(Un)Hinged: Knowing When to Fold 'Em

They say "Idle hands are the Devil's workshop," and yesterday afternoon I found this saying to be all too true. Earlier in the day, I had been engaging in my favorite hobby, the noble and wholesome pursuit of food styling, but once I finished putting a decorative kilt on what was undoubtedly the finest haggis I've ever styled I found myself with nothing to do. So I turned to the Internet and started looking at bikes, and it wasn't long before things started to get ugly.

Actually, they didn't get ugly so much as they got dorky, for I found myself wallowing haggis-deep in the weird, hinged, and pliable world of folding bicycles. While I'm not actually in the market for a folding bicycle at this very moment, I am very close to "pulling the trigger" on a luxury yacht, so I figure it might be nice to keep 15 or 20 folders aboard so that my guests and I can take in the sights of Antibes or St. Barts or wherever my helper monkey, sea captain, and business manager Vito takes us. (Vito wears a lot of hats, though they're all fezzes.)

I must say that I enjoyed my foray into the folding world, mostly because of the Dahon website. At first I was bewildered by their many offerings, but I soon noticed that they very helpfully explained how to use each bicycle. For example, the "Mu P8" should be used for "Stashing behind your seat on the subway," "Beating traffic over the Brooklyn Bridge," and "Vineyard hopping in Napa"--all of which constitutes a very full day, even if you do own a luxury yacht:

It did not, however, explain the meaning or pronunciation of "Mu P8," though I'll just assume it's pronounced "MOOpate" and refers to the act of bovine masturbation.

Anyway, as a soon-to-be luxury yacht owner, there's no way I'd ever be caught dead on the subway, so next I checked out the equally versatile "Speed P8," (or "SPEEDpate"):
That one's for "Fast cruising to that class across campus," "Bar hopping (eco style) on Friday nights," and "Exploring in Costa Rica:"

It's perfect for that insufferably smug college student who goes on environmentally friendly benders (I assume this means drinking out of homemade bamboo cups), blacks out, and wakes up in the middle of a Costa Rican jungle.

But for sheer "urban assault" hijinx and general "Cat 6" racer douchery, you've got to go with the "Mu XL Sport," which is pronounced "MYOOKcil" and is named after a popular expectorant:
The idea that somewhere there lives a ninja-like commuter racer who carries a folder and is ready to unfurl it and engage in "epic" battles with other commuters at a moment's notice is simultaneously horrifying and awe-inspiring.

Even more awe-inspiring is this video of a man demonstrating how to fold a Brompton, to which I was alerted by a fellow member of the "Twitteroni:"

I'm assuming he turned the light on so he'd be able to find it later.

In any case, I really like the idea of bicycle company websites telling you exactly how to use each one of their products, and I think all of them should do it. For example, you may be wondering what this misshapen hunk of crabon is, and what you're supposed to do with it:



Obviously, as a semi-professional bike blogger I know exactly what it's for, but how are you supposed to know unless the "Big S" tells you? They really need to update their website to include the following information:

Perfect For:

--Dominating your local charity ride.

--Customizing with an adjustable stem and bento box and riding on the bike path in sweatpants.

--Heroic Fred-tastic exploits and other feats of bike-dorkitude.

Or how about this complicated boingy thing?

How do I know if I need all that suspension, or if this will suit my riding style, unless it says something like this?

Perfect for:

--Hanging on the trunk rack of your Nissan Armada.

--Riding over the same small log over and over again while wearing full body armor and no helmet as your friend films you with a Flip camera.

--Posting on Pinkbike.

And what is this thing for?

Perfect for:

--Weighing almost three-quarters of a hundred pounds and carrying payloads as large as a baguette and a small dog.

--Humiliating your family by participating in your local tweed ride.

--Feeling superior to people with expensive road bikes because, while your bike is just as expensive, it's also vastly slower and more unwieldy.

Of course, some bikes need no explanation:

Perfect for:

--Being a total hipster.

Speaking of hipsters, while important cycling blogs of record such as All Hail The Black Market have declared the "h word" dead (that's "hipster" and not "hephaestian"), I maintain that it is very much alive, for the simple and undeniable reason that, here in Brooklyn anyway, hipsters are still all around us in ever-increasing numbers. In fact, as of now they're a more powerful force here than ever before, since they'll all returning from their parents' houses where they spent the holidays, flush with cash and armed with renewed out-of-state driver's licenses and ironic bric-a-brac from their old bedrooms.

For this reason, simply retiring the word "hipster" is not going to change anything. I can declare the word "pigeon" dead too, but that's not going to stop them from defecating on my head. After all, "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet," and a hipster by any other name would still be a fashion victim with a cloying sense of entitlement. Plus, you still can't point a camera anywhere near a bike without inadvertently capturing a hipster like a tuna fisherman snaring a dolphin. Consider this photograph from a recent BikePortland post:

Notice how the smoking hipster just kind of worked his way in there, silently mocking the whole thing:

In fact, hipsterism is so pervasive in cycling that it's even resulted in a discipline as rule-bound as any other. Consider this video I saw recently on Trackasaurusrex, which embodies it perfectly:

Long Beach Cruisin. from The Fly on Vimeo.

First, as we all know by now, if you're going to cover your bars at all you should be sure to cover only the portion of the bar upon which you never, ever place your hands:

It's like walking around barefoot with your socks on your hands.

This goes hand-in-sock with another rule of hipster cycling, which is to never, ever place your hands in the drops--even if you're (ahem) "sprinting:"


Speaking of sprinting, it's always fun to watch an under-muscled rider do the "overgeared hipster hula-hoop wiggle:"

Of course, once this awkwardly writhing union of bicycle and outfit do finally get up to speed, it can't really stop because it doesn't have a brake. So, as soon as things start getting hairy they take to the sidewalk like a weak swimmer dominating the kiddie pool:

I rue the day when these kinds of hats infested cycling, and they should stay inside customized Honda Civics and in front of video game consoles where they belong:


Next, it's only a matter of time in any fixed-gear video before they start making with the idiot skids:

After which comes the inevitable "money shot" in the form of a rear blowout:


Undone by his own idiocy, he's now forced to walk home, and when he reaches his building he of course does the "Rockette Dismount:"

(Germophobic hipster rings buzzer with foot.)

So help me Lob I saw someone dismount this way before a run-up at a cyclocross race this season, so if hipsterism is dead then I'll eat a pair of Rivendell Splats.

By the way, always dress to match your lobby:

Then, after your ride-ending flat tire, be sure to head right for your Apple editing suite and make an "edit:"

In the "h-word" world, if it's not on video, it didn't happen.