where he grew up, or in Boulder, where he lives now.  Was there ever a time in either place where cycling was any edgier than wheat germ or yoga?

Then, he tells us about his old Bottechia:

From 1989 through 2005 I owned an orange and chrome 1967 Bottechia steel road bike I’d bought for $100 at a flea market in Southern California.

I was stunned to learn he managed to ride this bike for 16 years, despite the fact that it wasn't titanium and cost him less than $5,600--which, as I understood from his marketing copy, were the minimum requirements for a durable bicycle.

Anyway, even though Old Man Budnitz was somehow one of the first people ever to ride a bike in New York City, he doesn't much care for the attitude of his fellow "pioneers:"

One of the other things I’ve noticed is that some of the original cyclists, the same pioneers who were riding single speeds to punk shows long before Manhattan had its first bike path, have begun to feel angry and left out.

I went to my share of punk shows in New York City as a teenager and I don't recall anybody riding singlespeeds to them.  Actually, I don't really recall many people riding bicycles to punk shows at all.  I'm pretty sure those single-speed "bike piles" outside of clubs and bars came after the bike lanes.

Even so, these fictional "pioneers" clearly lack the integrity of Old Man Budnitz:

Unfortunately, when something alternative becomes popular, innovators who are unable to muster the energy to move on instead hold on to the past, and do everything they can to attack those who they perceive are involved in the new wave.  This always strikes me as sad and ironic, and a little pathetic.

Actually, not everybody does that.  Some people just fabricate a false history of themselves and then try to sell the "new wave" city bikes that cost $5,600.  This is hardly surprising, since Old Man Budnitz's most impressive quality is his audacity:

Any bicycle that is loved is worth praising, whether it’s a $150 upright Columbia picked up at flea market, a fixie put together with parts from a dumpster, or a high-end model like the ones made by companies like Beloved, Budnitz, Rivendell, Vanilla, and other independent manufacturers.  Like a classic car, bicycles deserve the respect that high-end manufacturing and design brings.  Also like cars, this doesn’t diminish the value of the bicycle that you bought at a flea market, and that you deeply love.

Beloved.  Budnitz.  Rivendell.  Vanilla.  One of these names doesn't belong.  Sure, I've joked about the extravagance of the Beloved city bikes, but at least the $5,000 you pay for one gets you some fenders and stuff:

Also, given that they come out of the Chris King factory, I'm guessing the people involved in building and marketing them know how to properly install a wheel.

After returning that titanium creak machine I had resolved never to speak of Budnitz again, but the sad fact is that I may not sleep comfortably until Budnitz stops selling bicycles altogether and gets back to bedazzling sneakers for the Japanese.

Old Man Budnitz does make one good point though, which is that cycling in New York City has indeed become more accessible, and that is a good thing.  One organization that has been instrumental in this transformation is Transportation Alternatives, and recently I received this email from them:

Basically, they wanted me to tell my representatives that I want speeding drivers to get busted:


In an editorial yesterday, The New York Times called on New York State to stop speeding drivers.

Their endorsement is great, but it’s not enough to make our campaign heard. Tell your representatives you agree with The New York Times!

This sounded good to me, and so I did what they told me.  But then I read the actual Times piece:

The city could cut down on traffic deaths in three ways. It should be given permission by state authorities to install cameras to photograph license plates when drivers are going too fast, since many deaths are caused by speeding vehicles. There were 115 deaths involving drivers or passengers, up from 78 the year before. The remaining 176 killed were cyclists and pedestrians.

So far, so good--and then:

City police should also increase the number of tickets given to drivers and cyclists who disobey traffic laws, like speeding, running red lights or making illegal turns. 

What?  "And cyclists?!?"  I don't want cyclists to get more tickets!  Sure, plenty of us are idiots, but we're getting enough tickets as it is!  Meanwhile, I can't walk the few blocks to the playground with my 17 kids without at least five drivers breaking the law in some egregious way that could easily make all of us die.

