BSNYC Product Review: Surly Big Dummy

As I mentioned in my Wednesday Bonus Blog today, having acquired Alberto Contador, Bjarne Riis (known as "Mr. 60%" during his riding days in reference to his hair-to-scalp ratio) announced that his new charge will attempt to pull off the so-called "Grand Slam." This, of course, refers to the feat of winning the Giro d'Italia, the Tour de France, and the Vuelta a España all in the same season, and not to the popular Denny's breakfast special of the same name. It's unclear what Contador himself thinks of all this, though he could be seen in the corner during Riis's interview "fingerbanging" himself nervously. Should Contador succeed in winning a "Grand Slam," he would be the only rider ever to do so. Should he fail, he could redeem himself the following year by winning the Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco, the Critérium du Dauphiné, and the Tour de Pologne all in the same season instead--a somewhat less impressive feat known in cycling circles as the "Moons Over My Hammy."

Moving on, yesterday I rode a Surly Big Dummy to my semi-secret shipping hub and storage area along Brooklyn's "Great Hipster Silk Route," where I rallied all my smugness and retrieved and loaded this unwieldy delivery:

(Note haphazard and dangerous "flesh hook"-style bungee cord attachment technique.)

While the large box contained a Russian mail-order simian bride for my helper monkey Vito (the smaller box contained the beautiful Nadia's elegant Vera Wang wedding gown), that information is only tangentially relevant. More to the point, ever since taking delivery of the Big Dummy in like April-ish, I have intended to share my impressions of this large green bicycle. However, I did not want to do so prematurely. Rather, I wanted to "live with it" awhile instead of simply listing the components, hopping on it for 45 minutes, and then declaring it "vertically stiff yet laterally compliant," as is standard industry practice when it comes to both bicycle reviewing and international Internet monkey dating. (By the way, if you're still wondering about Vito's nuptials, they're already married, but the reception will take place in Rhinebeck on an undisclosed date.) I have now lived with the Big Dummy for almost six months--which I suspect is five months longer than Vito's marriage will last.

Moreover, when Surly asked me if I wanted to try a Big Dummy, I accepted not because I wondered if a bicycle like this would be useful for carrying things (obviously it would be), but because I wondered if a bicycle like this would be viable in New York City, a city of well over eight million people--many of whom live in small apartments accessible only by small elevators or multiple flights of stairs (and some of whom share their small apartments with newlywed monkey couples, an arrangement which I assure you is not conducive to either sleep or good hygiene.) In truth, I'd never really thought seriously of owning such a bicycle, for the simple reason that I had no idea where I would keep it.

However, now that I had the opportunity to try one, I wondered if the bicycle would indeed prove as inconvenient as it seemed, or if its practicality would ultimately outweigh its significant tonnage.

Here is the Obligatory Drive Side Shot (or ODSS) of the Big Dummy, and I had to stand roughly 700 feet away from it to fit it into the frame:

(Yes, this bike needs "wheelbrows.")

Here it is from the front-ish:


And here it is "presenting" itself in almost exactly the same way that Nadia presented herself to Vito when I let her out of that box:

Obviously, the Big Dummy's long wheelbase is what allows it to remain stable while carrying large loads (in the name of good taste, I will refrain from jokes about Nadia's load-bearing ability). Unfortunately, it's also what makes it impossible to fit it into my elevator, very difficult to carry up multiple flights of stairs, and by far the largest item of furniture in my home once I've actually wrestled the thing in there.

Since there was no way I could keep the Big Dummy inside, I realized that I would have to store it outdoors. As it happens, there is a covered area outside my building that has been given over to bicycle parking. It's not totally secure from theft, but it is safer than the street, and it's also protected from the weather. Clearly the Big Dummy (protected by a big lock) would have to take up residence with the Magnas of my neighbors.

Once I'd settled on a home for the Big Dummy, I set about putting it to use. The first thing I learned was that I was now in possession of a bicycle with a "cult following," since as soon as I mentioned it I received helpful emails from people offering Big Dummy advice and insight. I also consulted the "Internet," where I learned of all the exciting things I could do with my Big Dummy. For example, I could install a sound system:


Or I could tow a boat:


Or I could simply strip it down and render it completely useless:

However, I don't want to ride around playing loud music (the San Jose Bike Party was one of the worst experiences of my cycling life), I don't have a boat (are kayaks the "fixies" of the high seas?), and I have no need for an inconveniently long singlespeed.

I do, however, want and need to carry crap, and the Big Dummy immediately proved to be very capable in this regard. In fact, I was surprised to discover that it soon seemed indispensable to me. I used it to procure foodstuffs:

I used it to transport beach-related items:

(That cooler contains a kidney, but I always perform my organ transplants on the beach.)

