I'd like to register a complaint.

You know, I'm not one to complain.

Just kidding!

(The S.S. Just Kidding, embarking on yet another narcotics run.  Just kidding!)

No, I live to complain.  In fact, I can complain your face right off your skull.  If you handed me a million dollars I'd find a way to complain about it.  ("What is this, American money?  You couldn't at least pay me in Canadian?")  But you know what I like to complain about most of all?

People who complain.

See, there's no kind of complaining more satisfying than hypocritical complaining, since nothing's more annoying than people who do exactly what you would do in their position.  Consider my upcoming visit to Melbourne, Australia for the Melbourne Writers Festival:

I'm both honored and excited to be a part of this.  Not only that, but I'm proud of myself.  That's right, proud.  It seems like only yesterday I started this blog at work, and today here I am, unemployed because I was blogging at work and sitting on the couch in my underpants with three books under my belt (figuratively speaking--I'm not even wearing pants so how could I have books under my belt?) and an invitation to one of the top writers' festivals in the entire world (which is a distinction I just made up).

So am I breaking one arm patting myself on the back and using the other to give myself a congratulatory handjob?

You're goddamn right.

And do you know what I get in my moment of glory?  Do I get a "G'day mate, so glad yer gonna hump the koala [Australian slang for boarding a plane] and head down under for a visit to Earth's Scranus!"?  No I do not.  No, what I get is people complaining that you have to pay to attend the events.  "$40 to ride with you?  Do I at least get my scranus tickled with that?  You suck!"*  

*(So far, nobody has actually said this.)

Well, I don't know if you realize it, but Australia is far.  Really far.  In fact, it's about as far from my home as I can get without leaving the fucking planet.  Given this, do you know when I'd be visiting Australia if it wasn't for the Melbourne Writers Festival?

Never.  Never, ever, ever.

It's not like I don't want to see Australia--I most certainly do.  It's just that if I actually had the time and money to just fuck off to Australia on a whim, I'd have to be an idiot to actually do it when I could just stay home, ride my bike every day, and spend the airfare on booze.

But now, thanks to the Melbourne Writers Festival, I don't have to make the stupid decision to visit Australia since they're making it for me.  See, they didn't give me the option to stay home, ride my bike, and get drunk.  With them it's come to Australia and be in a festival or you get nothing.  Therefore, it's a no-brainer, and thanks to them I'll actually get to see Australia before I die.

So you're going to complain that they want to charge you a few bucks so they can make my dream of visiting Australia come true?*  You've got some goddamn nerve.

*Disclosure: visiting Australia is not, nor has it ever been, my dream.

Anyway, the point is that I'm really looking forward to this, I'm grateful to the Melbourne Writers Festival, and you should all be ashamed of yourselves.

By the way, the same goes for people who complain about the ads on this blog.  "Oooh, they blink, I don't like it.  I need a special bike for riding on gravel.  Blah, blah, blah."  Do you understand these people give me money?  If you get one cheap (free) laugh a week off this blog then I say it's all worth it.  You shouldn't be asking me to remove them.  You should be humping the ads with gratitude--and I mean literally mashing your genitals on the screen.

That's what I'm doing right now.

MMMmmm....

Speaking of paying for things, if you don't want to come to one of my Melbourne thingies, then you can always spend the money on something useful, like a cardboard cutout of Mario Cipollini and Magnus Backstedt (forwarded by a reader):

I don't know if they're doing "bro hands" because they just scored some EPO, or because Cipollini tends to have tacky palms from servicing himself and others and they've been stuck this way since 2005.

Either way, if you do buy it, be sure to give your Cipollini regular treatments with this proprietary Bianchi olive oil rub:

Cipo needs olive oil like your Brooks needs Proofide.

Anyway, all you complainers need to "sack up"--with this Super Happy Seatpost-Mounted Fun Sac currently on the Kickstarter!

I like a good English "soft-sell" as much as anybody ("Please fund my bag if you would," he asked politely, and then adjourned to his study for some tea and sobbing), but I hope that road's not gravel because if it is he's out of his fucking mind riding on it without a dedicated gravel bike:

Holy shit, he's riding on plants now!!!

Please tell me someone's working on an ivy bike, because there's a giant leaf-shaped hole in my stable that only another absurdly specialized bicycle can fill.

