It's Wednesday And They're Coming For Your Top Tube

Further to Monday's post, here's a fun one:

I like @EmotionalHangs but was blown away by De Rosa arguing that he has the right to do violence to cyclists. https://t.co/V5JobGbixS

— Aaron Naparstek (@Naparstek) September 18, 2017

As we all know, every time a motorist parks a car they're doing something monumentally important.  Indeed, it's a monumental engineering feat as significant as the Moon landing.  The rest of us, however, are merely in the way:

You can guess where this Twitter exchange went next.

Yes, thanks to the post-Apatow "inside the tortured soul of a comic" film and TV genre there's a sentiment among even middling comedians now that they're all misunderstood geniuses.  That's why when something they say elicits jeers because it's totally out of touch they deflect any critique with the whole "whiny PC white privilege" thing:

I've been doing just fine without your support. Have fun policing comedy and somehow comparing cycling to the struggle. White Privilege twat

— Joe DeRosa (@joederosacomedy) September 18, 2017

Wow, those two smuggies got under his skin as effortlessly as a puppy burrowing under a blanket.

Of course, in fairness to the comedian, he may have been traumatized by a failed attempt to walk over the Williamsburg Bridge years back:



It was an okay bit until the hackneyed stick-in-the-spoke comment.

Ultimately though, both the bike lane thing and the dooring rant share the same underlying theme (bicycles aside), which is that a lot of people lash out when they've done something wrong because they feel embarrassed.  A greater understanding of this would probably bump this guy's comedy up a notch, but he's been "doing just fine" as it is according to him, and I suppose there is a certain dignity to embracing mediocrity so good luck with that.

In other news, are step-through bikes becoming the new helmet?  Well, maybe, if a Dutch safety foundation has its way:

(Via @thejimoleary)

VVN claims that, based on a Swedish study, women’s bikes are safer because cyclists assume a better posture while riding women’s bikes and they have a lesser chance of getting a serious head injury when they are involved in traffic accidents. Other reasons given by VVN to ban men’s bikes in traffic are “dads giving their kid a ride with their bike” because this “may cause the child to fall off the bike or the bike to fall over as the dad takes a seat.”

Yes, the deadly allure of hitching a ride on a top tube is almost impossible to resist.  Just ask The King of Park Slope:

Okay, fine, neither passenger is actually hitching a ride on the top tube, but I just couldn't resist using the photo again.

Anyway, as the story points out, the whole idea of assigning genders to bicycles based on whether or not they have top tubes is kind of ridiculous:

They have a point; nobody complains about Citibikes and other shared bikes being gender neutral. In fact there is no reason to bring gender into it at all; racing bikes, where every ounce matters, have cross bars because the triangle is the most efficient structural form, and women racers have them. But in the city, a few ounces don’t matter all that much. It’s a design and safety issue, not a gender issue, when it comes right down to it. And thanks to the bike share systems, I don’t think any male rider is actually embarrassed by riding a bike without a crossbar.

Though I would argue that there are some riders who should be embarrassed to ride a bicycle without one.  Consider the Y-Foil for example:

And while it's debatable as to whether the beam of a Softride counts as a top tube, those too are a source of great shame:

Plus, if you try to give someone a ride on one of those then there's a good chance they'll get catapulted into next week:

So on balance the whole premise is pretty ridiculous, since obviously an upright step-through bike is more practical in a lot of non-sporting applications.  However, I do thing the thing about rider position and injury is an important point nobody seems to make (and hit has nothing to do with whether the bike has a top tube or not).  Consider a rider in this position:

And a rider in this position:

In the event of a crash, who do you think's going down harder?

Still, it's important to keep in mind that this same safety foundation also partnered with Shell on trying to get Dutch people to wear helmets, as someone mentioned in the comments on the article:

(Amusing headline wording courtesy of Google Translate)

Trying to sell the Dutch on helmets makes about as much sense as trying to open a Red Lobster at the Western Wall:

Finally, we all know that cyclists are part of a conspiracy to steal private property from hardworking Americans:



I looked Mitch Henck and was delighted to find that not only is he a radio host, but he's also a stand-up comedian:


Ouch.

Needs more bike material.