BSNYC Friday Fun Quiz!

First of all, Monday is the Columbus Day:

This means I won't be posting on Monday in observance thereof (by which I mean the schools are closed so I'll be busy parenting), but I will return on Tuesday, October 14th with regular updates.

If you've got a problem with that then you're racist against Eye-talians.

Secondly, I'm pleased to announce I've chosen the winner of the Strava-Free Weekend Essay Contest, and here it is:

When I saw Bike Snob’s challenge to have a Strava-free weekend⎯and considered whether it was possible for me to do this⎯I began sweating, shaking violently, and vomited at my desk at work. When my coworker Fred saw this, he asked me what was wrong, so I told him. Being a cyclist and Strava user himself, Fred also vomited (but Fred is a total poser⎯he rides a hybrid and doesn’t even pay the $60/year fee to be a premium Strava member!).  Once I realized I was exhibiting classic addiction/withdrawal symptoms, I realized I had to try.

So this morning, on a beautiful fall Saturday in NYC, I rode up to Flushing Meadows Park. Since I wasn’t distracted by dominating my personal bests while hunched head down over my aerobars, I noticed many things about cycling in my city that I had never seen before. Firstly, there are all sorts of people! Other human beings that normally would have been mere annoying blurs in my peripheral vision or obstacles to be nimbly navigated. As I continued into the park, I also noticed other cyclists! These people were making casual laps around the lake, seemingly unconcerned with their KOM times or Suffer Scores, and they actually seemed to be enjoying themselves regardless! My greatest discovery of the day had to be the Kissena Velodrome. A Velodrome, I learned, is sort of like the loops in Central and Prospect Park⎯but without all of the obnoxious pedestrians. My urge to do a few laps was defeated when I noticed a children’s event going on. Now I’m not saying that my initial gut impulse to scream “GET OUT OF MY WAY!” at them wasn’t there entirely, however it was squelched by…well, just how darn cute they were! On their little miniature track bikes, wearing tiny little jerseys! I started shaking when I wondered if any of them were using Strava to record their laps⎯but I was able to take a deep breath and compose myself. Maybe there is hope for the future, after all.

So thank you, Bike Snob, for challenging me to address my addiction to data collection and the cycling equivalent of being a chronic masturbator. Who knows? Maybe even Fred and me will go for a nice, leisurely ride together soon (but probably not).

I realize this exceeds the 200 word limit I had set, but I was willing to overlook this because the essay contains both humor and catharsis.  Also, he thanks me at the end, and would it kill any of you people to thank me once in awhile?

I mean really.  Jesus.

Anyway, congratulations to the winner, whose name I'm not mentioning at the moment because I have no idea if he wants it associated with this blog.  (I know I sure as hell wouldn't.) Andrew Yackira, who says it's an "honor" to be mentioned on this blog, so go figure!

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 just fantastic, and if you're wrong you'll see recumbent porn.

Thanks very much for reading, ride safe, and see you on Tuesday.  That's TUESDAY, not Monday.  Got it?


--Wildcat Rock Machine

1) Fill In The Blank: "Zoobomb" is out; ________ is in:

--"Menageriebomb"
--"Moobomb"
--"Shoebomb"
--"Jewbomb"

2) What is Thatcher Wine?

--A wine
--A town
--A bike
--A Fred

3) The proper term for a Bamboo Fred is:

--A Panda
--A Gilligan
--A Thurston Howell III
--A Bambimbo

4) What is Veloloop?

--An attachment to your bicycle that triggers traffic signal sensors
--A keyless, Möbius-powered bike lock that works on confusion
--Dutch for "Circuit" (e.g., "Veloloop Het Niewsblad")
--Steampunk power meter for pennyfarthings

5) "Da Brim" is the first integrated helment visor system designed specifically for Quakers.

--True
--False


[Via Klaus of Cycling Inquisition]

6) Who is this?

--"The Bicycling Vigilante"
--"The Avenging Fred"
--"Captain Cat 6"
--"Doctor DayGlo"

(Or a fourth if you're Cipo.)

7) Cycling can cause you to grow a third testicle.

