It's a Gift: Your Mudflaps, Your Message

Generally speaking, I'm not what you'd call a "goal-oriented" person, but that doesn't mean I don't have dreams. Like any human I have my aspirations that serve as beacons and influence my life decisions. Sure, I don't aspire to much, and while some might call that lazy I prefer to think of myself as an "ambition minimalist." Here are my primary dreams:

1) To one day own a Scattante;

2) To never, ever participate in a triathlon for as long as I live;

3) To one day visit a city with umlauts in the name.

I'm proud to report that I accomplished Dream #1 quite some time ago, and as far as #2 goes hopefully it will be many more years before I can declare overall victory, but at least I've been successful to date. #3, however, has eluded me--until now, for I am pleased to report I'll be visiting (and speaking at) the Göteborg Cycel Festival in Göteborg, Sweden on June 11th:

Not only am I tremendously excited about this opportunity, but I'm also relieved, for the organizers are allowing me to speak in American which means I won't have to fudge my way through the presentation by reading off Ikea furniture names in an authoritative manner. If you're in or around Göteborg on or around that date I sincerely hope you'll attend, and if you can show me where Göteborg is that's even better, since like most Americans I can't even find my own country on a map, much less somebody else's.

And don't tell me to just use the Internet, either. Like most Americans, the only thing I can find with that is dirty videos.

Speaking of goings-on overseas, in the country shaped like a boot that's always hanging in pizza places, there's a big bicycle race happening. The current leader of that race is Alberto Contador, and in the Bicycling.com blog I am "curating" I described a painting I would have liked to have made of yesterday's stage, if only I were able. Well, obviously I'm not able, but a certain Erik K is, and I very nearly "snarfed" in my Froot Loops when I checked my emailings this morning and saw this:

I don't think it's a stretch to call this both transcendent and achingly beautiful, and in terms of immortalizing triumph it makes Washington Crossing the Delaware look like a bunch of yutzes piddling away in a paddle boat.

Speaking of both dreams and being immortalized, bicycle cycling advocate and giant suit enthusiast David Byrne undoubtedly realized one of his own dreams when he was recently immortalized on the cover of Momentum Magazine:

Not only that, but it was also recently his birthday, and here are just a few gifts he did not receive:

A New Car

A Used Car

A Futuristic Space Car

A Novelty Car Air Freshener To Hang from the Rear-View Mirror He Does Not Have

A Set of Custom Mudflaps That Say, "I Don't Have A Car:"

Actually, I suppose that last one could have been an ironic gift from Brian Eno.

Anyway, I wanted to show David Byrne my appreciation for all he's done for the "bike culture." However, I couldn't just send him a $40 gift certificate to AutoZone, so instead I decided to honor him by using his birthday as a Day of Reflection. And what did I reflect on? Well, David Byrne, naturally. I started by asking myself the following question:

"What do I know about David Byrne?" Without resorting to the Internet (where I'd only be able to find dirty videos anyway) I realized I knew three things:

1) David Byrne likes to ride his bike;

2) David Byrne does not have a car;

3) David Byrne was in the Talking Heads, who got their start in storied New York City rocking and rolling club CBGB--which, in a neat bit of irony, is now a John Varvatos clothing boutique:

It is a rule of physics that all things tend towards douchery, and CBGB is a good example of this. Simply put, things no not stay cheap and interesting forever. You can call it selling out, or gentrification, or Disneyfication, but if enough people like something eventually someone's going to be willing to pay a premium for it, and it will finally reach a point at which the people who made it interesting in the first place will no longer be able to afford it and only the shell will remain. It's not right or wrong, it's just the Physics of Douchery. Hence CBGB being unable to afford its rent, and instead of playing host to a bunch of actual dirtbags paying small amounts of money to be entertained, its shell is now home to douchebags paying large amounts of money to look like dirtbags. Consider that John Varvatos's chief contribution to the popular culture is the overpriced grungily-bedazzled Chuck Taylor:

Though you can also buy a $645 "Bowery Boot" that looks the way a cheap pair of boots used to after its owner shuffled in and out of CBGB for a couple years:

