Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Feeling the Strain: Cracking Under the Crackdown

To Whomever Finds This Letter,

It is the year 2020, ten years after The Great New York City Bicycle Crackdown began, and five years after I, along with the city's few surviving cyclists, moved to a vast underground smugness bunker built with funds from Transportation Alternatives and Streetsblog in order to hide from the NYPD's dreaded "anti-bike death squads." I don't know the exact date, for we don't receive Wi-Fi down here and all my Apple products have long since reached their built-in obsolescence points and self-destructed. However, I do know the year, since we have a few recumbent riders down here with us and we are able to measure the passage of time by their beard length.

I write this letter in the hope that, should we be discovered and exterminated, it might be found and the world will know that there once existed a "bike culture" in New York City as great as any ever known. For a few glorious years the streets thronged with salmoning "Beautiful Godzillas" on Dutch bikes, and self-entitled hipsters on "fixies," and messengers risking their very lives in order to deliver modeling portfolios so that the world's glossy magazines would not be deprived of fashion advertisements. And Oh!, such finery they wore! Weather-proof pants, and $200 "pivot-sleeve" shirts, and designer fanny packs, and sleeve tattoos of exquisite intricacy.

So if you find this letter, penned in my own blood and secreted in a bidon, please remember us to the world.

--BSNYC/RTMS

PS: We haven't seen the sun for five years, yet amazingly we're still getting Nashbar catalogs down here. How do they do it?!?

I'd like to say that the above epistle is a work of fiction, but horrifyingly it is all too real, for it was actually hand-delivered to me by the time-traveling t-shirt-wearing retro-Fred from the planet Tridork, shown here giving a perfect demonstration of how not to descend on a road bike:

Notice the yellow t-shirt billowing majestically, like the sail of a great schooner bound for distant shores of bountiful dorkitude. It's an inspiring image, and I only hope the Tour de France organization takes note and abandons the traditional maillot jaune in favor of a vitamin-enriched urine-colored size XXL Hanes Beefy-T. Just imagine the beauty of the presentation, in which a pair of ravishing podium girls tear open that plastic packaging, unfurl the giant t-shirt, and bestow it upon the race leader.

Meanwhile, further to the portion of yesterday's post concerning the possible banning of child "portaging," here are some friends of the time-traveling retro-Fred demonstrating how to use your child as a "Stemie" when riding offroad:

And here's a guy "popping a wheelie" while dressed in basketball clothes:

It's like Walmart decided to sell its own Danny MacAskill knockoff and had him manufactured in China.

Speaking of The Great New York City Bicycle Crackdown, few people in the world have a bigger martyr complex than New York City cyclists who get tickets for running lights. This is why we must hunker down, ride smart, and above all, maintain our collective sanity. However, this can be difficult, and a couple of days ago I received an email from a cyclist who was outraged that he had received a ticket for running a red light in Central Park and wanted me to share his story.

"Anyway," concluded the cyclist, "as far as I can see this is essentially tantamount to the criminalization of recreation in New York City."

No it isn't. It's criminalizing running red lights. Sure, it certainly sucks to suddenly get a ticket for something everybody does, like running lights inside of Central Park, but at the same time a red light is a red light, and what are you going to do? Well, naturally you're going to alert the "media" to this miscarriage of justice. While I sympathized with him, I also opted not to share his story at the time, but obviously I wasn't the only blogger he emailed because local muckrakers Gothamist ran with the story:

I've experienced more than a few of these "crackdowns" over the years, and while they're certainly irritating at least there's really no secret to how they work. It's not some video game where you have to find a secret magical shield under a mushroom to keep the evil police from ticketing you. All you have to do is follow the laws--and yes, that includes stopping at lights while you're recreating. Sure, following the letter of the law is very inconvenient to our collective hardcore urban cyclist dreams and Fred-tastic training delusions, but it beats getting a ticket, and there's no reason to stop riding your bike or to grow despondent and delusional.