Anyway, this reckless cyclist has invented a bag for having "lightweight, unencumbered adventures:"

Now, when I think of "lightweight, unencumbered adventures," I think of this:

But if stuffing a few things in a bag qualifies as an adventure for you, then this is your sack:

I was actually beginning to warm to this particular Kickstarter, but then the inventor abandoned his whole polite English soft-sell and started to get dirty:

("That's what Cipo said!")

Really dirty:

"It doesn't sway from side to side as you ride, or rub against your frame, legs or wheel."

Outrageous!  Is this a bag for unencumbered adventures, or is it some sort of Victorian device for securing yourself to your pant leg?

And then, this:

"It'll come in several colors too."

So will Cipollini after he easts gelato.

Speaking of complaining, yesterday I mentioned the New York Times Portland bike style video, and the commenters on Bike Portland are complaining that the piece did not do their vibrantly self-indulgent community justice:

Please.  The more I think about it, the more amazed I am that the Times managed to find four people in Portland who weren't wearing the standard uniform of a Nutcase helment and a dayglo Showers Pass jacket.

Lastly, elsewhere in the Times, I've finally checked out this interactive bike map of theirs, and I actually like it:

Ideally, every dot in Brooklyn would say "Please move to Portland already" when you click it, but other than that it seems like a useful resource.

Working on Our Night Moves: I Don't Need Society

Every so often, an artist comes along who changes his or her respective medium forever. In painting, Pablo Picasso showed the world that you could charge millions of dollars for pictures of colorful cubes that sort of look like stuff. In music, Charlie Parker invented "bebop," thereby creating the "Hipster 1.0." And in modern dance, Pee-Wee Herman's "Tequila" had a greater transformative impact on the artform than the work of Fred Astaire, Mikhail Baryshinkov, Bill T. Jones, and Alvin Ailey combined.

Now, the relatively new artform of the fixed-gear video has had its own cubism/bebop/"Tequila" moment, for a reader recently alerted me to "The Masked Night Rider" and it's abundantly clear to me that the world of not coasting in tight pants will never be the same again:



The phrase "game changer" gets bandied about a bit too cavalierly these days, but if any film ever warranted its use this is it. In fact, "game changer" is an understatement, as this takes a quiet game of golf and changes it into some sort of intergalactic LSD space hockey, only the players are society and the puck is your mind. Like most truly great art, it will probably be years before the masses are "hip" to its greatness, and in the meantime it will only be appreciated by a discerning few. Also, like all great cinema, "The Masked Night Rider" is rife with symbolism. Indeed, to address this film's significance within the confines of a single blog post is to do the artist a grave disservice, but pending completion of my dissertation on this magnum faux-pus it will have to suffice.

"The Masked Night Rider" opens with a close-up shot of the protagonist:

You don't have to have gone to a top-notch liberal arts school [read: young adult sleep-away camp] like Bard College to know that any time you see a skinny white person with long hair and a beard, he's supposed to be Jesus. Here, our Jesus is sobbing, most likely because he bears the suffering of all humankind, or possibly because he is afflicted with a severe case of beard lice.

In order to alleviate this suffering (or painful beard lice-induced itching), Jesus turns to the pipe:

The filmmakers are deliberately ambiguous about what Jesus is smoking here. Is it marijuana? PCP? Crack? Some sort of homeopathic beard lice remedy that involves smoking dead beard lice? In any case, we don't know, and we don't need to know, for the pipe represents the moment of doubt on the cross when Jesus cried, "My God! Why hast thou forsaken me?"

It is at this moment that the film turns the Judeo-Christian ethos on its ear, for instead of embracing his fate our Jesus rejects it. Instead, he dons a mask, thereby paradoxically revealing himself to be the Anti-Christ:

The Anti-Christ then whips out his iPod and cues up some shitty music:

He is all Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse astride a "fixie" steed, and he engages in a pretend gunfight with a hypocritical "society," embodied by the twinkly lights of a distant city:

Immediately afterwards, he masturbates on a tree, which is a commentary on the cultural stereotype of the tree-hugging (or in this case tree-copulating) cyclist:

Then he has a "hipster" slapfight with a bunch of other hipsters, including Jack White from the White Stripes:

These "hipsters" also represent society, against which he rebels relentlessly but from which he is ultimately and tragically unable to totally disengage. This final message may be the key to the film's greatness--unwilling to pander to its audience, it is unafraid to confront the crushing power of conformity and a society so tenacious that even our "fixies" cannot free us from it.