Continuing along this line of thought on my Day of Reflection, I stumbled upon another neatly ironic little tidbit. While David Byrne makes music and in his spare time talks about how he likes to ride bikes, John Varvatos makes clothes for douchebags who want to look like they play music, and in his spare time does Chrysler ads:



Generally speaking, I have absolutely nothing against cars, or commercials, or even car commercials. However, in terms of sheer douchiness I found this particular car commercial tremendously offensive. Basically, here's what it's saying:

1) John Varvatos is from Detroit and designs overpriced, douchey clothes while listening to the Stooges;

2) Chrysler is a Detroit company (though from what I can tell the particular model in the ad is made in Canada);

3) Somehow, this Canadian-built car that John Varvatos had absolutely nothing to do with is cool like the Stooges.

Sure, I suppose the ad is honest in that it's saying if you're the kind of idiot who would pay $675 for a pair of "Bowery Boots" you'd also feel at home in a 300, but it's still pretty depressing. I suppose whether it's putting studs on Converse or making a commercial that's essentially just a half-assed game of "Six Degrees of Iggy Pop," the goal is just to reduce everything to easy references and render them compatible with our modularly idiotic plug-and-play bullshit culture.

I guess what I mean with all of this is that I'll take David Byrne bragging about not having a car over a bunch of douchebags trying to convince me to buy one.

Given the current state of douchefication, it's no surprise that some stoner who's drawing a map with a Sharpie is considered a creative genius:

The Mission Map Project from Agency Charlie on Vimeo.

"You'll really get to know us by going to the places we go to... It can become a glimpse of our lifestyle," says Mike Giant, and I'm glad finally someone has taken it upon himself to create the definitive Aging Hipster's Guide to San Francisco's Mission District. Sure, you can turn off your phone and wander with a paper map--just as long as you've watched an Internet documentary about the map and have a full understanding of its compelling backstory first.

Speaking of art, as I mentioned on my Emergency Blog, I had extended the deadline for the "There Will Be Action Wipes" contest, but this extension officially ends NOW. In the coming days I will share some more entries and eventually choose a winner, but given the sheer volume of greatness this is going to be a formidable task. For example, I've received not one but two Warholian submissions. There's this one:

And this one:



There was also this entry, which the submitter appropriately titled "Masterpiece:"



More in keeping with the "international symbol" theme was this submission, entitled "All You Haters Action Wipe My Elephant Trunk:"

While it's easy to imagine this sign gracing the side of a desert highway:



Hopefully John Varvatos takes note when he blasts by in his Chrysler 300 while blasting the Stooges.

The Indignity of Bike Month: (What's So Funny 'Bout) Cleats, Love and Understanding?

If you're a cyclist, you may also be a fan of professional cycling, in which case you're no doubt following the Giro d'Italia. (It's like kind of like the Tour de France, only there are different jersey "colorways" for the various classifications, and it seems kind of like it was directed by Federico Fellini since it gets pretty "bawdy.") For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the Giro and its rich, saucy, and delicious history, I have gone through the considerable trouble of posting a handy "FAQ" on my Universal Sports Giro d'Italia-themed blogular presence. These easily digestible factoids should serve as handy conversation-starters the next time you find yourself around the kinds of people who get way too excited about "vintage" Cinellis, wine, and Rapha. In the interest of taste, I did leave out the question "What's pink, hairless, and starts with the letter 'V'?," but if you really must know you can click here for the surprisingly safe-for-work answer.

Speaking of sports that are very popular internationally but only embraced by a small yet passionate number of Americans, "celebressenger" Austin Horse (also known as that guy who raced a Mercedes) is leading a ride this Saturday from Manhattan to the Red Bull Arena in Harrison, NJ, where you can watch The New York Red Bulls play professional "soccer" (that's what we call "football" in America, since we have our own kind of football that involves more man-on-man humping) against the Seattle Sounders, who are named after the 1970 novel of the same name, written by William H. Armstrong:

This actually sounds like a very enjoyable way to spend a Saturday afternoon if you're a soccer fan, which is why I am sharing it with you. I, however, am not a soccer fan (I only like watching people kick balls when it's done for cheap laughs) so I will not be attending. (I will instead be attempting to cultivate a pretentious appreciation for the sport of cricket, which I will then bore people with at social events and ultimately play ironically in Williamsburg's McCarren Park.) By the way, true to the "woosie option" law I mentioned yesterday, there are two course options on the Red Bull Arena ride, though I assume Austin Horse will not lead both of them--unless he is either extremely fast, or omnipresent.

