Wednesday, September 10, 2014

It's Wednesday And I Forgot To Go To Interbike!

My goodness, is it Wednesday already?

Whew!

Where does the time go?


("I'd explain to you where the time goes but you're too stupid to understand.")

So I realize I've been breaking Bicycling's balls (relax, it's just a figure of speech) over anointing my hometown as the number one bike city in the country (if this is as good as it gets please shoot me), but here's something they published about cycling in New York City by a guy who really knows what he's talking about:


And no, that's not my bike.

Also, I finally read our city's actual profile, which was extremely interesting to me because I appear in it and I absolutely love reading about myself:



Not everyone finds riding in NYC so idyllic. I meet with blogger (and BICYCLING columnist) Eben Weiss, aka Bike Snob NYC. “Show me New York’s underbelly,” I tell him. Rolling through Central Park, Weiss points out where a cop once tackled Lance Armstrong for riding on the sidewalk. En route to Harlem we swerve around limos parked in a bike lane and teenagers walking three abreast in the bike path. 

“Typical,” says Snob.

As I explained to the writer at the time, there is nobody less qualified than me to show anybody the underbelly of anything.  At this point in my life you can bet I do my very best to stay on the soft, pale, flabby surface of the belly at all times, which is precisely why I met him in Central Park and not at some sub-cultural shitshow like "Bike Kill:"



I don't find this sort of thing even remotely interesting.  My advice is to leave the belly's "treasure trail" untraveled, for that way pubic lice lies.

I should also clarify the anecdote about the cop and Lance Armstrong, since I probably didn't go into sufficient detail at the time.  Technically, the "cop" was with the Park Enforcement Patrol, not the NYPD, and our violation was rolling into Central Park from Columbus Circle via a path which is for pedestrians only.  (Yeah, like you never enter the park that way.)  Also, he didn't exactly "tackle" Armstrong; rather, he grabbed him, but Armstrong quickly extricated himself--much as he used to do from all those doping allegations, now that I think about it.  I was quite impressed by the maneuver, which Armstrong explained to me had become second-nature after years of escaping the grasp of crazed fans at the Tour.

Hmmm, I guess maybe I'm more familiar with cycling's underbelly than I give myself credit for.

Anyway, while I failed to show the writer the city's sordid underbelly, we did take a nice little ride up the Harlem River Speedway.  It was also raining, so at least we got dirty.  I had originally intended to add a swing through the Bronx to our trip which would have culminated with a coffee stop on Arthur Avenue, but unfortunately his schedule didn't allow it, which was too bad because I was enjoying his company.

Oh well, more cannoli for me.

Speaking of the underbelly, I was stuck in Brooklyn until late last night, and when it was finally time for me to head home I really wanted a Citi Bike so I could ride to the subway station:


(Yes, Brooklyn Geography Snob, there's a subway station right here, but I wanted a different one, okay?)

This was the second Citi Bike station I tried, and I'd been looking forward to a little nighttime spin before retreating underground for an hour.  Instead, as I stood there contemplating the three broken bikes, a rat nearly crawled over my foot and scurried into the storm drain.

So I said "Fuck it," scrapped the Citi Bike idea, and sucked up the inconvenient transfer.

And yes, because I'm underbelly-averse, I did use my smartphone flashlight to inspect the area around my seat for bedbugs:


That's just how I roll.

When I finally get it together to move to the suburbs at least you'll know why.

Also, here's something to contemplate:


There are two lessons here:

1) Lock your frame and not just your wheel;

B) You know those signs they have at amusement parks?  Well, your wheel needs to be at least this shitty for a thief not to bother with the cable cutters.  So if you're palping a 27" steel wheel with a massive metal pie plate, the cable lock is probably fine, but if you've got anything better than that (which is pretty much anything) you're going to need more security.

Here's something else to contemplate:


I like to think that rack is for carrying the car on your bike and not the other way around.

Speaking of which, yesterday I talked about putting my bike on the roof of THE CAR THAT THE BANK OWNS UNTIL I FINISH PAYING THEM BACK, and a commenter pointed out the following:

Yeah man! Roof racks are the bomb. Especially when you drive into a parking garage and forget your bike(s) and kayaks are on them.

Very true.  Generally, I find the best way to avoid doing this is not to drive under low stuff when you've got a bike on the roof.

It's not that hard--though now that I've said that I'll probably do it tomorrow.

82 comments:

Anonymous said...