Or, if you prefer, the guy in the mask is "tripping balls" at this point, and he's hallucinating having a fight with his beard lice.

Meanwhile, speaking of scathing commentary, a commenter on yesterday's post did not appreciate my treatment of Australia:

Samuel said...

bit too rough on australia for my liking. at least they have genuine political choice including at least one socially progressive party, unlike two-party state USA

October 19, 2010 4:46 AM

I thought it was clear that I wasn't making fun of Australia's government so much as I was making fun of my own ignorance concerning Australia's government--of which, not having gone to a fine institution of higher education such as Bard College, I am totally ignorant. In any case, I apologize to Samuel as well as to the good people of Australia, and in particular to their prime minister, Mick Dundee:

As well as his lovely First Lady, Yahoo Serious:

I understand that when those naked hot-tubbing shots of Ms. Serious surfaced it was the biggest political scandal to hit Australia since Peter Garrett finally admitted that whole rash of bed burnings was actually a hoax.

Also, in that very same post I suggested that an artfully-"curated" Australian cockpit may have been a kangaroo-shooer, and an Australian confirms that this is entirely possible, since the cockpit in question looks not unlike an acutal product called the "ShuRoo:"

Apparently, if you're Australian and you don't have a ShuRoo, you hate your family:

Would you do anything to protect your family?

Why take the chance of potential injury to your family or being stranded with a damaged vehicle? ShuRoo has been helping protect motorists from wildlife hits since 1986. The unique signal emitted by ShuRoo cannot be heard by humans, but to wildlife it’s as loud as a police siren. By taking advantage of their high frequency danger alert system in this way, ShuRoo warns animals of your approach and helps prevent a collision that could potentially harm you, your passengers and your vehicle. Not only does ShuRoo protect you and your family, it also protects our wildlife.

As for those ultra-high frequency siren-like sounds emitted by the ShuRoo, you can sample them here.

If you heard any of that, you may be a kangaroo, and if you actually liked it you're probably smoking the psychedelic beard lice.

But kangaroos aren't the only danger Australians must confront on a regular basis. They must also contend with entire schools of "bike salmon," as shown in this "alleycat" video which was forwarded to me by another reader:



It's remarkable how charmingly archaic this video looks after the avant garde brilliance that is "The Masked Night Rider." Just some of its quainter elements include the ultra-narrow bars despite the wide streets and apparent lack of traffic:

The checkpoint attendant with the popped collar;

Gratuitous and pointless "salmoning:"

And, of course, showing off your skidding technique the moment a camera is pointed at you:

(Triple "douche-clamation" point.)

All of this is flimsily tied together by the score, which consists of the dated, prefab major label rebellion of Rage Against The Machine. Clearly, a truly "vintage" soundtrack like this would have been far more appropriate.

Indeed, so far-reaching is the "shock of the new" caused by "The Masked Night Rider" that other member of the "fixerati" clearly feel threatened. For example, Stelvio/SUV motorpace guy has, in a clear act of desperation, released "behind the scenes" photos to make his own production seem more impressive:

Apparently you need a wardrobe department and access to a motor pool in order to use a fixed-gear bicycle, and among the "fixerati" taking simple ride is now more logistically difficult than helping somebody move. It's sort of hard to blame them, though, since people seem increasingly compelled to complicate even the simplest ride. Consider quarterback Tom Brady, who another reader informs me has been taken to task for not wearing a helmet while taking a leisurely bike ride with his wife and son:

Sure, wearing a helmet is a good idea, but something tells me that with little Jack on the scooter dictating the pace at the front of the peloton and a supermodel bringing up the rear that things aren't all that likely to get out of hand. Unless Jack's been watching too many Australian alleycat videos, I think his father's knit hat should offer more than enough protection for this ride, and it's sort of sad that Brady is getting a hard time for riding a bike with his son while his fellow football players are getting pulled over drunk in their Land Rovers. Thanks to society, we now live in a country in which it's considered crazy to get anywhere near a bicycle without donning body armor. I'm surprised he's not getting crap for riding without a ShuRoo as well.

No wonder "The Masked Night Rider" is so upset.

Fitment Issues: K.O.P.S. vs. C.O.P.S.