Sadly, as for the composer (the police are not supposed to ticket artists, everyone knows that), he may be this crackdown's first mental health casualty, for the ticket has clearly sent him into a spiral of indignity and he's now penned a searing screed:



Which culminates in the following "epic" indictment of New York City and society as a whole:

The homogenization of our lived experience in the city, the disappearance of variegated and unexpected interactions with shopkeepers and members of the community, the sensation of being a regular somewhere (that isn’t a bar), where the owner actually knows something about your life and you feel a moral obligation to try as hard as you individually can to keep them in business, these are phenomena that have been lost in almost all of Manhattan. So when real estate brokers try to sell you on the gritty aspect of a neighborhood, what they are really trying to say, without them really understanding it of course, is that the place actually retains a semblance of the Real. There remains a possibility for types of human interactions to occur that aren’t choreographed by late-capitalistic tropes of social exchange, but rather that anything could happen, that someone could say something that might catch you off guard and make you think twice about who you really are. Of course it also means that someone might try to invoke a localized spirit of communism and redistribute whatever possessions happen to be on your person amongst his or her socio-economic peer group. You take the good with the bad I suppose.

Wow. Hell hath no fury like a white man ticketed. I certainly feel his pain, but as the reciepient of summonses both automotive and bicycular, my advice would be to pay the two dollars and be done with it.

Anyway, as they say in the laxative industry, "this too shall pass," and in the meantime I am riding in a sycophantically law-abiding fashion so as not to give "the Man" anything to work with. I'm also dreaming of faraway exotic lands like Maine where people ride snow bikes, as in this video forwarded to me by a reader:


Not bad, and they even have a Portland there. Perhaps we should all retreat to the woods, join the "shed culture," and wait out the crackdown. We'll all be safe--at least until those Nashbar catalogs find us.

114 comments:

Easton Heights Blogger said...

FIRST EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Diego said...

kinda-sorta number second-ish!

thomas said...

Moin!

Anonymous said...

just trying to follow the master, but he was even further than i thought:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/more/01/18/lance.armstrong/index.html?eref=sihp

Og LoneWolf said...

Podium?! Nope, I dropped chain!!

Eric Lowe said...

Ungh

Anonymous said...

top ten?

Anonymous said...

top 10 (off to read)....

hey nonny mouse

hillbilly said...

BUNK RDWN

Slam said...

Meh tooooooo

Anonymous said...

Moin!

Anonymous said...

What happens behind the wood shed?

Anonymous said...

...there's something in the woodshed.....

hey nonny mouse

Anonymous said...

I hate all of you

Anonymous said...

The worst part about the crackdown is the cyclists all losing their mind on twitter. These people are not my representatives, and bikeblognyc should pipe the fuck down.

le Correcteur said...

Top twenty; again! Reading the Nashbar catalog.

Totally Sloshed Aussie Mom said...

THE DINGLE ATE ME BABY!

Anonymous said...

After having lived in San Diego and Montreal, I think Alec Hall (www.alechall.info)would have figured out that New York might suck if you're only capable of earning $200.00 a week. Move, Asshat.

Anonymous said...

Poor Alec, not only forced to be surrounded by we of lower sensibilities but also not allowed to do anything he wants to do whenever he wants to do it. I hope someone else who believes as he does kicks him the nuts. Would that also be an act that was "choreographed by late-capitalistic tropes of social exchange"

NUMB NUTS

Anonymous said...

Re: Smug Alec and his diatribe essay –
I’m guessing the only interaction between him and the peon shopkeepers he occasionally throws a bone is the shopkeepers saying, “Hey there goes the white boy that uses big words…. and he just missed gettin hit – again.”.

Esteemed Commenter Daddo said...

I remember what to do because green and go both start with g. And red is the opposite because it doesn't.

OBA said...

I got a ticket for running a red on 5th Ave. on my bike during one of the last "crackdowns" back in 1999. These waves come and go with the headlines.

ringcycles said...

"...someone might try to invoke a localized spirit of communism and redistribute whatever possessions happen to be on your person amongst his or her socio-economic peer group."

Wow Alec, I've never read being mugged described in such romantic or verbose terms. Quite a Robin Hood fantasy you've got going. Next time just keep a few loose 20's in your pocket. You might get to hang on to your i-phone that way.

mikeweb said...

The crackdown cracked me in the wallet today! Yep, red-light ticket at Prince st. and 6th ave. The cop driving the car was the 'enforcer'. Funny thing, the cop in the passenger seat was VERY apologetic. Really, he literally said "I'm sorry" at least once. He then said if I plead not-guilty, it'll surely get knocked down to a regular $40 summons.