I used it to "curate" family picnics:

(New York Philharmonic in Prospect Park, otherwise known as "Where the White People Are")

Note I persist in using plastic bags--I need an environmentally insensitive chaser after the cloyingly sweet smugness of cargo bike "palpage." Plus, they often contain delicious takeout.

Speaking of delicious takeout, I've even used it as a mobile dining room table for impromptu burrito feasts:

Most useful of all though is that the Big Dummy has greatly simplified picking up bulky items such as monkey brides and circus peanuts (Vito loves circus peanuts) from my shipping hub:

And thus, to my surprise, did the Big Dummy manage to slot neatly into my "lifestyle" (inasmuch as an existence of producing bicycle-themed wiseassery interspersed with errand-running can be considered a "lifestyle"). I'd simply load or unload it in the lobby and then return it to its place among the Magnas. Unfortunately, though, because it carries so much so easily it's become like a college student's car in that it collects random junk:

For example, while photographing it earlier, I found an entire bottle of tea in there, and I don't even like tea:

Unless it's full of sugar, is served to me in a plastic bag, and is called "Snapple."

Of course, the only thing that makes this decadent orgy of cycling smugness possible is that I have a relatively safe place to store this bicycle at street level, which is not the case for many people in big cities (unless you're a wealthy person with a hyphenated name--even in 21st century bike-friendly New York, smugness is a luxury). Also, while I'm comfortable trawling the streets of Brooklyn with it and even locking it up occasionally, the stock Big Dummy is an expensive bicycle, and it's too lavishly-appointed to leave unattended in a place like Manhattan for long periods of time. For the same functionality (assuming you have the room), you can obviously bolt an Xtracycle to a crappy old mountain bike, or just get the Big Dummy frame if you're one of those people with a bunch of spare parts, since it's got provisions and braze-ons for pretty much everything.

But while it's a bit lavish, it is pretty nimble despite its size and is in no way cumbersome to ride. While the truly smug prefer their "bakfiets," until the entire city is David Byrnified with protected bike lanes I think a cargo bike built on a more "sporting" chassis like the Big Dummy is a better fit in Brooklyn--where you might have to dodge the World's Scariest Car:

("Are you there, Elohim? It's me, Moishe.")

Confronted with that, there's not a cargo bike in existence that could transport my fear.

Cargo Bikes: The Long and the Short(er) of It

Towards the end of last year I said goodbye to my Surly Big Dummy:

The Big Dummy was my first experience with a real schlepping bike and I quickly grew to love it.  I even remember the first thing I ever carried on it, which was this cheap-ass folding chair:

Which I brought to Prospect Park and then sat on while looking at the bike:

Ah, life sure was simple then.

But I would soon learn that the Big Dummy had far greater potential, for around the time it arrived in my life so too did my first human child, and thus began my first forays into child-schlepping:

When you first take delivery of a human baby the parameters of your life quickly shrink, like that trash compactor room in "Star Wars."  New, off-the-shelf human babies are weak and flimsy.  They need to be either carried or tightly contained.  They can't go like nine seconds without sustenance.  Leaving the house with one might as well be an assault on Everest owing to all the crap you've got to take with you in order to keep them alive.  Babies shouldn't even be called babies for the first few months of life, they should be called patients.

Soon, however, the walls of your life stop closing in.  The baby gets bigger and stronger.  Their stomachs can contain a few hours' worth of nourishment.  They can support their big giant goofy heads.  And if you're a cyclist, one of your most significant moments of parental liberation will be when they're finally ready to travel by bike with you.  That's when the walls fall down entirely and the horizon stretches out tantalizingly before you.

Yes, while the other suckers are muscling their strollers up onto curbs and strapping their offspring into SUVs, you're whipping around town with a blissed-out baby burbling behind you.

So how do you know when a baby's bikeable?  Well, there's a whole section on riding with kids in my book I have coming out, but in the meantime here's some free advice:

The first time you get pissed off at your baby, that baby's ready for the bike.

See, you don't get angry at patient-baby.  They're too passive.  And if they're too passive to piss you off, they're probably too passive to be solid passengers.  You don't want a floppy thing back there that can't hold their own bottle.  But once your baby's leaving scuzzy banana handprints on the TV and chasing the cat with a saucepan, that kid's ready for some high-speed two-wheeled hijinx.  So as soon as you find yourself muttering "fuckin' baby" to yourself it's time to attach some kind of kiddie seat.