No sooner did I announce The Great BSNYC/RTMS Fyxomatosis Photo Parody Contest (presented by the Gourmet Cheese of the Month Club) than the submissions began to roll in. You'll note that I didn't put forth much in the way of rules, since mixing "rules" and "art" is like mixing Shimano and Campy and I didn't want to inhibit anyone's creativity. Unfortunately though, I should have at least specified "no testicles," because one of the first photographs I received was this:

After burning my monitor and purchasing a new one I sent the contestant a sternly-worded email, though I did offer him a second chance and I'm pleased to say he redeemed himself:


This is infinitely more tasteful and a solid effort. The singlespeed mountain bike is the track bike's dirtier, uglier second cousin (just as the clear chainring guard is the pie plate's chunkier and only slightly less dorky half-brother), and the Foster's can represents Fyxomatosis. Note also the placement of the Foster's (or, as they call it in Australia, "breakfast), which as you can see has been "kicked to the curb" (or, as they call it in Australia, the "kerb"). He's even managed to slip in an Obama spoke card and a Pentabike sock. But perhaps most importantly, no testicles are in evidence. (Or, as they call them in Australia, "pants yabbies.")

Here's another salacious submission:

It's becoming increasingly clear to me that I've opened a Pandora's can of worms with this contest. I refuse to make any cheap comments about the track ends and "rear entry," though I do reserve the right to gloat about my refusal, and I maintain that alluding to a tasteless comment is different from actually making it. (Saying you haven't done something even when you just did it is called an "Australian denial.") I also think it's worth pointing out that any spouse or significant other walking in on this photo shoot would very quickly get the wrong idea, so I want to state unequivocally that this site shall not be responsible for any domestic disputes resulting in putting underpants on bicycles. (Or, as they call putting underpants on bicycles in Australia, "Saturday night.")

Finally, speaking of mountain bikes, pie plates, and extreme naughtiness, it just so happens that even before I announced the Fyxomatosis contest a reader sent me this photo involving a pie-plated mountain bike:

Because the original photo is highly unsafe for work, notice I have dressed the model in colors that match her bicycle. (She already had the gloves and shoes.) Notice also that I have not made any tasteless jokes about "exposed pie plates." (That's another "Australian denial.") If you want to see the original and you are either not at work or you work in the sort of place where it's perfectly acceptable to look at explicit pornography (like Starbucks corporate headquarters, or the Parliament of Australia, or any company in France), it's (here). If you can't look but you're still curious, I'll just tell you she's pretty much doing what most fixed-gear freestylers do, which is climbing all over the bike without actually riding it.

Yes, fixed-gear freestyling can sometimes be a fashion show. Literally. Just take a look at this video:

Naturally I immediately performed the BSNYC/RTMS Fixed-Gear Video Test on this. While the Celine Dion music didn't match up too well, this did. In fact, I think in Smash Mouth's "All Star" I may very well have found the perfect fixed-gear video soundtrack. It works with absolutely everything. I'm not sure why this is, but I suppose it has something to do with the fact that it's cartoonish, irritating, and massively overplayed, with just a hint of contrived "edginess." Celine's great for the videos with high production values, but she's just a little too schmaltzy for the "grittier" stuff.

In addition to discovering the perfect fixed-gear video soundtrack, I think I may also have discovered the missing link between the fixed-gear trend and the p-far trend. And that link is the elephant trunk skid:

I don't know why I didn't notice this sooner, but it's obvious to me now that the elephant trunk skid is simply a subconscious attempt to mimic the penny-farthing riding style:

(Fixters look up to p-fars. Way up.)

I can only surmise that there must be something in the DNA of certain riders that compels them to clamber up atop the front wheel in this matter, and I also suspect that many of them will never be satisfied until they own actual p-fars. Until they do, they will continue to compulsively straddle their Aerospokes and Hed tri-spokes and Spinergy Rev-Xes in the same way that Richard Dreyfuss couldn't stop himself from sculpting that mountain in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."

But while K.O.P.S. isn't for everyone, neither is C.O.P.S. ("Crotch Over Pedal Spindle," the p-far fitting rule of thumb). I was thumbing through the New York Times Style Magazine (don't ask me how these awful things find their way into my bathroom) when I noticed this:

Yes, it's an essential bit of journalism about some sockless rich guy and all his expensive crap. Notice that like many sockless rich guys with expensive crap, he has a relatively inexpensive and useless bicycle:

“He describes his Electra Townie 21-speed (around $500) as a beach cruiser on steroids. ‘The pedals are positioned slightly forward, so you can ride forever and not get tired.’”