POOP DUMM

Jasper said...

Early doors

Flyover BC said...

Podium

Alias Bob said...

hi

Schisthead said...

Interbike, shminterbike.

Anonymous said...

Top ten after reading.

Anonymous said...

What size wheels is Ablert sporting? I gotsta no.

Anonymous said...

je suis dans le premier dix

Anonymous said...

Weeeeeeee

Synonymous said...

A ten spot!

dop said...

in a choice between interbike & intercourse pick the latter


i'm not a robot...I use ventchs astringent

ken e. said...

lucky!

grog said...

13. Underbelly

Anonymous said...

Fodder

Serial Retrogrouch said...

..fack podder

Spokey said...

podi 16

3G said...

ugh bed bugs give me the shivers just reading about them! So gross!

Anonymous said...

I always walk my bike on that path. And I always feel like an idiot for doing it.

JLRB said...

Thank Lob thee was no mention of tire levers today

babble on said...

Can I be the dirty underbelly snob? And if I come to NYC, will you show me around, too? Pretty please?

PBateman said...

you know what you have to do when driving your car under a low clearance area with your bike on top?

DUCK!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8X_DPy9KSU


bam.

caged MonkeyMan(person)(entity) said...

tire lepers

babble on said...

Er, snobberdooders? You shouldn't break balls, y'know, not even figuratively. You should cup them, stroke them, and sometimes gently squeeze them.

And if you can forget to go to interbike, you can prolly forget your bike is on the roof-rack, too. Trust me. Forgetting is easy.

Anonymous said...

I thought you already moved to the suburbs?

Serial Retrogrouch said...

...couldn't this qualify as new york city's dirty underbelly?

My Soda's Gone Flat said...

I've been looking for a combination tire lever/bottle opener tool but no one seems to make one.

Anonymous said...

Good article in Bicycling.

Anonymous said...

Good article in Bicycling.

Anonymous said...

Good one today bruh. take the rest of the day off.

dop said...

unless the hold the next interbike in intercourse PA

Spokey said...

One of the kids gave me a bottle opener that might double as a chain whip. Also has teeth as in a piece of a chainring (probably fake) so you could also use it to key anyone who gets close. Might be able to use it as a tire leever.

http://www.uncommongoods.com/product/bike-chain-bottle-opener

recumbent conspiracy theorist said...

I didn't know the subway trains had sleeper cars.

endo-king said...

What?! No comment on the million-dollar parking spot in SoHo? (NYT).

There's always tomorrow. For now:

From "The Promised Land: An Economic History of the United States" (Michael Lind, 2012).

Concerning Post-WW2 US,

"The new automobile-centered culture was derided by American intellectuals, many of whom were downwardly mobile children of affluent parents who could afford to live and play in expensive bohemias in New York, San Francisco, and other big cities. By the late twentieth century, the American intelligentsia was all but united in its snobbish disdain for America's working-class and middle-class suburbs, claiming that 'sprawl' deadened the spirit and threatened the environment." (p. 342) (no footnote).

Dude's got your number, Snob.

leroy said...

My dog said something snarky about Mr. BSNYC living the dream, riding in America's No. 1 cycling city.

Then he started singing that Rolling Stones song:

You got rats on the west side
Bed bugs uptown
What a mess this town's in tatters
I've been shattered.

Can't get him to stop sneaking up behind me, singing "Shadoobie."

James said...

Soft White Underbelly? is Blue Öyster Cult using that name again?

Anonymous said...

scranus.

Anonymous said...

Babble, your comment practically made my balls sing with delight. Inspiring, if you know what I mean.

balls™ said...

What is Lance up to these days? It's odd to say, but racing was somehow more interesting when he was monotonously winning the TdF every year (you know, the years that officially have no winner). I used to watch the race!

I feel like getting nostalgic and plastering my scranus with testosterone patches.

Anonymous said...

Apparently driving into parking garages with bikes or kayaks strapped on top is more common than one might think. I was reading old posts on another bike blog, and there is or was a kickstarter project for technology to alert people when they're about to destroy whatever it is on top of their car.... As the blogger said, everyone who does this feels like a complete idiot and also believes that they are uniquely stupid. Yet this mistake is quite prevalent. I thought I was the only one... I've never entered a garage with bikes or kayaks on top, but I did enter a garage which was too low to accommodate the empty kayak carriers. I'm not sure if I really forgot about the carriers or just thought the ceiling was high enough to safely pass.

sTONEdEADLAND said...

wrecked a perfectly fine MTB at a bank drive-thru in Moab years ago. Bars made it through but the saddle caught it, leaving a nice top-tube bubble. I definitely wasn't the only one though - that roof had the beet shit out of it with biek demarcations.

wishiwasmerckx said...