--True
--False

***Special Golden Age Of Cycling Shorts-Themed Bonus Video***

Bikes: So Insidious Even Portland's Giving Up On Them

So I was flipping through the old Tweeter when I saw this:

@bikesnobnyc Not to be too impatient or anything, but WHO WON THE DAMN 200 WORD ESSAY CONTEST?? I'VE BEEN SITTING BY THE MAILBOX FOR WEEKS!
— The Private Cyclist (@PrivateCyclist) October 9, 2014

Oops!  You know that feeling when you forget to collect your laundry from the dry cleaner?  That's the deep shame I'm now experiencing.  Just give me a few days to find my ticket and I can assure you I will declare a winner in the next few days.

Between my pending L'Eroica report and this I am officially sitting on a backlog, which means that as a blogger I'm now flirting with a demotion from semi-professional to amateur.

Speaking of demotions, remember how Portland used to be the Bike Capital of America?  Well, they've tumbled from grace so spectacularly that they've given up on bikes altogether and are now trying to be the...uh, the themselves of walking:

Portland’s annual three-week festival of fun on foot, inspired by PedalPalooza, has its first big burst of action this Saturday.

Walktober is run by advocacy group Oregon Walks. Like PedalPalooza, anyone can create an event online; the most interesting will survive.

Wait a minute.  A series of theme walks in October?  Come on, Portland.  Every city in America already has that.  It's called "Trick-or-Treating," and you'd know that if any of you had TVs:

Then again, most Americans experience a sense of shame when they continue to engage in these sorts of activities well into their 30s.  This is not the case in Portland, hence a bikeless "Zoobomb" called "Shoebomb:"

Put on your full-face helmet, pack a snack, and get on the MAX. We're going to bomb the west hills...on foot! Tighten those laces and hold on tight as we walk briskly around hairpin turns and sashay vigorously down perilous slopes. 

Oy.

Poor Portland.  I can only assume that the producers of "Portlandia" sucked all the life out of the city and this desiccated shell is all that's left.

It's only a matter of time before Vanilla moves into the shoe business--oh, wait, they already have:

Yeah, I know they've been selling these boots for like six years but I'm sitting on a backlog, remember?

I've also got like two thousand fixies on Fixedgeargallery still to pick apart.  Check out Bamboo Fred, for example:

(Actually, a "Bamboo Fred" is technically called a "Gilligan.")

Fixegeargallery...still going, still ridiculous.

Speaking of ridiculous, did you know that bicycles are a greater threat to American society than mass shootings?  Well, it's true, at least according to this "article:"

(Wow, typing the word "article" really stuck in my knuckles here.)

For example, the CDC bicycle-related injury report for 2010 shows that almost twice as many people died on bicycles in that one year than were killed in "mass shootings" during the 14 years studied by the FBI. Thus, while there were 418 deaths in "mass shootings" from 2000 to 2013, there were 800 deaths by bicycle in 2010 alone.

Moreover, there "were an estimated 515,000 emergency department visits" due to bicycle accidents.

Yep, there you go.  Iron-clad logic American style.  Seems pretty clear to me that if every American had a gun instead of a bike all our psychotic violence problems would be solved.  We really need to ban bikes already--and ladders, counters, roofs, and mountains while we're at it:

And CDC death statistics for 2010 show there were 26,009 deaths from "falling" for that year alone. That's right--26,009 deaths in one year from falls from ladders, counters, roofs, mountains, etc. 

After all, you know what they say:

In fact, I say we go one better and ban gravity altogether.  That should solve that pesky "falling" problem.  Then we can all float around in "Zero-G" happily shooting at one another like the movie "Moonraker:"

("When moonrakes are outlawed only lunar gardeners will have rakes.")

Oh, while I'm on the subject of outlaws, here's a thing:



Yeah, I'd just run the fucking light, but that's just me.  See, there's a question Fredly philosophers have pondered for ages, and it is as follows:

"If a Fred runs a light in the city and there's nobody around to see it, did it really happen?"

And here is the answer to that question:

"No.  No it didn't."

But now there's a new option for this moral quandary, which is futzing around in the middle of the street looking for a sensor:

So there you are late at night, rolling back and forth and lifting your rear wheel up like a dog looking for the ideal spot to take a dump, when a drunk driver comes along and closes the circuit on your mortal coil, turning you into another statistic and further bolstering the case against gun control.

Oh, the indignity of being a cyclist in America.  That's why the media snaps to attention the very moment WHEN BICYCLES ATTACK!!!



If only Hilary Abramson (a journalist, as it happens, which is why you should never run into a journalist with your bicycle) had been carrying a firearm at the time then she could have shot the bicyclist and all of this might have been averted.