This is not to say some cyclists don't deserve tickets.  For example, many people are outraged over this story, but I'm not:

Basically, the guy ran a bunch of lights on his bike and got a bunch of tickets, pleaded guilty to them without even reading them, and then was shocked to discover what he owed:

I was guilty for sure of going through the lights and wearing headphones so naively I pleaded guilty and sent in the tickets.  A few weeks later I got a letter in the mail, it contained my 4 tickets stapled to a piece of paper that indicated I owed $1555. It didn't itemize the cost of each ticket so I have no idea what each one is worth. 

I realize the police do tend to treat cyclists unfairly, but if you plead guilty to a ticket without even taking the time to figure out how much you owe in fines then that means only one thing:

 
Especially if you don't have much money to begin with:

"This is my first bike infraction in New York City," the cyclist says. "$1,500 seems pretty excessive, especially for a 24-year-old where $1,500 is a little less than 10% of my yearly income." 

If you make $15,000 a year and you don't even bother to read a traffic ticket before sending it in you deserve to be broke.  I wonder if he also shops for clothes at Barney's, plunks down his credit card, and then says it's unfair when he gets a $3,000 bill in the mail a month later.  Still, as cloying as Brookyn has become, it's comforting to know that the city still has enough teeth left to chew people up and then spit them out.

Sometimes cycling's only as cheap as you make it.

Found Smugness: Why Buy the Chicken When You Can Get the Lead For Free?

Generally speaking, I try not to bother you, the reader (as opposed to me, the douchebag) with tedious details concerning the running of this blog.  However,  since I feel I've earned your trust over the last five-ish years of more-or-less daily bullshit "curation," I owe it to you to reveal that last Sunday, at the Bicycling Fall Classic, while in extreme oxygen debt on a climb, I agreed to sell this blog to Rodale (parent company of Bicycling and manufacturers of top-quality nerve agents) for $75 and a sweet "bro" deal on a Specialized.  (You can read the full press release in "Bicycle Retailer and Industry News.")

Rest assured that nothing will change, and that the blog you've grown to know and become indifferent to you will be the very same one that "jumped the shark" about 4.5 years ago.  The only real difference is that I'm now $75 richer and riding around on one of Mike Sinyard's crabon fribé brainfarts.  Also, I've agreed that images of the rider known colloquially as "Recumbabe:"

(Recumbabe does Canada, by BKJimmy.)

Will heretofore be replaced with photographs of Ann Romney:

(I don't know what she's baking, but it looks fucking delicious.)

Also, there's going to be a print version of the blog, and I'm modeling the design after "Cycling World," as forwarded to me by a reader:

If you haven't read their latest feature, "Water Bottles: A Convenient And Practical Way to Stay Hydrated While Biking," then you owe it to yourself to pick up a copy wherever fourth-tier periodicals are sold.

Oh, there's also one other thing, which is that they want me to increase my coverage of new cycling products by roughly 600%, since pictures of naked ladies on recumbents "Don't make money for nobody," as the head of their accounting department put it to me over coffee and threats as he cracked his knuckles.  The only problem is that I don't get much by way of new product solicitation, since most manufacturers recognize the fact that I'm what is called "an idiot" in bicycle industry jargon.  In fact, pretty much the only company to make any overtures to me in the past few months has been Budnitz Bicycles, which should give you an idea of how pathetic I am.

Fortunately, as I rummaged through my electronic inbox this morning, I found a message from a company called "SlingFin," who wanted me to mention the combination pannier/backpack called the "Honey Badger" that they're currently flogging on the Kickstarter:



Basically, the SlingFin people need $175,000 to make this, and if they don't get it in five days this guy is going to have to go back into The Matrix:

One of the chief selling points of the Honey Badger is its durability, and to illustrate this they drag it from behind a pickup truck:

This is actually a really important test, especially if you live in the southern United States, where they like to do this sort of thing to minorities, homosexuals, and cyclists.