Incidentally, Austin Horse is also a sometimes-Outlier clothing model (yes, today's messengers wear $180 pants), which I mention only as a gratuitous segue (not to be confused with a "gratuitous segway") to this picture I recently noticed on the Outlier site:

"Yep, just taking my fixie to the beach." I've long wondered why the "fixerati" persist in taping only the upper portion of their bars (or, as I call it, the "dog's erection" taping style). This picture, though, may finally have answered my question--it must be seasonal, and they do it so that their bars match their legs. To test this theory, I'll have to wait until autumn and see if full bar taping returns with full-length pants.

Speaking of leaving things uncovered, I unintentionally seem to have touched off a helmet debate with yesterday's post. Alas, I should not be surprised, since helmet debates are like erections--sometimes dormant, but always ready to pop up at even the slightest provocation. Consequently, any mention of helmets on the Internet is the equivalent of an inadvertent "nipple slip," and then people start pitching "pants tents" in the comments. I shan't (not to be confused with "shant") continue to "flan the fames" of this debate, but I do feel I should clarify that my intention was not to call into question the efficacy of helmets. It was only to say that I think the way the writer of the Globe article posthumously castigated someone who has died a horrible death was extremely distasteful--especially considering the circumstances. I've since heard from a number of people who, unlike the writer of the article, actually know what happened. As a commenter yesterday pointed out:

Anonymous said...

The city may claim not to know the cause of the Boston accident, but as someone who saw it happen, a helmet would NOT have helped. Dude got hit bike tire stuck in the train tracks (which run right in the road), bus came flying around the corner and annihilated him as he tried to get loose. He really wasn't doing anything reckless.

May 11, 2010 4:53 PM

Says the Globe writer, "A helmetless rider is an arrogant rider." But what do you call a rider whose wheel is stuck in some train tracks? Perhaps the writer should publish another article about how we're all arrogant and irresponsible for not commuting on full-suspension 29ers. I'm sure he won't, though, since he's undoubtedly moved on in search of more deaths over which to gloat.

Anyway, there is new evidence that the risks of brakeless riding far outweigh those of helmetless riding. Moreover, even wearing a helmet will do nothing to mitigate this risk. A reader has sent me the following post from a fixed-gear forum somewhere, and I'm sure you'll agree that it is nothing short of revelatory:

o... this mite be too much info for you guys but i went to the doctor and have some info that i should probly share since you guys ride fixed.

i went to the dr. for stomache issues (gas pains and constupation) it has been happening since i started riding and i think it is from riding brakeless. he asked what my activities were and about my diet. after explaiing how to ride fixed and how you dont need brakes because you are basically one with the bike/road and lock up your legs to slow or how you can pedal backwards, but not like the bikes you ride when you were kids etc... he said it is causing too much straining on my insides and that is why im having trouble going to the bathroom. he said that over the long term it will could cause me to get pollups(?) which are what cause cancer. ass cancer is definitely not worth it. USE YOUR BRAKES!

This link between brakeless riding and "ass cancer" is the medical breakthrough that every worried parent of a budding "fixter" has been waiting for--in fact, it would not surprise me in the least to learn that the poster is at the center of a vast parental conspiracy. One likely scenario is that they've been slipping Immodium in his food and colluding with his doctor on this highly spurious diagnosis. (I'm a staunch brake advocate, but even I refuse to believe brakelessness causes cancer. This is even more of a stretch than when the PMRC tried to blame popular music for teen suicide.) Alternately, it could be that this was actually posted by a worried parent posing as a fixed-gear rider. In any case, until it's published in the New England Journal of Medicine or the Lancet, I'm going to stick to my assertion that the best reason to use a brake is to keep from crashing into stuff.