Bottom line: I'll take the advice of BSNYC and choose something to busy my mind as I sit at all red lights. OK, I'll probably carefully look around for po-po (and traffic, as always) first before 'crossing the Rubicon' in the future.

Marcel Da Chump said...

Police Crackdown on Cyclist: let's just deal witj it and abide by the law. No alternative, unless money is no object: besides, in NYC you never know what other cyclist might pull up next to you. One time way back in the day I waited for a light with Al Franken, then a comic but now a Senator.
Recently, I saw Talking Head David Byrne at a red light: obviously, he sees no need to STOP MAKING SENSE.

crosspalms said...

But obeying laws slows me down. So does signaling. So do pedestrians. I'm in a big hurry and I'm VERY IMPORTANT. So important I should really be driving a car down the sidewalk instead of riding a bike. Talk about putrescent miasma.

Anonymous said...

Is it me or didn't the snowbikes video work?

It seemed as broken as having a red light on a one way street with no intersection in a park on a bike path. Better send five officers to steak it out.

I've got a hidden bunker in a bike-friendly upstate town you can hide in during the cyclopocolyps, Mr. Snob. But you might have to blow a red light or two to make it in time.

CommieCanuck said...

That tridorkian photo is awesome:
Aero front wheel: $800
Aerobars: $300
Puffy yellow Seinfeld pirate shirt making the whole exercise redundant: priceless

Reminds me of the guys on Zipp 808s that ride on the bar hoods all day.

Anonymous said...

It'll just last a couple months or so. The city needs to show they are the enforcer. In the meantime, there's a new PSA out there. If you see a cop, stop.

I wonder if the cops will pull over food deliver guys? I have a weird feeling they won't.

I am the cold and lawyerless engine said...

Aw, quit your whining. The crackdown is just about money. Cops can pull over bikes without clogging traffic from stupid rubber-neckers.

The only way it will stop is violent uprising, or a celebrity getting caught and embarrasing Bloomberg.

Where is George Clooney when you need him?

They are doing this in january to prevent the recreation tri-dorks from hiring lawyers.

Terre Haute Karl said...

I don't know about you but these seniors riding around on their Rascals scare the crap outa me. I was nearly run over by one of them this weekend...and I couldn't get a good description because they all look the same...and I swear I have never seen one of them getting a ticket for jay riding. They should have to register those scooters!

crosspalms said...

Thanks to anon 12:43, I looked at the link. Ack!

"Slavishly committed to an idealistic concept of engagement, Alec Hall creates things with uncertain outcomes, designed to provoke moments where subjectivities are challenged to interact with each other in unusual contexts. Motivated by the dynamics of 21st century paradoxes, his work is an attempt to reconcile the tensions between the interpretation of the art-object as a singular liaison to the Real, and the hidden paths to the same place that relationships between individuals can produce, independently of a piece."

jno62 said...

$40??

Toss them $80 and say, " this is for the next time too!!"

No don't, they might shoot.

IAN! said...

PREYING MANTIS FOR SALE:
http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/bik/2168085848.html

mikeweb said...

Seriously, one of the officers was super sorry. Here's a much better common sense way to deal with the whole problem. Note the highlighted portion in the right column of page 2. Milwaukee ain't just for brewin' kick ass beer, no sir!

The problem is that this solution makes too much sense so there's no way Janet Sadiq-Khan would go for it. Not to mention the shitstorm the Post and the Daily News would kick up.

That's it!! "Stop Making Sense" must be Janet's favorite album! Also explains the ever growing official David Byrne separated bike lane network. Mystery solved.

Anonymous said...

When I get stopped I just show the cops my MTA ID. Nothing like being on the inside suckas!

Anonymous said...

Nashbar catalogs are made out of old bubblegum--the kind you can never ever get off the bottom of your shoe. Once a Nashbar catalog finds your abode, all is lost.

white boy said...

ENTI TLED

FUCK FACE

IAMD AMAN

Unknown said...

What an amazing amount of whining for getting a completely justified citation for red light running! I think the police officers would have been justified in calling for a WAAAAA-mbulence after ticketing this guy!

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Drink said...

var·i·e·gat·ed/ˈver(ē)əˌgātid/Adjective
1. Exhibiting different colors, esp. as irregular patches or streaks.
2. (of a plant or foliage) Having or consisting of leaves that are edged or patterned in a second color, esp. white as well as green.