As I watched this video, though, I realized that I'm not really qualified to evaluate the product.  Sure, as a New York City cyclist there's a better-than-average chance that I'll one day get dragged for about eighteen blocks by a mafia-owned refuse-hauling truck, but this is also a very "outdoorsy" product and I'm about as outdoorsy as a suede loveseat.  Sure, I ride a bike outside, but I don't sleep there.  If I'm traveling and you need to find me your best bet is to check the hotels with flushing toilets, because there's no way you're going to find me sleeping in a soccer ball in the Himalayas:

The SlingFin team are very outdoorsy, though.  Consider Lauren, aka "Sky," who's way into skydiving, as well as "canyoneering, slacklining," and a whole bunch of other stuff:

As an inveterate wussbag I've never even heard of most of those activities, and I thought I was listening to Lacy Underalls in "Caddyshack" talking about "skinnyskiing" and "bullfights on acid."  Anyway, to further test the Honey Badger, Sky hurls herself right into a waterfall:

I'm guessing when it rains she doesn't take the bus.

So to review, you can use the Honey Badger to carry a dog:

Or to climb shit:

Or to go on a hardcore gentrifying expedition:

Or to "portage" your groovy 1970s-style skateboard:

Best of all, it's fully compatible with your gigantic pie plate;

Intriguing, but slightly overbuilt for my purposes.

But what I may lack in hardiness I do make up for in smugness--or so I thought.  Since taking delivery of a Surly Big Dummy a couple or so years back I've become a genuine cargo bike enthusiast and a fan of the Xtracycle system.  However, after I watched this Xtracycle promotional video that was forwarded to me by a reader, I realized that true smugness is nearly as alien to me as survival in the great outdoors:


At first, the film was perfectly relatable to me.

Anybody with children knows that parenting mostly consists of caging and confining the offspring in order to go from one place to the other, and this apparatus seems like it would do an excellent job of it:

"Cool, I want that!," I immediately found myself thinking.  But then the film takes a bizarre turn when Dad, beneath whose staid suburban attire beats the heart of a freegan, suddenly makes straight for the trash:

Then, after a bit of rummaging, he presents his delighted child with a pinwheel:

This is where they lost me.  Perhaps the same wussiness that makes me gravitate to hotels also makes me wary of skeevy street pinwheels that come from the garbage, but when I think of some of the items I've discarded and why I'm convinced that my caution with regard to pinwheels of unknown provenance is warranted.  I mean, who knows what the previous owner was doing with that thing?  For all I know there's some disgusting frat boy game where the object is to see who can make a pinwheel spin the longest with the force a "loogie" or a blast of flatulence.  At the very least I'd want to give the thing a good disinfecting.

Meanwhile, Mom's shopping for plants, completely oblivious to the fact that Dad has just handed the kids a germ-laden wheel of fortune:

And he doesn't stop there, either, because after some more rummaging he finds a typewriter:

The filth possibilities of the typewriter make the pinwheel seem positively antiseptic in comparison.  Who knows what insect infestation is living deep in its inner workings?  Or, maybe the guy who threw it out was some William S. Burroughs-esque beatnik junkie who would type a few words of poetry, nod off, and then just drool all over it.  Dad's not worried though, and he throws it in the bike with nary a concern:

At this point I began to worry about the state of Dad's Xtracycle.  I know my own is pretty disgustingly filthy.  In fact, the other day I actually found old restaurant leftovers in it--and I don't even haul trash with it.  Hopefully Dad's at least hosing that scow down after his wild family garbage parties.

So where's Mom?  Still shopping for plants:

("Nice cactus!")

And clearly she's not fucking around, because next she unfurls the trailer:

As Dad lets the kids pick out some baked goods:

("They have two-day old ones out back in the trash that are just as good.")

Remember when I said Mom wasn't fucking around?  Well, she's not, because here she is ordering the guy at the nursery to load up her trailer with about 14 feet of bamboo:

And then, amazingly, she resumes her botanical shopping spree:

By the way, I don't know where this film is set, but it must be a pretty friendly place because the café still lets them eat there even though they brought the food in from the trash:

Also, the guy at the nursery still supports Tibet:

Isn't that quaint?  Here in New York people forgot all about Tibet shortly after Lollapalooza II.