Lastly, remember New York State Senator Diane "Find A Fucking Bike Lane And Get In It" Savino?  Well, the best course of action when you're a politician beset by bad publicity is to deploy a smokescreen--ideally a heady one made of intoxicating marijuana smoke:

 Hey, Savino: Find a fucking bong and stick your face in it.

I'm back, now time for a recovery ride!

(Gaiole in Chianti, the Retro-Fred Capital of the World, and also they make wine or something.)

Well, I'm back from L'Eroica!  You may now commence rejoicing:

Ordinarily I would arrive home after an international flight gutted and laid bare, flensed of my humanity by delays and security checks and cramped cabins and jetlag and the painful abdominal bloat that always seems to accompany air travel.  So transcendent was L'Eroica, however, that even something like 20 hours in transit could barely dim my mood.  In fact, had a customs agent at JFK seen fit to administer a body cavity search, he would have been blinded by rays of Tuscan sunshine, which even now continue to emanate from my posterior.

Given the vast thematic and emotional scope of L'Eroica, which might very well have been one of the most enjoyable cycling experiences of my life, it will take me some time to cull the thousands of shitty smartphone photos I took and formulate some sort of narrative.  So for that you will have to wait--though I can assure you a more thorough accounting is in the offing.  In the meantime, I can tell you that gearing was in short supply:

Yet there was a surfeit of Italian dinner speeches, some of which no doubt continue even as I type this:

There were also thousands of retro-Freds (or, more accurately, retro-Frédériques) clamoring for water from picturesque fountains in medieval hilltop towns:

Riders of tall bikes equipped with wine bottle holders:

Nonplussed vendors of vintage bicycle componentry:

More classic bicycles than you can shake a stick at:

And other classic bicycles that arguably should be beaten with a stick:

Which is to say nothing of besotted Old Testament prophets with arks:

Or six-time Tour de France green jersey winners with shopping carts:

And I even affixed the Fly6 integrated tail light/camera to my bike in order to capture some of the hijinx on the fabled strade bianche:

So stay tuned for a more fuller report.

Meanwhile, even though I'm still floating on a L'Eroica-induced cloud, I expect New York City's considerable gravity to begin grinding my face into terra firma at any moment.  There are few things quite as jarring as spending a few days in a country where they eat salami for breakfast and then returning to New York and catching up on the news.  For example, while I was gone it looks like a cyclist creamed a police officer on the Brooklyn Bridge:

The cyclist remained on the scene.

Police believe there was no criminality.

Wait a minute.  A cyclist hit a cop and they don't suspect any criminality?  If you get hit by a car while riding a bike here the police will safety-pin a summons to your body bag.  Did I return to the right city or did my flight get diverted to Portland?

And if this is in fact New York City, all I can say is the NYPD must really hate that cop.  He's clearly some kind of modern-day Serpico.  I'm guessing a few hours before the collision he was hanging around the precinct saying stuff like, "Maybe we should lay off the cyclists and concentrate on dangerous drivers instead.  Waddya say, guys?"

"Well, this oughtta learn him," his colleagues are no doubt gloating.

I'm also surprised the Post didn't name the cyclist, though given the circumstances I'm assuming it's Barabbas.

And in other news, a reader informs me that the Wall Street Journal have neatly distilled the Fredly lifestyle whilst simultaneously quantifying the high cost of Fredness:

The Gear

Mr. Wine spent around $6,000 on his Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL4 road bike. His Santa Cruz Tallboy mountain bike cost about $5,000. He spent $3,500 on his Ridley X-Fire cyclocross bike. His Sidi Genius road bike shoes cost about $380.

For mountain biking and cyclocross, he wears Mavic Chasm shoes, which cost about $240.

He had custom bike jersey and shorts made with the Juniper Books logo for $85 a piece. He usually wears a Bell Gage helmet, which costs $175.

Mr. Wine tracks his rides with a Garmin 510 and uploads the data to strava.com, which allows him to compare his performance with others who have ridden the same route.

Mr. Wine spends $140 a month on rolfing sessions, which is a form of soft tissue massage work, and $45 a week on chiropractor visits.

I was totally going to make fun of this guy until I realized I'm pretty much exactly the same as he is, except most of my bikes are made of metal and instead of riding with a Garmin and uploading my data to Strava I just ride with a smartphone and upload every single one of my useless brain farts to my stupid bike blog.