Anyway, the Big Dummy opened up a whole new world of cycling to me.  It also helped me open up the world of cycling to my human child, since it was easy to bring his bike along to the park or playground:

So why did I get rid of it?  (The Big Dummy I mean, I'm totally hanging on to my human child.)

Well, the main advantage of the Big Dummy is that it rides like a regular "sporty" bike.  In other words, when it's not loaded down you can zip around town and jam up hills while out of the saddle and all the rest of it.  You just have to remember your rear wheel is like a foot or two behind where it normally would be, because if you forget you might take a corner too tightly and clip the curb.  Plus, since it works on the Xtracycle platform, there are like a zillion accessories for it.  (And of course you could always skip the Big Dummy and just do an Xtracycle conversion on an old 26-inch mountain bike, which you should be able to get real cheap because everybody knows you're not allowed to use 26-inch mountain bikes for actual mountain bikes anymore.)

As for the disadvantages of the Big Dummy, while few, there are two main ones for my particular circumstances.  The first is that the length can complicate parking and storage.  The second is that those exposed cables and derailleurs mean it's not all that happy living outside.  I mean, sure, I kept it outside anyway, but every week or two I'd lose use of another gear.

So as an apartment-dwelling middle-aged urbanite with like a zillion other bikes, I realized having a stout schlepping bike that could live outside year-round (or better fit in the bike room when a blizzard is imminent) was more important than having one I could ride quickly.  I wanted a bike that would sit patiently outside and be ready for the grocery run or the school pick-up.  I wanted all the working parts buried under fenders and chainguards so I didn't have to roll up my pants.  I wanted lights I didn't have to remove or charge.  I wanted a bike that would break the back of any thief who attempted to lift it.  I wanted to be someone I would have ridiculed just a few short years ago.

Clearly it was time suck it up, accept the smugness, and go Full Dutch with the WorkCycles:

It's been great so far, and with the seat in the back I can carry both my human children, no problem.

Sure, it handles like a Citi Bike compared to the Big Dummy, but the convenience factor is through the roof.  (Plus, as a dedicated Cat 6 I love the way Citi Bikes handle, so there.)

By the way, astute readers may notice I'm using the Hiplok I "reviewed" recently:

(I pronounce Hiplok with a guttural K, like "hiplach.")

While the fact is I have no use for a lock that you wear around your waist, it is good for quickly wrapping around the seatpost of the WorkCycles.  (Plus, the cool-two-years-ago camo matches my pedals.)

In fact, between a WorkCycles for neighborhood errands and a Brompton for trips into "town" (all while wearing a Brooks Criterion jacket) I now represent the very apotheosis of urban smugacity:

What have I become?*

*That's a rhetorical question, I've become an aging fop.

Speaking of taking bikes on trains, here's an ad I saw at a train station recently:

As far as I can tell, the only difference between Peloton and Zwift is that people who use the latter still bother buying actual bicycles and getting dressed up in cycling clothes for some reason, though with any luck they'll drop that affectation and Fredness will be permanently relegated to the indoors where it belongs.

Meanwhile, Strava art has been making headlines recently:

Yeah, no it won't.  I think there's far more dignity in designer spin classes than there is in riding around Canada drawing invisible pictures of Darth Vader:

Or Lisa Bonet circa "High Fidelity:"

“What excites me most about GPS doodling is that it takes the intimidation out of creative expression. If you can move, you can doodle," Lund said in his TEDxVictoria talk. "In fact, when I coined the term GPS doodles, I did so because ‘GPS art’ felt a little too lofty and exclusive. Everybody doodles. And anyone can GPS doodle.” 

That's funny, because what excites me most about GPS doodling is nothing.

Lastly, it's well-known that Portlanders have long been vexed by streetcar tracks, as this video I saw on All Hail the Black Market shows:

Streetcar Track Science from 21st Avenue Bicycles on Vimeo.

As it also shows, fat tires go a long way towards mitigating their effects.

Nevertheless, Portland's cyclists seem to have a surprisingly critical attitude towards public transportation, as the comments on this recent BikePortland article show:

Saying that “not everybody can cycle,” Commissioner Amanda Fritz Tuesday urged the city to switch the order of its “green transportation hierarchy” to prioritize public transit above biking.

“Everybody can use the bus,” Fritz, who a city staffer mentioned was supported by written testimony from advocacy group Elders in Action, said at a council work session on the city’s new comprehensive plan. “And our transit system is not good.”

I'm sure this Fritz character has her problems, and she sounds as though she likes cars too much, but I don't think this is an unreasonable position.  Public transit is hugely important.  As efficient as bicycles are, they're still vehicles, and any truly enlightened city should be navigable without having to own one.  It would be interesting to know how many Portland cyclists actually have family who live in the city, because I suspect if they did they'd realize it's unreasonable to expect their elderly parents to put on the latest from Showers Pass and ride 10 miles for a visit when it's 40 degrees and raining.  (Not to mention going to the doctor.)