Finally, Mom's ready to go:

I find it distressing that Mom has just spent something like $1,500 on plants while her husband and children are forced to forage in the trash to support her cripplingly expensive gardening habit.  I also find it amusing that there are probably about fifteen angry drivers stuck behind a slow-moving tree:

Finally, the film ends with the family reunited around the typewriter:

("Can you believe people actually used to write with these things?  What idiots!")

Shrewdly they're using it outside, since those first few clackety-clacks should result in plenty of fleeing mice and roaches.

Alas, while much of Brooklyn is indeed beginning to resemble this video, it still has a long way to go.  Plus, we've experienced a major setback, since all those people keeping chickens in the backyards of their brownstones are now discovering the eggs are filled with lead:

What a shock.  When it comes to smug cuisine, some things are just better left to the food co-op.

Lastly, via the Twitter comes this sweet Pinarello freestyling:

I could do most of those things but I choose not to.



dd

Barnstorming: Separating the Freds from the Boys

Happy Columbus Day!  On this very day in history, four score and 1492 years ago, Christopher Columbus launched a successful "Kicking Starter" campaign to find the Pacific Northwest Passage to Portland, OR.  Along the way he met various indigenous peoples, took their land and resources from them at blunderbusspoint, and infected them with smallpox by way of compensation.  Some people still get the day off from work or school on Columbus Day, even though the holiday is increasingly considered to be "politically incorrect."  I, however, am "working"--not because I think the holiday is politically incorrect, but rather because I totally forgot about it until midway through my fourth cup of coffee this morning, by which point I was far too jittery to go back to bed.

In any case, while I'm up, UP, UP!!!, I might as well share with you my experiences at yesterday's Bicycling Fall Classic, which was front page sporting news in this morning's The Morning Call, the Lehigh Valley's newspaper of record:

On a Sunday morning that portended (but, happily, never really delivered) rain, I rolled out with Ted King of Liquigas-Cannondale and a diverse assortment of jovial Freds for the 90-mile "Gran Fondo" route.  On my wrist was a timing chip that would measure my ascents on various uphill sections of the course, and I would have discreetly fastened it to Ted King's bike if I hadn't arrived at the starting line about four seconds before the start of the ride.  I certainly had little interest in learning my own time, as I'm an abysmal climber and all-around poor cyclist, and the Power Meter In My Mind tells me everything I need to know:

Apart from the above image, which pulses meditatively in my inner eye at all times, I ride with an uncluttered cockpit and completely data-free.  This is because I feel about numbers the same way Frank Costanza does about tinsel.  I also generally don't take photographs while engaged in the act of purely recreational bicycle cycling, because unlike many of my fellow Freds I actually ride bikes for fun, and I find that taking pictures takes me "out of the moment."  (Plus, I'm not very good at the biking, so there's a better-than-average chance that I'll fall down and take a bunch of my Fellow freds with me, causing them to like me even less than they already do.) 

Having partooken in one of those Rapha Gentlemen's Thingies in this very hilly region two years ago I knew the day would be difficult for me.  Sure, that ride was like 30% longer, but there's at least 30% more of me now then there was two years ago, plus underneath all that extra me I'm a good 20% weaker and have done 99% less racing.  There are also a lot of hills, and I don't go up hills very well in any condition, though I do go down them a lot faster now due to my enhanced corpulence.  I suppose this makes up for the decreased fitness somewhat, but I'd need someone like Allen Lim to tell me exactly how much, and unfortunately there's no way I could listen to someone like Allen Lim talk for more than 20 seconds without falling asleep.