Meanwhile, we're not even halfway through "Bike Month" and, frankly, I don't know how much more of this I can take. Really, it seems as though the "mainstream media" is only interested in using it to play up the eternal (as in eternally tedious) "drivers vs. cyclists" debate. Here's another example which a number of people brought to my attention:

Sure, "sharing the road" is an important issue, but between these articles and the various interviews I've done recently it seems like the only way anybody seems able to frame any discussion of cycling is in terms of "drivers vs. cyclists," or "cars vs. bikes." Have we as Americans officially reached the point where we are no longer able to understand anything unless it is presented to us as a war, or as some "epic" struggle between the forces of good and evil? Is nobody aware of the fundamental irony that many of us drive and cycle and walk and use public transit and fly? (Notice I did not mention Amtrak--you'd have to be insane to travel that way.) Is it that hard to confront the fact that the real enemy is not the mode of transport but the idiot operating it? Do people become similarly heated over issues like "whisks vs. hand mixers?" Can I hope to one day live in a world in which people respect each-other's humanity, and in which the helmeted driver of a convertible car waves to the helmetless Dutch bike rider, and the motorcyclist embraces the Rollerblader, and the hang-glider salutes the boater, and the newspapers of America stop fighting their inevitable death by trolling for comments in the form of recycled "car vs. bike" stories, and the sun shines on shared roads, and we all join together to feast on the "epic" burrito of compassion, and joy, and mutual respect, and, as Don Cornelius used to say, love, peace and soul?

Almost assuredly, the answer to these questions are: Yes; No; Yes; Probably; and Fuck No.

In the meantime, it would behoove all of us ("behoove" means something that causes you to grow hooves) to remember the true spirit of "Bike Month," which is, of course, all about health, respect, safety, fanny-packs, and gigantic "Fred" rides. After all, as cyclists our lives are not a renewable resource--unless you shop at Jenson USA, in which case, as a reader informs me, you can buy a brand-new cyclist for $279.99:

Unfortunately, though, it turns out this was something of a bait-and-switch, since I tried to buy the cyclist for my helper monkey, Vito, and it turned out he was actually not only $9,999.99 but also unavailable:

In the end, I wound up buying a house-branded one from the secret website. He's somewhat "Fredly," made by Tektro, and only cost me $39.99 after I entered the coupon code "bikedork."

Of course, if you've just bought a brand-new cyclist on the Internet, you're going to want to accessorize him, and the first thing you should do is get him some shoes. As it happens, you can get some pretty sweet deals on Craigslist right now. In fact, the proprietor of "Keirin Culture" informs me that some sellers are even including "clits:"


Cannondale not for you? Another reader informs me the seller also has Shimano:

Just keep in mind that there are different kinds of clits--the SPD clit is small and recessed, whereas the Look type is large, red, and sort of triangular. Generally, mountain bikers have the former, whereas roadies tend to have the latter. Indeed, you can learn a lot about cyclists from checking out their clits.

Single Sided and Fully Enclosed: The Inaccessibility of "Bike Culture"

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Insulated Panel: Cresting the Summit, Jumping the Shark

Like a banana, since peeling my yellow cloak of anonymity awhile back I have begun to grow purple, gooey, and unappetizing with exposure. However, if you have a strong stomach and a fondness for banana pudding, you can come to the "Bike Culture Summit" tomorrow, where I will serve as a panelist:

With water flooding Nashville, oil flooding the Gulf of Mexico, and combustible SUVs appearing in Times Square, it's a good thing a bunch of bike dorks are getting together to ignore the world's problems and focus entirely on issues like brakeless fixies and the cultural significance of "shants." If you're considering attending but are teetering on the fence like Danny MacAskill in the opening scene of that famous video, perhaps this recent local TV show will whet your appetite and help you make a final decision. (Of course, I sincerely hope you will attend. However I should warn you that the "epic" hair with a host underneath it will not be part of the summit, so I realize that leaves little incentive.) Assuming you ultimately decide not to attend but would still like to know what happens at the summit, here's an advance transcript of my contribution to the panel:

Do cyclists need to rehabilitate their public persona?

