And now some guy with the same last name--a relative perhaps?--is your World Time Trial Champion of the World:
Wiggins said this would be his final time trial world championships before he focuses on the track in the final two years of his career. The 34-year-old Londoner has now has won six world track titles, four Olympic golds medals, a world time trial title and a Tour de France.
He collapsed on the floor after his ride, struggling to understand that he was the new world time trial champion.
Incidentally, collapsing on the floor in denial is also the most common reaction after spending a night with Mario Cipollini. In fact, a night with Cipo is pretty much exactly like riding a time trial: you train for weeks beforehand, it takes about an hour, you keep your head down the whole time, and in the end you wind up empty and broken.
Meanwhile, in the world of competitive amateur cycling, here's a video of a rider practicing his cyclocrossing that was shot this morning by a reader in a Brooklyn park:
Though filmed vertically, it is quite evocative: a gentle rain falls with a soothing patter, the morning sun struggles vainly with the clouds, and a lone Fred jumps on and off his bicycle as he trains for the discipline du jour.
There's only one problem, which is that you really shouldn't do that in a public park, especially in today's charged anti-cycling climate. Sure, you're probably not going fast enough to hurt anybody, but during those precious off-leash hours some disgruntled dog owner is liable to sic the NYPD on you, and these days they're just looking for an excuse to bust the biggest menace to public safety the city has ever known. (That's cyclists, in case you haven't been paying attention.) Not only that, but riding around on a wet lawn is more or less a "Fuck you" to the people who maintain the parks. (I mean, sure, dogs pissing and shitting all over the place is also a "Fuck you," but that's another story.)
So if you're itching to practice those remounts, please do us all a favor and find a CX clinic--that's cyclocross clinic, by the way. "CX clinic" sounds like someplace you'd get some exotic new STD treated.
Speaking of the whole Central Park thing, I did a search for "Bike Snob" on YouTube because I love myself, and I found this eerie video someone uploaded (also filmed vertically, go figure) of me bloviating about Strava at the IMBA summit last month:
That's just creepy. (And yes, I'm talking about my appearance and voice, though the prescience of the subject matter is kind of weird too.) I should point out that this was after my actual "talk," while I was wandering around the crowd taking questions and just being a general attention-whoring douchebag, and I guess someone must have asked me about Strava. It's not like Strava was the subject of the talk or anything. (I can also assure you my take on the subject would have been far less irreverent today.) Then later I guess we moved onto the evergreen subject of waving:
Hilarious. Now somebody's going to clobber a pedestrian while taking a hand off the bar to wave to another cyclist.
Don't you wish I still blogged anonymously?
By the way, if you think the Central Park story is winding down you're quite mistaken. Despite my refusal to talk to the New York Post they ran with a bunch of quotes from my post of last Friday, which was pretty clear in its condemnation of dangerous riding. Nevertheless, some dolt on Facebook read the Post exactly wrong, because people who read the Post have no reading comprehension skills, which is why I refuse to talk to them in the first place:
W*** being the author of Bike Snob NYC. In apologizing for this asshole who mowed down a woman on his $4000 bike, he very clearly blames the victim. So he's a hypocritical asshole. Further, every report has made it clear that no one knows who had the light, thus making this Weiss a double asshole.
Wow. You have to be eight different kinds of stupid to read it like that--almost as stupid as a State Senator from Staten Island, who added these rejoinders:
Diane J. Savino i am intrigued, john, right now, i just scream at them out the window of my car. quite a site when i yell, "Hey, find a fucking bike lane and get in it"
Yes, this is New York State Senator Diane J. Savino, boasting on Facebook that she harasses cyclists while driving:
Wow.
When you're looking at a mountain of stupid this monumental it's difficult to know where to begin, but I'd start with a law that says if you brag on the Internet about engaging in psychopathic road rage behavior while behind the wheel your license should be suspended for 30 days. Call it a "cooling-off" period. After that, you will be evaluated by a psychologist at your own expense before your license is reinstated. We could call it the "Diane J. Savino Law."
It's hard to believe that people like this even get elected, but I did take a look at the district she represents and it makes a bit more sense to me now:
Most of her district seems to consist of the narrows between Staten Island and Brooklyn, so presumably she was elected by a mandate from barnacles, crustaceans, and other forms of marine life.
Hey, it could be worse. I could live in Toronto:
Glad to see they're keeping the crack pipe burning up north in the name of Robs Fords.
Lastly, here's a strange video about trying to buy a bike at Walmart:
When buying a bike at Walmart you have to be especially careful about your selection as choosing the wrong bike can lead to serious injury or death for you or your family. This so called "Safety Manager" talked down to me in the store and put me beneath her feet. The other Walmart Employee was also very unprofessional. When shopping for a bicycle at Walmart be careful that you don't get OWNED like I did. In front of my child the Walmart employees handled up on me. I was so humiliated. I was only riding the bicycle (bike) for a second. I still bought a bike I just wish I could have been treated a little better by the store employees.
To be honest, I was a little weirded out by this guy's body of work, most of which seem to use his daughter as a comic foil. So apparently there's such a thing as a YouTube stage parent now, a strange breed of digital huckster who is half Michael Jackson's dad and half Daniel Day Lewis in "There Will Be Blood," and who is hell-bent on going viral. Still, you can't argue with the film's central message:
Indeed.
I hope they're watching down at the U.N.
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