Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Well my goodness would you look at the time.

We're enjoying some eerily delightful springlike weather here in New York City, though there's a snowstorm due for tomorrow so presumably we'll get what's coming to us:


Given this, I made a point of throwing a leg over the old bicycle cycle this morning and basking in the February sun:

:
You know it's warm out when the suburbanites drive in from Jersey in their convertibles:


Between the blazer-clad guy in his Audi on one side of 5th Avenue and the wool-capped semi-professional bike blogger on the other I like to think we represent the entire depressingly narrow spectrum of white middle-age.

Speaking of high performance machines, the World Wide Internet Web has been abuzz recently with speculation that professional cyclocross bike rider Wout "There It is!" Van Aert is secreting a motor in his cyclocrossing bicycle:


Here's the video in question, and the salient bit begins at around 1:43:



(Open it in another window if you want controls, my IT person is on strike.)

When I first watched this I was 99% certain he did in fact have a motor.  First, he attacks:


Then his rear wheel loses traction and kind of fishtails:


Causing him to bust into a sick-ass whip-skid that would have gotten the fixie set all hot and bothered back in aught-seven:


Then the rear wheel catches again and he kind of rockets forward, which is where it looks like he has a motor:


Indeed, it almost looks like he's holding onto a runaway bike:


 "Somebody stop this thing!," you can almost hear him shouting:


And there it is:


However, after roughly 400 viewings I'm now 99% sure he didn't have a motor and that it was really just a nice save on his part.  Of course, this isn't the first time Van Aert has been accused of mötödöping, and there was also this suspicious moment not too long ago:



Which was explained away thusly:


Hmmm.  Like a Specialized dealer, I guess I have no choice but to buy it.

But I'll be watching you, Van Aert!*

*[This is 100% not true, I won't be watching you at all.  I have no time or inclination to watch bike racing anymore and am only interested in incriminating mötödöping footage and roadie slapfights.]

The above notwithstanding, I have absolutely no doubt pro cyclists are using motors, and I also have no doubt amateur Freds are too.  After all, they're ideal for helping you reach your ridiculous mileage goals:
Riding 10,000 miles in a year is no small feat for the amateur cyclist. If eking out a few lunch rides a week takes a toll on your schedule, clocking an average of nearly 200 miles weekly (roughly 27 miles a day) is an intimidating prospect—but it’s not impossible. We found five riders with families, jobs, and, yes, normal lives who have managed to make significant dents in their cycling computer's  memory.

Normal, really?  I don't think so:

“When I say I’ll meet a friend, I’ll meet him,” says Melbourne, Australia-based Simon Matheson, who’s on track to cover more than 12,000 miles this year. “If he can’t do it, the impetus isn’t there to get out of bed.” Matheson, 47, rides with groups of 10 to 100 other riders nearly every day and finds the social aspect rewarding. “It’s the camaraderie, the catching up.”

Won't get out of bed if nobody's waiting for you?  Only ride your bike in large groups?  You may be suffering from Autophobia.  Talk to your doctor and find out if Frederol is right for you.

For architect and former triathlete Andy Johnson of Louisville, Colorado, 4am wake-ups are crucial—but it took him a year to adjust. “I have a family with two young kids, so I get up very early and get in two or two-and-a-half hours every morning,” Johnson says. “If I don’t, I probably won’t ride that day. It’s my time. It’s a lifestyle.” He expects at least 10,000 miles this year.

Getting up at 4am every day for any other reason than a job you depend on for your livelihood?  Again, not normal.  Trust me, I used to get up at 4am on weekends to race my bike, and I wasted some of the best years of my life in the process.

“You have to figure out why you’re riding a bike,” says Tanner, already at nearly 9,000 miles this year. "For me it's a competitive thing. I like knowing when I go to a ride that I'm in control of how fast we're going.”

Wait a minute.  I don't get in anywhere near that kind of mileage, yet not only do I know exactly why I'm riding a bike (usually to pick up either beer or diapers) but I'm also totally in control of how fast I'm going (usually not very).

I must be doing something wrong.

Lastly, more bad news for the oppressed drivers of New York City!  Some kind of unhinged individual in Marxist clothing is running around Prospect Park with a Smug-ometer:

(Why don't you just make ten smugger and make ten be the top number and make that a little smugger?)

“We want to uncover how bad the problem is and further evidence that the park should be car-free,” said Transportation Alternatives executive director Paul Steely White.

Mayor DeBlasio outlawed driving on the park’s Ditmas Park-bound West Drive in 2015, but stopped short of banning cars from the green space altogether, with Prospect-Heights-bound motorists still allowed on East Drive between 7-9 am on weekdays and holidays.