Also, I don't do the "rolfing sessions" (I always just assumed that was some sort of artisanal bulimia club), though I'm sure I spend at least as much every month on watching shitty iTunes movies while supping on bad wine and takeout--and nothing inspires a good "rolfing session" like discovering a cockroach in your sesame chicken while watching the latest rom-com.

Penultimately, in the interest of being more professional and/or corporate, I've decided while typing this in a jetlag-induced haze that I want to implement more regular features on this blog, so I'm hereby introducing a new pro cycling department called:

I THOUGHT HE ALREADY DID!

Ready?  Here goes:

Uh, yeah, I thought he already did.

See how that works?

Anyway, here's more on his "retirement:"

Schleck has been out of action since stage three of the Tour de France when he crashed in the London finale and injured his knee.

Right.  Arguably he's been out of action since all that "anger" in his stomach turned out to be cotton candy.

And finally, you know how there's this Philadelphia Bike Expo thing in Philadelphia where they exposit bicycles?

Well, I'm pleased to let you know that I'll be giving a "seminar" there on Sunday, November 9th at 12:00pm:

Not only have they pitted me against "Pedaling Professionaly: tips for dressing for your commute + your office (by women, for women)," but that is also the exact same subject of my seminar, so it promises to be a real sartorial cage match.  

Anyway, I'll try to round up some hats and stuff to give away, so hopefully I'll see you there.

And now I'm off to wash my woolen L'Eroica jersey in Woolite®.

They put their pants on one leg at a time just like you, only they pay $80 a leg for the privilege.

You probably think that running a bike blog is a dream job, like being a tenured English professor or the captain of the "Love Boat."  And yeah, sure, this gig has its perks: the lax dress code, the constant retina-ravaging computer use, the cold calls from the New York Post...  But believe me, when I get an important email, glamor takes a back seat while I knuckle down and work dammit--and emails don't get any important than this one, which you can tell because WHOEVER WROTE IT IS SHOUTING!!!

I hope you are  having a lovely day. I wanted to touch with you regarding the pitch below from DU/ER mens jeans who have just launched the MOST TECHNICALLY ADVANCED PEFORMANCE JEANS on the  market. These jeans were actually made specifically for cyclists that live an active lifestyle cycling from home/work and everywhere in between.

(Yes, they said they wanted to "touch with" me.  They also left out that first "r" in "Performance," unless they meant to write "Peeformance" and simply left out an "e.")

And if the shouting didn't make it obvious enough that this email is urgent, it also contained a photo of Karate Douche, who drives the point home with his sockless and suede-shod Foot of Justice:

(He looks like he's using an invisible pool cue to hit a ball off his toe.)

Then they go on to tell me why I need these jeans:

Why you need these jeans:  During any given day you are always moving.  You could be cycling to work, running to your next meeting, or going out for a refreshing walk or hike. Sometimes you sweat. Sometimes you are in hot or cold weather. Traditional jeans just aren't built to deal with your modern lifestyle.  We’ve created performance denim that adjusts your body temperature to its changes in movement or the environment. No matter what activity you're doing, your jeans will adapt, wick sweat away, and keep you comfortable, dry, and feeling good.

Wow.  Nobody has ever made something like this before, except for like 10 companies.  By the way, there's already a garment specifically designed for the lifestyle described above, and it ain't jeans.  This is a job for...VELOUR SWEATSUIT!

("It's a bird...it's a plane...it's someone wearing the curtain from an old Soviet jetliner!")

See, the velour sweatsuit checks pretty much all the aforementioned boxes, with only one relatively minor exception:

• Allows full range of motion (especially for the "coglioni"): ✓
• Appropriate for business meetings (provided it is paired with a gold chain): ✓ 
• Works in hot or cold weather: ✓ (Nothing says "summer elegance" like a tank top and a velour jacket casually hanging over the shoulder by a single finger, and nothing says "winter class" like a tracksuit under a down jacket.)
• Great for walks or hikes: ✓ on the walks, ✘ on the hikes (they tend to collect burrs)
• Keeps you comfortable, dry, and feeling good: ✓✓ and ✓!!!

Yet even in the face of incontrovertible evidence that the velour sweatsuit is very nearly the perfect garment for the active urban sophisticate and/or inhabitant of a dystopian near-future, coupled with the reality that everyone from Levi's to Rapha has already been making hip, bikey "performance casual" clothes for years, these Canadians have gone ahead and launched a Kickstarter for their fancy jean-pants anyway:

The video comes out swinging by showing someone riding a bicycle while the narrator attempts to thoroughly debunk what is probably your most frequently worn article of clothing:

"Traditional denim is restrictive, uncomfortable, and it doesn't allow you to move when you need it most."