What a week. UCI cyclocross tonight, downtown crit tomorrow night, Interbike on Friday and a giant Fred Ride on Saturday.

Long-ass boring report to follow...

JB said...

HICH RACK

Since you asked said...

His ultimate legacy most likely is out of our hands. Fans who may not yet be alive will decide who he was. To us, today, Eddy Merckx is the greatest cyclist who ever lived, not a fraud who tested positive for a stimulant while leading the 1969 Giro d'Italia and had his 1973 Giro di Lombardia win stripped for the same. Joop Zoetemelk is the hardman who started and finished 16 Tours—a record—and won one. He's not a reprobate who was caught doping at the 1979 Tour, received a paltry penalty of a 10-minute time addition, and maintained his second-place podium spot. Jacques Anquetil is the five-time Tour winner who in 1961 took the yellow jersey on Stage 1 and wore it all the way to Paris, not a boastful cheater who said, during a French television interview, "Leave me in peace—everybody takes dope." And Fausto Coppi is il campionissimo, the champion of champions, not an admitted doper who said on Italian television that he only took drugs when necessary—"which is nearly always."



We live in a different age, one that may not allow the forgiveness of Lance Armstrong, that may hold him to be the creator rather than the product of the era he reigned over. We might even judge this champion's cheating and lying too vile to permit the remembrance of the part of him that, even now, convinced that he doped to win the Tour, I can't stop being a fan of: the plain fact that he was, as even his bitter enemy Floyd Landis told me when we spoke last year, "a badass on a bike."

Anonymous said...

micRo LiP

BikeSnobNYC said...

Anonymous 12:52pm,

Not quite.

--Wildcat Rock Machine

commentatorbot_3o42 said...

Since you asked,

Convenient of you to forget the great Greg Lemond.

Armstrong was busted by the same rules every other WT rider is required to uphold despite the fact the federation (US and UCI) desperately tried to prevent the sanction.

There's no crying about it now. Or, let's agree there are no rules and now I'm world champion. All you haters know what to do.



T Iron said...

She looked long and hard at my long and hard and said , "I see you carry a lever with you".

leroy's dog said...

And what is up with the rats this time of year?

Saw one flattened in the bike lane yesterday morning. Saw another one saunter across my wheel as I slow rolled behind City Hall last night.

The sauntering rodent was probably heading to vote in the primary before the polls closed.

But neither was wearing a helmet.

Spokey said...

Anonymous @3:18 PM

Something like that back in the 70s down the road from where I lived. River Rd going in to Bound Brook, NJ. There was a sign for the height. But over the years, they are repaved it until the height was in fact quite a bit less than the sign indicated.

With the expected results.

I don't see a sign in that google view. Guess you're on your own now

archimedes said...

JLRB-

give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I can lift any tire

lance armstrong (aka juan pelota) said...

I think it's mean for someone named balls (tm) to comment about me the eternal subjugation of the singular by the plural

Anonimous said...



Spokes 4:41

"There was a sine for the hite".

Spokey said...

i'm tired of the tire levers.

time to get back to frame pumps vs co2. now that thread was a gas.


oh and boobies of course


Anonimous said...


Bhopal was a gas too.

Nuttin 2 Sey said...

caged MonkeyMan(person)(entity) said...

lawyers lips keep your axle on and straight

semi serious cyclist said...

The horrors of NYC riding continue - The spot where Lance got his official NYPD cyclist welcome to the city, and limos in the bikeways.

Rudy sure has done a number on the place.

McFly said...

You bastards. You talked about shifting. My cable broke. You talked about flats. I got 2. Please.....I beg you......PLEASE do not discuss Erectile dysfunction. I beg you. She begs you. I beg her. She begs me to not beg her. I keep begging her until she is getting dimes from the bottom of the washer. Top loader. Back loader.

BamaPhred said...

Scranus

Yeah Cleveland! said...