I could not agree more.  Back when I lived in Brooklyn, after a hard day of blogging, I'd throw my human child onto the erstwhile Big Dummy (now lovingly re-homed) and we'd knock around Prospect Park.  It was all rather idyllic--until the park opened back up to motorists at 4:00 (if I recall correctly) and suddenly the park was transformed into a complete shitshow.  And woe unto the cyclist or runner who was not watching the clock like a student waiting for dismissal, because the very second the park road opened up these asshole drivers would roar into the park and honk relentlessly at any poor schmucks who still happened to be using the car lane.

The fact that keeping cars out of public parks is anything less than a complete no-brainer is depressing.  They've got the roads, and they've got Dunkin' Donuts.  That should be enough.


48 comments:

Anonymous said...

POOO DIUM

dnk said...

Uh-oh, love comes to town

BamaPhred said...

And I read it!

Anonymous said...

everyone on hiatus?

Unknown said...

208. We distinguish between two kinds of technology, which we will call small-scale technology and organization-dependent technology. Small-scale technology is technology that can be used by small-scale communities without outside assistance. Organization-dependent technology is technology that depends on large-scale social organization. We are aware of no significant cases of regression in small-scale technology. But organization-dependent technology DOES regress when the social organization on which it depends breaks down. Example: When the Roman Empire fell apart the Romans’ small-scale technology survived because any clever village craftsman could build, for instance, a water wheel, any skilled smith could make steel by Roman methods, and so forth. But the Romans’ organization-dependent technology DID regress. Their aqueducts fell into disrepair and were never rebuilt. Their techniques of road construction were lost. The Roman system of urban sanitation was forgotten, so that not until rather recent times did the sanitation of European cities equal that of Ancient Rome.

ken e. said...

peddling...

ken e. said...

bullshit, eh ted? that horse is dead!

Unknown said...

I'd agree the first video is a badass save, but the old one? Not buying it.

Can we get Kevin Costner in to analyze the video?

recumbent conspiracy theorist said...

Scranus.

boys on the hoods said...

Toop 10

N/A said...

I'ma going to get one of them bikes with a motor in it and fat tires and a windshield and some bad-ass ape-hanger bars, and I'm going to ride it over 10,000 miles this year.

N/A said...

Would a gaggle of Freds* descend upon me all worked-up and clucking like a bunch of chickens if I showed up to a coffee shop on a Harley wearing a full Rapha kit and the clicky-clacky tap shoes and a styrofoam Gyro hat?



*how are Freds grouped? Gaggle? A gymnasium of Freds? A clench of Freds?

N/A said...

Could a group of Freds indoors be called a Zwifter of Freds?

BeerDrivenCyclist said...

14st?

Drock said...

all that focus on fast spinning wheels i did even catch to see if dick
brakes were attached

Anonymous said...

Wool-capped? I think you mean betoqued.

Anonymous said...

Toppus XX

Lieutenant Oblivious said...

18th, I will not be De Turd! SCRANUS!

Anonymous said...

TOP 20! Woo Hoo Speed!

wishiwasmerckx said...

Max: Back, and to the left...back, and to the left...

1904 Cadardi said...

That up there? That's racing.

This back here? This is touring.

boys on the hoods said...

A group of Fred's (full kit required) should be an ostentation of Freds, just like peacocks.

Anonymous said...

fumunder fity

Lieutenant Oblivious said...

So fitting that the first image in that Dunkin' Donuts link is of a police SUV that crashed into a Dunkin Donuts!

My mileage goal for 2016 was 3,000. I came up about 18 miles short on account of a bad cold I got a few days before New Year's Eve. And a couple hundred of those miles were done on a basement trainer.

Lieutenant Oblivious said...

PS, I didn't set my 2016 mileage goal until Christmas Eve 2016.

Freddy Murcks said...

In other news, did you see that the VeloSnooze is now defending the right of old guys to take testosterone so that they can keep participating in fred races? Apparently Jeff Hammond's T is so low that he would up and die if he can't take enough testosterone so that he can keep being competitive in races. I might be inclined to have an eensy bit of sympathy for him if I didn't know that (a) testosterone levels naturally drop in all men as they age and (b) I could walk into any number of clinics today and walk out with a lowT diagnosis and a prescription for testosterone supplements. Apparently USAC and USADA are okay with this. Awesome, eh?

Unknown said...

vsk said ...


Got bread and milq ?

Snowpocalypto's comin!


vk

CommieCanuck said...

myeah...no motor, that's the way bikes handle on mud without a mud-specific frame, the moron was racing a gravel bike in mud.When will they learn.