Wow, that's not just misinformation--it's misinformation on steroids. If positioning your feet slightly forward on a bicycle meant you could ride forever without getting tired then recumbents would be perpetual motion machines. (As it is, they're just perpetual embarrassment machines.) Granted, I have no recumbent riding experience, but I'm fairly certain they tire you out eventually. Then again, I could be wrong. Maybe some of these guys have been riding around for years, stopping only to feed themselves at drive-thru fast food restaurants. (That could explain while they all have beards and ample midriffs.)

Lastly, I'd like to announce that I'm about to "drop" a "collabo." Many of you probably saw this coming, and I can now confirm that the rumors are true and I'm finally about to release my own line of paper towels:

As you can see, I've been test-marketing them in Brazil, where they've been a smashing success. Not only are they highly absorbent, but in a pinch you can use them to make yarmulkes. I'm also looking for the perfect pitch person, preferably a pro rider famous for crashing a lot. I'm currently in talks with Cadel Evans. "When I take a spill on the bike, I drop back to the team car. But when I spill my Foster's, I reach for a roll of Snob." Cadel will tell you he's not considering it, but that's just an Australian denial.

BSNYC No Quiz Only Tardiness!

Well yesterday's mixed-terrain ramble was so rewarding (for me) that today I decided to treat myself to another one:

Because I deserve it:



It's chilling to think that in many households during that era the only thing preventing murder-suicide was a bar of soap.

Anyway, in keeping with my current ethos I once again rode a cheap bike while wearing street clothes, only this time instead of the Surly travel bike I opted for Ol' Piney:

And instead of yesterday's relatively docile terrain I headed for the forbidding Trails Behind The Mall:

Thus affording myself the opportunity to marvel at typical examples of suburban car-centric "couldn't-give-a-fuckedness" like this one:

You've got to appreciate the fact that when deciding where to place this sign someone most likely said, "Just put it on the sidewalk where it won't be in anyone's way."

And yes, people do actually walk on this sidewalk.  I know because I ride on it--and yes, I have no problem riding on the sidewalk in the suburbs when I deem it necessary, as it is on this particular stretch of road, which is for all intents and purposes unrideable.

In any event it was good to be back on the portly bike, which I hadn't ridden since the last snowstorm:

When I took my life in my hands in using tires that were only rated for "summer fatbiking:"

And while it's still not summer they were much better suited to the current conditions:

Speaking of living life on the edge, do you know the Marin Pine Mountain 1 would be illegal in Australia?  Yes, that's right, apparently bars wider than 700mm and and single-ring drivetrains do not meet Australian safety standards:

In an email to BikeRadar, Darren Rutherford the General Manager of Giant Bicycles Australia explained, "In Australia, the mandatory standard for pedal bicycles requires that certain types of bikes must not have handlebars that exceed a particular width (namely 700mm)."

However, bicycles intended for "competition" are excluded:

“Bicycles which are designed, promoted, and supplied primarily for use in competition are excluded from this standard, and the bicycles that Giant have recalled appear not to fit under that exclusion,” Bourke said.

Though obviously the bike industry and media would not consider the Pine Mountain a competition bicycle because it's not expensive enough and there's no crabon.

Oh, and the single-ring drivetrain isn't kosher because in Australia front derailleurs count as chainguards for some reason:

“The other aspect of the recall relates proliferation of 1x drivetrains,” he continued. “Previously the front derailleur was technically considered ‘chain protection’ and with 1x it’s no longer there.”

So I think it's safe to say that if I took the Pine Mountain to Australia and rode it helmetless I'd be executed.

Incredibly despite my unsafe equipment I survived, but as I was heading home on the bike path I encountered this ominously-placed "Hazmat/Spill Response" vehicle:

And through the trees I could just make out a cleanup crew at work in Tibbetts Brook:

Presumably Team Trump is wasting no time in contaminating those waterways.

Tibbetts Brook, in case you're wondering, which you almost certainly weren't, flows in to Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx where it creates Van Cortlandt Lake as a result of having been dammed by Old Man Van Cortlandt some centuries ago:

Then from there it heads underground into the sewer system, flowing under Tibbett Avenue:

And eventually winds up in the Harlem River.

So there you go.

After my thrilling brush with contamination I officially escaped the suburbs and attained the safety of Van Cortlandt Park and New York City:

There are barriers to keep the ATV-riding riff-raff out:

But the riff-raff just go around them:

And so it goes.

You may now begin your weekend.

Tell your boss I said it was OK.

Ride safe,


--Wildcat Rock Machine