Wuh?

Anonymous said...

the new Outlier parka has "dropped" and it's....650 DOLLARS!

Anonymous said...

How's that kid staying on his Dad's bike with only one leg?

Anonymous said...

$2BD NXNW

Anonymous said...

Perhaps Nashbar could be used to find Osama bin Laden.

Jerry Seinfeld said...

Complete works of Retro Fred (and Golden Boy!) here.

http://www.istockphoto.com/search/lightbox/7245734/

Golden Boy is always the first shirt I wear out of the laundry, here touch Golden Boy!

recumbent conspiracy theorist said...

Do I have to think of everything? Just turn on your cloaking device. That way the fuzz can't see you running those reds.

Anonymous said...

Meh, as long as i see 'em, I don't run red lights in front of cops on the streets. It sucks to get ticketed in the park, though.

I wish the crackdown could be more anti-salmon.

3G said...

TTTSWRFFTPTD (time travelling t shirt wearing retro fred from the planet tri dork) is by far the best snob meme.

WELL DONE

Anonymous said...

That first paragraph is platinum.

docBol said...

You can do so much more with a fatbike

fi
http://www.pinkbike.com/video/177631/

Anonymous said...

What clown doesn't stop for a red light on a bike? Stop and proceed when safe certainly, but not stop at all? Stop signs can certainly be rolled cautiously, but lights never.

bikesgonewild said...

...i was so sad & empathetic when i started to read today's post 'til i realized "hey, wait !!!...it's 2011, not 2020 & this is just a humorously ironic slant played on by bsnyc/rtms & based on the complaints of a few 'red-light-running' scofflaw cyclists who got ticketed by the nypd"...

...hmmm, gee whiz...we need a 'brain trust', a group of highly intelligent cycle geeks to ponder the obviously deep question, "how do we stop red-light-running cyclist's from getting ticketed ???"...

...certainly way too deep for me...any suggestions ???...

mikeweb said...

To anon 3:02,

Stop Making Sense.

Anonymous said...

I’ve been cycling in the city for just over 20 years and this crackdown is the worst I’ve seen. The beginning of the end for real cyclists in NYC is here.

bikesgonewild said...

...@mikeweb...yo, bro, not you too, uhhh ???...sheesh, i've got faith in some a' youse nyc bike guys...

...now, if leroy gets one, 'ehhh, fugetaboutit'...

...like, i'm just sayin'...

john said...

bleh, i got ticketed on flatbush south of prospect last weekend visiting a friend in new york. interestingly, eight cops from 4 cars, including car that was undercover, stopped to give me the ticket. i mean, if there's ever something nypd needs to be dedicating eight cops to one perp for, its bikers running reds.

Anonymous said...

<>

Photographed in Macedonia, Kozjak mountain, to be precise...

Salty and Sore said...

So, yeah, I 'always' stop at stop lights. (chortle, chortle,...sssssshhhhhhhh!!) And I will say, I pass the time by smugly contemplating my fredtastic smugitude.

I'm telling you; there are few things in life more self-satisfying (Okay, maybe only one thing,) than exploring the artform know as Smug. It's amazing how fast the time passes when smugness is involved.

That Alec guy sure illustrates that point!

"choreographed by late-capitalistic tropes of social exchange"

yeah... like, "Dude, it's Wednesday! Pass it already!"

mikeweb said...

@bgw,

Leroy will never get collah-ed. He's got his 'Burma Jones' cloaking cloud going on. And his dog too.

Anonymous said...

@Anon 3:07 ... did you just say "The beginning of the end for real cyclists in NYC is here"?
Really?
'Real cyclist' = self-important morons w/'entitlement' stamped on their foreheads who routinely run red lights etc.??

JP said...

"Sure, following the letter of the law is very inconvenient to our collective hardcore urban cyclist dreams and Fred-tastic training delusions, but it beats getting a ticket, and there's no reason to stop riding your bike or to grow despondent and delusional."


If someone is trying to "train", it's worth noting that having to repeatedly get up to speed from a dead stop builds muscle.

mikeweb said...

@john,

Yeah, that was same weekend a guy in Red Hook got murdered in his friends own art loft. About 3 miles from where your 8 apprehenders were busy writing tickets. Great use of resources by Commissioner Kelly.