Giro has a new helment and want you to buy it.
http://gizmodo.com/the-mechanics-of-a-bike-crash-will-convince-you-to-wear-1633062614

Also during the urban part of this afternoon's stage of Tour de Commute I dropped three dudes riding chromed out beach cruisers with 2 strokes bolted on. I definitely took the green. I had to give them the polka dot during the climb though. I was able to keep the yellow because I DQ'd them for turning off the route.

Bogusboy said...

Trust me. It's not that tough. I scraped a bike off the top of the car four times before I gave up on the roof rack.

caged MonkeyMan(person)(entity) said...

Viagra

Orestes Munn said...

Looks like they put some bleachers out in the sun and had Bike Kill out in front of PS 61 on 904th Ave.

JLRB said...

on the way home today

Yawning commentariat said...

66 comments by west coast dinner time? When you take out the podium and podium wannabees, and the dross one-liners, hardly anything to get my teeth into.
Where is everybody?

Captcha for McFly:

machines webackin

Candy Cane said...

The good news is that the oozing sores on my penis are starting to scab over, the bad news is that blogger guy left me for another man.

Candy Cane said...

The good news is that the oozing sores on my penis are starting to scab over, the bad news is that blogger guy left me for another man.

Candy Cane said...

The good news is...

1904 Cadardi said...

Hey McFly,

This is for you: winning lottery tickets, freshly bakes chocolate chip cookies, thigh highs and boobies. You're welcome.

ce said...

...and beefy bottom brackets. I seem to recall McFly extolling the virtues of a beefy bottom bracket as essential in bringing about lateral stiffness.

ScienceBOT9000 said...


”Giro has a new helment and want you to buy it.
http://gizmodo.com/the-mechanics-of-a-bike-crash-will-convince-you-to-wear-1633062614 “


Well, according to the link they are not selling this new helmet yet. The link claims Giro did basic research to help them design a new helmet that actually provided some meaningful protection.

Motorcycle helmets, football helmets, hockey helmets all provide meaningful protection. (Although not complete protection; look at all the low grade concussions football players suffer.) The trick of course is to get a helmet that provides real protection that is light enough that cyclists will wear it.

Giro either:
- Actually did the basic research they claim they did because they know the styrofoam hats they currently sell provided no real protection.
- Did not do any real research; this is a marketing campaign to convince cyclists to throw out their current styrofoam hat and buy on of their new ones.

JLRB said...

I spotted a rare sight

recumbent conspiracy theorist said...

56 degrees American out here in the hinterlands. Finally got a chance to wear the murdered out black wool snob hat on my bikecycleing commute this morning. Nice.

WARM DOME

scranus said...

is it scranus already?

Anonymous said...

I drove into the garage with a Breezer mtn bike on top, ruined the bike rack, dented the car roof, but the bike was fine. My brother ruined a beautiful Colnago this way.

Spokey said...

that's what i did with a co-motion americano. didn't ruin the bike rack but spent $100 for parts fixing it. car was about $700. didn't even have to straighten the handlebars or anything with the bike.

still doesn't answer the question as to whether babs has changed a tire without leevees yet.

JLRB said...

Do they sell presta adapters for fix-a-flat?

JLRB said...

Days getting shorter - the threat of needing long pants (and the attendant crotch sweat ), '70's style leg warmers, full fingered (middle one at least) gloves, and lights , etc. - that plus bikecycling through crowds of football drunks (when I'm not one of them) - the Fall always sends me into a bit of a funk.

So what shows up on a popular search engine today, but SNOW! granted - it is in 'Merica's top hat and Colaradee, but it can't be far behind for the rest of us.

Fughit - I'm moving to Mexico

dop said...

cold weather...can babel's thigh-high leg warmers be far behind?

McFly said...

Nope. Neither can her bullet proof glass piercing & eye poking nips. Thigh highs and sore eyes.

Zombie Cyclist said...

So you, as an A List cycling blogger, have been busting Bicycling's balls over the naming of New York as the #1 cycling city in the US. As an F list cycling blogger, I have just been fuming impotently, thinking about someday maybe complaining that Houston, my city, wasn't even on the list. And then, I saw we were named as most improved (and most needing of improvement) cycling city in the US: http://www.bicycling.com/bicycle-advocacy/houston-we-have-less-problem. I have to say, Bicycling may have missed the mark on New York, but they completely nailed Houston. If you ever find yourself in our fair city, I'd love to show you around. I know my comment is not funny. Sorry.

dop said...

I had some ejection near my corona, but it didn't exactly light up the sky...maybe I'm reading this wrong...coronal mass ejaculation