The press put the kaibosh on motobikes when they started using thermal cameras, as opposed to the UCI that used an EM field app on iPads (seriously). Zee UCI didn't realize zee app technologie could be thwarted with aluminum foil. The same foil used to store dope up soigneur rectums,(rectum? I hardly knew him! -Lance A).

I hear Ducati wants to make a new UCI Pro Tour team, ...nothing to see here folks.

PBateman said...

hello team. long time no see.

I think Commie is correct - the laws of physics get a little out of sorts once you start mixing a frame with terrain that it wasn't designed for.

I once took my beach cruiser out to an area with no sand at all and wound up in the 16th century via a wormhole.

Old timer said...

Huh? What?

bad boy of the north said...

Time to bring out the fat tires.

1904 Cadardi said...

Freddy,

Nice article huh? I read till I reached "It would break my heart to quit racing..." He could have kept racing, he just wouldn't be competitive anymore. Yeah, no sympathy from me.

Greenbelt said...

10k miles/year is easy. how do i know? because I've never achieved it. but I've hit 9k and 8k a few times and 7 dot something last year. and i'm old and fat and well on the downhill side of 50 years of age. it's all in the commuting.

dan·gling par·ti·ci·ple said...

"I'd throw my human child onto the erstwhile Big Dummy (now lovingly re-homed)..."

Let's hope the bike was re-homed, and what ever the human child is currently being thrown on provides a soft landing.

Pathetic Old Cyclist said...

A Fuck-o of Freds

Anonymous said...

A polymorph of Freds.

A little electric assist never goes amiss.

R2-D2

ClevelandYeah said...

Greenbelt 5:43 PM
You're right. It is all in the commuting. 10k is easy with 65% of it my daily commute.

Anonymous said...

I rode 2 years when I managed to get 10,000 miles. I was recently divorced, no kids and I worked a 4-day schedule. Even with that I woke up one day and thought "I am wasting my life". No relationship, no time for anything but biking, I regularly turned down social invitations because it would interfer with my ability to log 80 or 90 miles the next day. I love to ride but one does need to have a life and enjoy other activites as well as friends and family. Oh, and nobody gives a shit how much you ride and most people just think you're lying anyway.

Dooth said...

So, what's the prize for joining the 10,000 Mile Club? A sore Scranus! To paraphrase John Winger, "you ever see a fred get wildly fucked by teenage girls."

Steve Barner said...

I've had several 10k years. The last couple have been 7k. I must be slipping. Most of those were commuting miles, as it's 36 mi, round trip, for me. It's a great ride, with lots of dirt, lots of pavement, 17% climbs, and the jaw dropping beauty of northern Vermont. I don't race, and I don't consider the non-commuting miles to be training. I'm not keen on riding with groups, as I've become weary of the concentration required, and there always seems to be at least one person who has not yet mastered riding in a bunch. Although the commute takes a good size bite out of my day, it uses up an hour that I would otherwise be sitting on my butt in my car, so the time/benefit ratio is pretty good. Also, I'm a reluctant auto mechanic, as I've always done my own repairs, but long ago lost any enjoyment in it, so the more I ride, the less I need to work on the car. I typically ride about a century a month, and at least one double each year (100-200.org), all just for fun, and because the more you ride, the easier any ride becomes. I write all this to make the point that you don't need to be a fixated Fred to rack up big miles, just ride whenever you can do so instead of driving, and expand your horizons. Going to a conference 100 miles away? If the weather is okay, why not ride? Find a way to make the time work. You and your time are far less important than you think.

Die free... said...

Snow again, YES!

One awesome day of riding this week already! Snow is awesome, or gives Americans perhaps the only viable excuse not to drive and the roads will be mostly free of fking arseholes piloting their petro jugggerknots.

Even better is the ones still on the road (having not crashed while trying to maintain highway speeds in snow) tend to be so white knuckled that once on a secondary road they are totally tolerant of other, slower, road users... Here's to wishing everyday was free of arseholes in cars.

Seal Clubber said...

You should move up to Canada, then you only have to ride 10,000 km in a year. So much more doable.

McFly said...

I work with people THAT STILL GET UP AT 5 ON THEIR DAY OFF......and are proud of it, it's most perplexing.

JLRB said...

My goal is to ride 10,000
Smiles

Spokey said...



PODIUM

for the first comment the day after the bloggy post

Spokey said...


"Somebody stop this thing!," you can almost hear him shouting:

wrong.

it should be "Help Jane stop this crazy thing!," you can almost hear him shouting:

Clarkey said...

These go to eleven.

dancesonpedals said...

Citibike doesn't think I can make rational choices and locked me out today.