Though I'm sure many would disagree with this claim:

("Did somebody say 'Comes out swinging?'"--Robert Plant's penis)

Nevertheless, these plucky Canadians have gone ahead and designed the "DU/ER" jean, which is 30% lighter and 30% stronger than other pants they never really identify:

DU/ER jeans also allow you to engage in preternaturally simian acts of balance as you hop from railing to railing like some kind of metrosexual Sasquatch:

While simultaneously incorporating a kevlar "Boner Guard" which saves you the embarrassment of inadvertently communicating to others your apelike state of constant hyper-arousal:

("She has no idea I'm humping her!")

The fabric is also specially designed to release your "hanglow stank" harmlessly into the atmosphere, instead of trapping it in the crotchal zone where it's liable to asphyxiate you the first time you step up to a urinal and unzip:

This, coupled with an incredibly strong "scranus joist," gives you all the confidence you need to practice squatting and defecating on the heads of other men in order to assert your dominance:

Most important of all (and this is for real), the pocket is equipped with a "radiation shield:"

Though if you want full protection from your iPhone's deadly rays you'll also need to grow sculpted  radiation-shielding stubble for those times when your phone is against your face:

All this for $160--though you do get a slogan with that:

"Because every day is a performance."

Right.  This is absolutely true when you're totally full of shit.

One thing's for sure though, which is that they'll look great on this pantsless mannequin Klaus of CyclingInquisition recently spotted on eBay:

And if you think it's strange that Klaus of CyclingInquisition was browsing pantsless mannequins on eBay then you don't know the first goddamn thing about bike blogging:

Or New Zealand for that matter.

I suspect Klaus and I are now about to compete in a very spirited eBay auction.

Moving on, it should be noted that Bicycling's "Number One Bike City" ranking is the kiss of death.  It's been, what, a month since that honor (or, more accurately, curse) fell on New York City, and in that time some guy on a bike managed to kill a pedestrian in Central Park and I'll be amazed if they haven't banned bikes from the park altogether by next spring.  Furthermore, you only have to look to erstwhile number one (and now number four) city Portland to see just what an albatross this title is:

Remember when Portland was the most exuberant cycling city in all of Canada's spittoon?  Well now look at 'em:

The event came on the heels of a one-two punch to the gut of PBOT: the #4 ranking from Bicycling Magazine and new U.S. Census numbers (revealed the morning of the panel) that showed a continued flatlining of Portland’s bike-to-work rate.

They used to ride around dressed like Michael Jackson, now they're just a bunch of sad sacks, like Terry Malloy from that movie about the waterfront:



Palookaville = Portland.

So what happened?

Given the lack of bold steps to improve bicycling in Portland in the past few years, it’s not hard to understand why we fell to #4. When Andersen asked the panel why Portland is no longer considered the cycling superpower it once was, the responses varied.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that constantly holding panels might also have had something to do with it.

So what do they think of us?

That being said, Geller pointed out that it’s much easier for New York City and Chicago to create protected bikeways because they have very wide streets. “We have harder decisions to make,” he said, referring to our narrow streets, “But we also have experienced the benefits of bicycling for a longer time, so we know better.”

Firstly, how has Portland experienced the benefits of cycling longer than New York?  People were riding bikes all over New York City when the entire city of Portland consisted of two guys and one of those old-timey logging saws.  Secondly, narrow streets are no excuse.  We have something much worse, and they're called "community boards."  In fact, the only reason we have so much bike infrastructure now is that our last mayor loved real estate developers, and it turns out bike lanes look really good in front of shiny glass condos.  After all, we have to make sure Brooklyn remains attractive to the bearded class:

Bearded man on a brooklyn bike ride? - w4m (Flushing Ave)

On Sunday afternoon around 1:30PM we rode bikes down Flushing Ave together for a few blocks. I was wearing an Anthrax t-shirt and a black back pack and you had a beard and a cute smile. We joked about the Hacky Sack competition. I can't get you out of my head.

Given that on a Sunday afternoon there are approximately a thousand bearded men and roughly a thousand women wearing vintage metal shirts riding on Flushing Avenue in Brooklyn at any given moment, I'd be shocked if whoever placed this ad does not connect with a mate--and while it may not be the same one she spotted, it will be fully intechangeable.

They'll be working that old-timey logging saw in no time.