Salty and Sore said...

Thank you, Anon 3:28!

Dear Green Bay,

Please send some cheese to our dear friends, the NYC cyclists.

I love you all! Stay alive and stop whining!

...sweet! It just came around again!

CAMPIONE CYCLES CALGARY said...

I encountered the real once. The bite marks just finished healing.

Pontius Pilate said...

HAIL CSZR

-P.P.

bikesgonewild said...

...@jp...your 'training tip' is absolutely spot on & not that i'm "training" for anything but that's the premise i've taught myself to use for every damn stop sign & signal out here...

...do i like it ???...no fucking way...do i do it ???...yes, fucking way !!!...

...@mikeweb...somehow, i empathize w/ you unlike those 'entitled' so & so's like (smart) alec...

...& leroy's dog, if he doesn't just use his 'connections' down @ k-9 division could prob'ly talk leroy out of a ticket...

Quicksquirt McHurt said...

You're smug, self-righteous and sarcastic. I laughed so hard at this post I pee'd in my pants. At least I think it was pee. With me you never know for sure.

Keep up the good work.

CommieCanuck said...

In case you guys missed it,
Lance is the new Martha Stewart.

He only talks through lawyers now.

I Go Around and Around said...

Cop I spoke to said they've been given X-number of tickets to write for cyclists in the first Y-months of the year. He said that wasn't a quota, just a deterrent procedure. He didn't tell me what X or Y was.

Central Park needs to be no-cars period - no cars even between 6th Ave and 72nd or during morning and evening rush hours. And especially no cars during June July and August. Not because I am a cyclist who rides in there every day, but because I see tourists wander out into traffic every day. So far, I've seen 3 of them get hit, all near the carousel. They don't expect cars, especially not cars going 55mph around a blind S-curve while trying to hit all the green lights.

Then they can get rid of all the lights. And do less frequent road maintenance. Think about how much money that will save.

crosspalms said...

Sign me up for that brain trust, bgw, I know how we can do it. Time travel. TTTSWRFFTPTD never gets ticketed cause when he's pulled over he can either a) back up a few minutes and stop at the light, or b) speed up a few minutes and leave Officer Friendly scratching his head and wondering where miscreant cyclist went. This technology will be in the next Nashbar catalog.

mikeweb said...

I think the 'traffic light' training method is what Spartacus used to slay Tommeke on the Muur last year.

No joke.

Stupid Name said...

'Do I have to think of everything? Just turn on your cloaking device. That way the fuzz can't see you running those reds."

Cant I just close my eyes, then I would be invisible.

My future will be short with I pos ear buds, and closed eyes, but no ticket.

mikeweb said...

@ I Go Around...

Stop Making Sense.

Talking Head '77 said...

So this Alec guy thinks
NewYork sucks in 2011,
He should've seen it
in 1977. That's when someone invoked
a localized spirit of communism on me
by putting a knife to my stomach
and demanding my bike
for redistribution among his
socio-economic peers.

polka dot josie said...

I go around.....3:53,
your idea MAKES TOO MUCH SENSE

I Go Around and Around said...

Sorry folks. I was just thinking. Won't happen again.

BikeSnobNYC said...

I Go Around and Around,

Makes sense to me.

Interestingly, as I've been told, among the people who don't want a car-free park are many of the CRCA members who race and train there, since they worry that if cars go their racing will go next.

Yet as long as there are cars in the park there will be traffic lights, and as long as there are lights there will be cops ready to ticket them for running them.

Glad I gave up training years ago.

--BSNYC

Anonymous said...

oh man why is it that people that complain abou gentrification always make the same tired points, and never see themselves as par of the process. It's always about a loss of "community." Ugh.

Anonymous said...

I ride a bike in NYC because it’s fun. This does not make me a self-important moron w/'entitlement', I’m just a guy that likes to ride his bicycle in the park. I don’t hurt anyone. I did get a ticket for riding my bike on the bridle path years ago and the judge laughed at and through it out. I was in court with drug dealers and prostitutes… what did I do? I was riding my bike in the park…

not using feet to work hot and cold said...

"...we have a few recumbent riders down here with us and we are able to measure the passage of time by their beard length."

heeheehee, you made me choke on my coffee.

I Go Around and Around said...