Still, I'm pleased to report that I did stay with the Ted King group though the first timed climb, though I'm not sure my time was recorded since you're supposed to roll over some timing trigger thingy which is marked by DayGlo cones.  However, as an urban cyclist I just assumed the cones indicated some kind of road hazard and so I steered well clear of them.  Afterwards, things settled down for a bit, and I was doing okay, but then the pace went from "conversational" to "chatty" and I began to find myself in distress.  Then the Ted King group attacked me by failing to match my vicious deceleration, and I was all alone by the midpoint of the ride, where I stopped briefly to take on fuel (actual gasoline, it's an old Eastern Bloc trick, I hear Vino still drinks it), and also took this picture:

I'm sure the pagoda standing nobly in the etherial mist has some kind of story, but I was more interested in the porta-potty:

I'm something of a porta-potty business name enthusiast, and my favorite are the ones that are puns ("Johnny-On-The-Spot" and "Call-A-Head" are local enterprises that spring immediately to mind).  This one was pretty good too though, and it was at that moment I resolved to start a porta-potty rental business that offers porta-potties shaped like pagodas for a more contemplative voiding experience:

I'm still working on the name, but it would probably be something like "Pa-GO-da" or "Bootydharma."  

Oh, also, there was a view from where the pagoda was:

I viewed it, I photographed it, and I continued on--mostly alone.  Then I started to sense a softness in my rear tire, though I did not stop to inspect it, for I have often stopped to inspect a softening tire only to find that it is in fact fully inflated and I feel like I'm riding on pudding because I'm getting tired and I suck.  So I kept going, and then another group caught me, and I rode with them for awhile, but the tire kept getting undeniably softer, and then the rim started to bottom out occasionally.  Eventually it reached the point where descending on it was getting hazardous, and as determined as I was to wheelsuck off this group for as long as possible, I finally faced the fact that I would have to stop and fix it:

Naturally the object that had penetrated my tire was a tiny little piece of wire that barely protruded through the casing and must have been worrying at the tube for many miles.  It was also nearly impossible to remove without tweezers.  As I struggled with it I could hear the sound of gunshots from what turned out to be a nearby rifle range, and when I looked around all I saw was this:

And this:

At one point a man in a pickup truck stopped to ask me if I needed any help.  I briefly considered asking him if he had any tweezers, but then it occurred to me that asking a guy in a hunting hat for tweezers while dressed in form-fitting Lycra might not be a good idea in rural Pennsylvania.  Finally, I succeeded in extracting the stupid shitty little piece of metal from the tire with the tip of my roof rack key, and on I went:

After that I spent the last hour and a half of the ride riding in a leisurely fashion (my "leisurely" is most people's "lethargic") and enjoying the scenery, which really is beautiful, though by the end of the ride I was pretty tired and decided that if I saw another quaint farm or lovely stone house I was going to puke.  There were also lots of horses and buggies being driven by Amish or Mennonites or whatever they are. (I like to think of them as Hassidim with better equestrian skills.)  Finally, I reached the velodrome, turned in my timing chip, and helped myself to food and beer.  I also barely managed to restrain myself from pilfering from the garbage, which contained at least $150 in tires:

An enterprising cyclist could probably keep a bicycle rolling for free indefinitely just picking through the trash at Gran Fondos.  (Fredganism is the new Freeganism, and so forth.)

Penultimately, it's been a little over a year since I took delivery of my Ritte Von Finkelstein drop bar-style bicycle, and I only grow more pleased with it as time goes on:

Though I totally would have won the ride if I had been on an all-crabon bicycle with electronical shifting.

Lastly, I have a strict policy about not including photos of myself on this blog, though policies were meant to be disregarded occasionally, and this inspirational message as rendered by "BKJimmy" happens one of those occasions:

I may suck at life, and at riding bicycles, but I very much enjoyed the ride, and I thank the good people at Bicycling for inviting me.  It's a great route and it's very well organized, and I recommend it highly, especially if you're way into climbing and barns.  Best of all, you'll get to use all those elementary skills you've read about in Bicycling over the years, including: how to prepare for that big ride; how to fix a flat; and, most importantly, how to overtake a horse and buggy.

Happy Columbus Day,


--Wildcat Rock Machine