Yes.

To what extent should safety trump convenience and style?

Until someone invents some kind of lever-actuated contrivance that supplies additional stopping power to the wheel of a bicycle, cycling will never be safe.

Will protected bike lanes segregate cyclists?

Only if they're racist.

Is Critical Mass a boon or a liability for the bike movement?

Liability.

What can be done about sexism in the cycling community?

I don't know, but I'm sick of being treated like an object.

This may very well be enough for you, in which case you can stay home, but if you do attend I will also devalue your copy of my book by writing in it:

I'm looking forward to hearing a whole bunch of this tomorrow night.

Speaking of issues confronting cyclists, I only recently noticed that a few weeks ago NPR aired a little segment ("airing your little segment" can get you arrested in some states) on texting while riding in California:

I must say I'm squarely in the DeAndre Sims camp when it comes to my feeling about texting and cycling. By the way, the printed word does not do Sims's quote justice, and for the full impact you need to hear it live (at 0:28 seconds):

If only I had musical production skills I would sample and build an entire song around what is undoubtedly the most engaging cycling-related quote ever aired on public radio. Maybe Abdominal and I can "drop" a "collabo:"

If this were to happen, I'd probably adopt a new moniker for the project and call myself "DJ ReSkin:"

Subsequent to yesterday's post about hemorrhoids, a reader alerted me to the above product, and here's how the website describes it:

ReSkin® is applied to the perineum. The perineum is the piece of skin between the anus and the genitals. The perineal area contains sweat glands,hair follicles and sebaceous glands that can often become irritated by rubbing, leading to an infection.

In other words, it's sort of a Breathe Right® strip for the "taint."

Of course, the reason ReSkin makes an appropriately "street credulous" DJ name is that, for one thing, it suggests that you're "skin friendly, painlessly removeable, washable and reusable"--all of which are prized qualities in the rough-and-tumble world of bicycle-themed hip-hop. Also, it implies you get into people's pants.

Indeed, I think most people would agree that texting while riding is a dumb thing to do--almost as dumb as spending over $4,400 on a pair of wheels:

According to the review, "they're incredibly fast wheels, being ridiculously quick to accelerate and giving you the feeling of a constant tailwind on the climbs," and believe it or not there really are people who will read this and believe it. Wheels cannot be fast. Riders can be fast; wheels can be round. As far as the "tailwind on the climbs" thing goes, promising that a piece of equipment will make you climb better is the bicycle marketing equivalent of selling "natural male enhancement."

Unfortunately, though, given the increasing cost of equipment, the average amateur racer is becoming inured to ludicrous prices. When the Mavic Ksyrium first came out it cost something like $700 and was the pinnacle of exotica--now a $700 wheelset is considered a "training wheel." To put the price of the Lightweights in proper perspective, consider that for the same price you could buy almost nine fixed-gear Softrides (as forwarded by another reader):

Fixed Gear Softride - $500 (oakland north / temescal)

Date: 2010-05-01, 4:51PM PDT

Reply to: [deleted]

Black fixed gear Softride

Facts:

-Fits someone between 5'7" and 6'1". There is no down tube to measure, but I ride 51cm and this is just barely fits. The carbon fiber seat stay can be adjusted another ~1.5" higher. The manufacturer's sticker underneath the seat says that it can handle a 200lb rider at maximum on flat roads and 180lbs on "all-terrain"

-700c wheels

--Front wheel: Spinergy Rev X tubular carbon fiber

--Rear wheel: Purchased separately from a wheel builder. Paul hub with 32 DT spokes and a 16 tooth cog with lock ring. Velocity Deep V rims. The rear wheel has only been ridden 50 miles tops.

-110mm 48 tooth Beck Single Speed chain ring

-EPXtras fork

-ITM 90mm stem

-White single-speed chain

-WILLING TO SELL ALL BUT THE WHEEL SET FOR $300

Don't hesitate to ask any questions you may have. Feel free to call between 6-10pm on weekdays and anytime on weekends. You can text or e-mail me anytime as well.