"Yet as long as there are cars in the park there will be traffic lights, and as long as there are lights there will be cops ready to ticket them for running them."

Snob - Sorry I am going to think here for a moment again.

Why not reprogram all the lights in the park to switch to flashing yellow during car-free hours? They'd have to eliminate cars from 6th Ave. to 79th of course, but I think flashing yellow in all directions would encourage a more cooperative sense of right-of-way on all park users' part. Pedestrians and cyclists would both know to watch out at all times, rather than anyone having to guess whether someone is going to obey a red light or not.

Okay, back to no thinking. Let's go Jets! Let's go Jets!

Captain Sensible said...

First time I got ticketed for running a red light in Central Park it broke my writer's block ,only problem was I wrote semantically non-sensical sentences, just like our boy Alec. I feel his pain.

BikeSnobNYC said...

I Go Around and Around,

I like it.

I liked the no cars at all thing too. Never felt the need to drive through the park.

--BSNYC

Anonymous said...

DOOS HBAG

Anonymous said...

Marcel at 1:05 - Was David Byrne in a car when you saw him alongside at the red light? I was wondering because I could not recall if he has a car or not. Many thanks.

bikesgonewild said...

...@crosspalms...i think your method might work as well as, say, common sense simply because we'd be asking too much of so many little minds in asking folks to utilize that...

...there's really a limited number of 'transverse roads' across the park & they were included in the design when traffic was much more limited & certainly much slower...

...time for some nyc-politico to step up & propose a series of short transverse tunnels linking central park west with 5th avenue, which in turn doesn't reroute folks to either end & inconvenience them but it does give the park back to the people...

..."central park, nyc, the new peoples park"...i like it !!!...

Jim said...

Dear Lord. I thought we were some self-important jackasses in D.C., but we're pikers compared to the red light runners of Ol' New Amsterdam.

Anonymous said...

Mikeweb's link makes sense; this happens at night in parts of Europe. The orange light flashes at traffic light controlled junctions between, say, 10pm and 6am; this means approach, have a look, proceed with care.

Shame the UK never took to it though.

hey nonny mouse

Anonymous said...

Well, you'll all be happy to know that hipster Pedro is back in Brooklyn, according to the Williamsburg paper. Good for him. He can continue to "keep it real" and get drunk. Will the Village Voice or any other publication continue the broader issue in an investigation of deporting legal residents for petty crimes? NO. Tattoos and fixies are required for interest.

MRC said...

Hey Snob, did you read Grant P's article at Rivbike re bikes are not cars and in particular the Idaho stop rule? I don't know the general thoughts on Idaho (I'm from down under - where you may be in the future) But I like the Idaho stop rule. Also put some more dirt on Aussies we can take it. We've got your 7 time drugger down here at the moment twittering away his every bowl movement. PS I used to ride a fixie but then it became cool - now I'm a randonneur. I'm growing my beard as a measure on years of continued membership to Audax Australia

Anonymous said...

What I don't understand about this ticketing blitz is the timing. Who's riding bikes now, in 30 degree weather with snow and ice all around? The cops should wait until the first nice day in spring and get the idiots who really don't know any better. I suggest they just stand at say Myrtle and Jay or anywhere near the entrance to the Williamsburg and then have at it. They'll fill their quota in a day.

Anonymous said...

Anon 4:56, how about these:
it's racist, it's anti-New Yorker, it's a direct cause of homelessness or that it creates ghettos in unseen places like Staten Island and New Brunswick?

Anonymous said...

Lance did not dope!!

Wow, am having a great wednesday..

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
I've got a hidden bunker in a bike-friendly upstate town you can hide in during the cyclopocolyps, Mr. Snob. But you might have to blow a red light or two to make it in time.


Don't fall for the trap! IT's JAKE JAMALSKI

hoot79er said...

Those Nashbar catalogs will come in handy when the toilet paper runs out in your bunker.

Anonymous said...

Please tell me someone else saw this:
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-39329512/stock-photo-young-man-riding-a-bicycle-isolated-on-white-background.html

Are the inhabitants of the planet Tridork gifted with some sort of double-jointed hip to facilitate the rigorous technical riding demanded by time travel?

LK said...

Have a good one?

Marcel Da Chump said...

Anon 5:38,
He was on a simgle speed, coaster brake, bright red, fat tired, Pee Wee Herman type bike.;wearing a helmet and waiting insouciantly for the light to change.