Or maybe they do have family in the area and the reason they don't like public transportation is precisely so they can't come over for a visit.

In that case, at least they're being consistent.

The Indignity of Commuting by Bicycle: Prolonged Forced Dismounts

I'm pissed off.

This morning, after eating my Froot Loops, I fired up the Big Dummy and zipped my child over to his little preschool where he and his classmates assemble Apple products, for which we pay a tuition of US$5,000 per month.  Then, since I had "business" downtown, and I was all warmed up, and the Big Dummy felt all sprightly with only one person on it (me), I figured that instead of doing the old "park and ride" and using mass transit I'd just keep going on the bike.

Now, ordinarily when there's this much snow I don't even consider the so-called "Greenways," since they can be a mess, but coming from where I live they make the ride about a million times more pleasant, so I figured I'd swing by the entrance and see how things looked.  Here's the one I'm talking about, which runs along the Harlem River:

When I got to the entrance, I was pleased to see it was clear as could be, so I kept riding:

And riding:

And riding:

"Wow, this is fantastic!," I thought as I mentally high-fived the new bike-friendly New York City.

And then:

At this point I was roughly in the middle of the Greenway, and if you look closely at the map you'll notice there's a little parenthetical warning next to it:

("No entry points along Harlem River Drive.")

As you can see, the Greenway lies between the Harlem River Drive and the Harlem River itself, meaning once you're on it you're on it and there's no escape--you can either get on or off at Dyckman Street, or you can get on or off at 155th Street.  That's it, nothing in between.  I'm all too aware of this, which is why I never go this way at night: you should always have multiple escape routes when riding.  Anyway, this meant that, like an Arctic explorer, now I had two choices: abort the mission and backtrack all the way to Dyckman, or else press on and hope things improved.

I chose the latter.

Things didn't improve.  In fact, they got worse.  The path was all frozen snow--jagged, forbidding, and totally unridable:

By now though I'd come much too far to turn around, and with the highway on one side of me and the icy river on the other, I had no choice but to continue.  And so I walked:

Oh, did I mention I was dragging a fucking Big Dummy with me?  Because I was:

By the way, do you see the tire tracks on the right?  Those are not mine, and clearly at least one other cyclist made the same mistake.  In fact, I expected to stumble upon his frozen corpse at any moment.  As for the Big Dummy, the pedal kept nailing me in the shin, and I came this close [indicates tiny distance with fingers] to throwing the goddamn thing into the Harlem River.

If this had been an Arctic expedition and the Big Dummy were a member of my party, frostbitten and unable to walk, I'd have put a bullet into his head faster than you can say "yellow snow."

Finally, I got to the ramp that takes you from the Greenway over the highway and back onto the surface roads, and was it any better?  It was not:

By now I was extremely close to the breaking point, and I began blaming myself.  After all, who rides a Greenway after three blizzards and counting?  On the other, who clears half a fucking Greenway?  And if you're going to clear half the thing and quit because it's too narrow for the plows or whatever, how about a fucking sign?  And it's not like I'm the only person using this thing.  Look at all the footprints!  Even without having to drag a bike with you it's rough going:

Finally, I got to the end of the ramp, and I was about to kneel down and kiss the asphalt when I noticed they hadn't cleared the shoulder leading up to the continuation of the bike path (because the Greenway dumps you onto a highway entrance ramp, I mean what do you expect?):

Nor had they cleared the access to the sidewalk or indeed the sidewalk itself:

This meant either carrying the cumbersome and hated Big Dummy over the snow ridge and along the uncleared sidewalk, or else risking death by car service and salmoning up the highway entrance ramp:

I chose death by car service, and I don't have to tell you that as soon as I rolled out into traffic and attempted to pedal to safety I didn't go anywhere, because the chain had long ago fallen off the chainrings due to all that bouncing around on the ice:

So there I am in the middle of the entrance ramp to the Harlem River Drive, sitting on a Big Dummy and spinning in place like a Fred doing a trainer session.

Finally, with one of those lime green Boro Taxis bearing down on me, I got myself sorted out and made it to the actual bike path, which looked like it wasn't too bad:

Until I actually started riding and discovered it was solid ice.

So I guess what I'm saying is avoid the Harlem River Greenway.  (Or "Harlem River Speedway" as it is technically called, having once in fact been a speedway, though today it was anything but.)