Anonymous said...

jeeezzz, the old farts in the video dont need these fatbikes to ride on hard snow!

My wheels are 700X28 and they do just fine on hard snow...

Well, well.

Anonymous said...

if the cops really wanted to bag loads of whiny dicks they would be doing this in may. most of the cops dont care either way, they are just doing what they are told. get all white boy about it when they ticket you and they will show you what being an asshole is all about. if you blow a light with cops around there was always a good chance youd get a ticket regardless of crackdown. if you dont at least slow down at a light to check for cars cop or otherwise, the ticket is the least of your problems

Kenny said...

Fun article.

Anonymous said...

Poor Alec, whining about his much deserved ticket, has been reading too much Slavoj Zizek. He has ripped Zizek's terminology, right down to his reference to the elusive "Real" (yes, with a capital "R"), which not only enhances Alec's smugness, but also means that he is painfully unoriginal in his lament.

Somebody should ticket him for plagiarism, as well.

ce said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ce said...

I feel your pain, my own town has four sets of traffic lights to contend with.

Actually, come to think of it I'm pretty sure I'm not feeling your pain. I think rather I have injured myself laughing too hard as each newly discovered TTTSWRFFTPTD photo has been revealed. I really love the way that TTTSWRFFTPTD spotting has naturally evolved into what it is over the last two weeks. Here's to those budding paranormal investigators who have contributed sightings to Snob's X File. Good work.

On that topic, I'd like to contribute my own theory for those of you who, like myself, are not convinced that TTTSWRFFTPTD could reach 88mph, even under full sail. I believe the "Tridorkian" may be one of the last surviving Time Lords and may travel through space time via this TARDIS. As you can see, the outward appearance of the TARDIS has assimilated plausibly with it's surroundings, but it is not the most likely camouflage solution for the situation. The appearance suggests to me that Fredish aesthetic sensibilities may have been an overriding concern, which is tantalising as it links TTTSWRFFTPTD with the craft.

I would expect that the selection of helmets on display alludes to the contents of the crafts unfathomably cavernous interior: an epic collection comprising every bicycle component and accessory ever devised by humankind. At the wave of a Sonic Screwdriver (the mysterious "dingle") any unlikely configuration from the collection could be instantly brought together as a bicycle and kit that would meet all of the unknowable requirements of a Time Lord Hyper-Fred for any given point in space time. The Time Lord standard issue scarf may even sometimes make an appearance to top off a Hyper-Fred fixie based ensemble.

The girl in the short skirt said...

Any sentence that begins with "The homogenization of our lived experience in the city" must quickly degenerate into complete BS. "Lived experience"? What other kind is there? And "So when real estate brokers try to sell you on the gritty aspect of a neighborhood, what they are really trying to say, without them really understanding it of course, is that the place actually retains a semblance of the Real." I guess the ticket this schmuck got is UnReal? And he would prefer to get a Real ticket. I'll bet there's a cop can make that happen . . . .

John Titor's "cousin" said...

ce, I think you may be on to something there. Think how much trouble it would be to keep track of all the fashions and technical developments required to time travel as a bike geek without blowing it and having some anachronistic detail on your "training" bike. Going as a Fred makes it easy. No one thinks twice about silly things like roller cam brakes on a time trial bike if there is an appropriately attired Fred aboard. (Roller cam brakes will be all the rage on TT bikes in about five years, but they will be made of starched silk.)

A word of caution to all you recumbent riders: There is a reason you don't see time traveling recumbents, and it isn't pretty.

crosspalms said...

ce,
I hope the Time Lord has one of these

recumbent conspiracy theorist said...

Right you are Crosspalms-

•Old weird ancient bike parts

Marcel Da Chump said...

A bone wrench! OMG! Thanks for that pic, Recumbent. Now I know where to find one. Back i n the 70's every hardware store had 'em.

Dave said...

And in Maine Axes are actually a usefull tool to own.

Tom (dB) said...

No one's mentioned the quick release lever on the bike with the father and the kid in the red hat. Don't pop a wheelie.

Anonymous said...

Ticketed down my the SI ferry (manhattan side) for blowing a light.

Sad.

Fixie Bikes said...

Some aspect of NYC are definitely in decline, but on the whole it's still pretty alright.