You're Welcome,

--Wildcat Rock Machine

Humans Weren't Meant To Travel Long Distances Over Short Amounts Of Time

Sleep is like money.  When you're getting plenty, you feel great and do stuff like wave to strangers and sing for no reason.  But when you're running low, you feel cranky and desperate and YOU WANT TO FREAKING KILL SOMEBODY.

I haven't had any sleep, because I'm jetlagged, and the reason I'm jetlagged is because some moron put Australia all the way on the other side of the planet.

Jerkface.

So yeah, I'm in rough shape.  In fact, I almost got arrested in the supermarket this morning:



The only reason I know the above movie exists is that the exchange at 1:53 is sampled on this record album:

My friend brought it back from England for me back in the day and it immediately became one of my prized possessions.  I tried to find the song complete with the sample on YouTube, but while the song is there the sample is not, so I can only assume that at some point Extreme Noise Terror were forced to re-release the album without all the (presumably) uncleared movie samples, which totally undermines my faith in the punk movement.

Another symptom of sleep deprivation is tangents.

Anyway.

What?

So yeah, you'll have to excuse me if I'm not taking things in stride today.  Take my Big Dummy for example:

Above is my Big Dummy, pictured near my home, which as you can see is located on the Street That Time Forgot.  The relative obscurity of my street is a good thing, since my seventeen (17) children can do wholesome stuff like play in the middle of it and subsist on grubs and feral cats during our many "outdoor survival nights."  (I sleep inside.  They only way they're going to learn is if they're out there by themselves.)  It also means I can generally lock my Big Dummy outside without worrying too much about it.  In fact, our Electra Amsterdam was parked outside for over two (2) weeks before I noticed we had completely forgotten to lock it.

The thing is, outdoor parking combined with my general aversion to performing routine maintenance means the first thing to go on the Big Dummy is the shifting.  And when your shifting goes, the way it happens is that the rear derailleur is happy to make its way up the cassette to the big cogs, because the cable is pulling the derailleur (unless it's "rapid rise" or whatever, I don't even know if that's still a thing, I'm old and I can't keep track of this crap anymore), but then when you try to shift back down the cog the derailleur won't go because your cable and housing are all sticky and the cable won't release and so the head of the cable just starts poking out of the shifter instead.

So when you live on the side of a big hill like I do, and you put one of your seventeen (17) children on your bike to take him to survival camp to learn how to eat grubs and skin cats, everything's fine as you climb the hill, downshifting and downshifting until you're in your very biggest cog.  But then you get to the top of the hill and try to upshift, and it's not happening, and you realize you've only got one gear (or technically three if the front's still shifting) and you're going to have to frantically spin the whole rest of the way like a complete idiot.

That's what happened this morning, and I wasn't in the mood.

And before you say it, yes, I know, Di2 shifting on my Big Dummy would totally solve all my problems.

I'm going to get right on that.

In the meantime though, that little malfunction has completely fucked up my Strava times.

Oh, here's the helment I bought in Australia:

I removed the visor before wearing it of course, leaving three conspicuously unattractive holes in the front.

But as cranky and disoriented as I am, I've got nothing on this guy, who had to be pulled off the Brooklyn Bridge when he accidentally tried to cross with the cars on a Citi Bike:


Man tries to Citi Bike Across Brooklyn Bridge... in the car lane from Gothamist on Vimeo.

My helment is off to him, because that's not an easy mistake to make.

Anyway, the rider was fine, but three people were treated for hernias after lifting the Citi Bike.

In other news, acolytes of the Lone Wolf:

Will be pleased to know that a friend of a reader has scored an impromptu interview from the man himself:


Interview with the Lone Wolf from Gary Cziko on Vimeo.

I was a little disappointed to see him straighten the USA wheels as soon as the camera was trained on his bike, because I had always just assumed the fact they are always this way in photos was a by-product of his Cosmic Alignment:

Though I was fascinated to learn that the Lone Wolf's bike is now bedazzled with 160,000 crystals and is the product of nine hours of painstaking labor a day, three to four days a week, for three to four months.

That's more time than I've spent to date on blogging, parenting, and routine bike maintenance combined.

Best of all, he put the crystals right over Lance Armstrong's and Taylor Phinney's autographs, bedazzling them both right into obscurity.

Speaking of labor, the people at Velocity USA want you to see how they build their wheels, so here you go, because I live for videos of people twiddling nipples:


The Wheel Department in August from Velocity USA on Vimeo.

I guess they're pretty efficient when it comes to building wheels, but I'd like to know how quickly they could bedazzle a bike.

Lastly, because you're deeply interested in physics, I present to you this video I received from Stefane in Munich:


I'd make an animated GIF if only I knew how...