858-663-[deleted]

With nine fixed-gear Softrides you could assemble the most effective Burrito Distribution Force "hipsterdom" has ever seen. Thanks to the carbon beam, you could keep a safe distance from the homeless and simply catapult the burritos in their general direction. Sure, there's a 200lb rider weight limit, but given the fact that few "hipsters" weigh more than 100lbs that leaves an additional 100lbs for burrito-hauling.

Speaking of "bike culture" (I was, earlier, in terms of the "summit"), as most people know by now Minneapolis has defeated Portland and now occupies the top podium step in the fierce "Bicycling" magazine "America's Top 50 Bike-Friendly Cities" competition. Not only that, but they've also got their very own "Streetfilm:"



I enjoyed this video. Not only did it include footage of a GTSNF (or "Gratuitously Track-Standing Nü-Fred):


But I also learned about Minneapolis's "Trail Watch:"

As Laura Kling explains it, "We look out for litter, drunks, and suspicious characters. If we see any of those things, we just move them off the trail." This is exactly the sort of thing we need here in New York City; just add "beards" to that list and a local "Trail Watch" program would finally render the Williamsburg Bridge bike path 100% "hipster"-free.

In the meantime, though, New Yorkers are not interested in getting rid of "hipsters;" instead, they're hitting on them:


GIRL IN ACID WASH JEANS, SHORT HAIR, COVERED IN TATTOOS ON BEDFORD AVE - m4w - 25 (willamsburg)
Date: 2010-05-03, 3:07PM EDT

You - short dark hair, acid wash jeans, and a shirt that showed off your back piece..

Me - black skinny jeans rolled up, stripey shrt, black bike, sittiing on a stoop.

You are soooo gorgeous! Can I take you out for a drink?

Inasmuch as this post describes every single man and woman in Williamsburg I don't expect these two will find each-other.

By the way, we can now officially welcome a new member to the "bike culture"--the "hipster roadie:"

While there are some variations among these riders, common elements include vintage road bikes, tight jeans, visible butt cracks, and a penchant for late afternoon training rides.

I hope they're "rocking" the ReSkin.

Wake Up and Smell the Trees: Speed Bumps Ahead

Bicycle racing is about more than just who can ride the fastest, or even about who is physically strongest. Whereas some sports simply reward accuracy (tiddlywinks), or speed (sack racing), or power (watermelon seed spitting), cycling is a Waldorf salad of all of these, dressed with some luck and served in a great big wooden bowl of strategy. While training and preparation are essential for success, one should never underestimate the efficacy of a cunning psychological ploy. Indeed, it was no less a rider than Eddy "The Cabbinal" Merckx who called cycling "the Parcheesi of the road." And so it was that Tour de France winner Alberto Contador struck a potentially fatal blow to his competitors recently by unveiling his very own personalized "fingerbang" car:

A number of readers have alerted me to Contador's new ride, and it will doubtless boost his morale as effectively as it undermines the confidence of his rivals. You'll also note that Contador has abandoned his old fingerbang logoway for something a bit more corporate and abstract:

It could almost be the insignia of a bank or securities firm--albeit one with a disconcerting tendency to try to screw you with an index finger. (Actually, Contador should really consider selling his new logo to Goldman Sachs.)

Of course, there are some people who are simply not interested in the competitive aspect of cycling, and to whom the cutthroat, cockblocking, and fingerbanging world of bike racing is distasteful and off-putting. Instead, they prefer to simply ride around on their bicycles while smelling trees:



However, even the docile world of genteel, non-competitive, "Look at me, I'm saving the Earth!" cycling is not free from competition. Traditionally, here in the United States, the best place to be a tree-sniffing cyclist who prefers self-administered back-pats to fingerbangs (at least according to the "media") has been Portland, Oregon. Recently, though, the foul scent of defeat almost overpowered the usual Portland olfactory medley of trees, coffee, and dirty blond dreadlocks when "Bicycling" magazine crowned Minneapolis the most bike-friendly city in America:

Alas, stunned Portlanders looked on in terror as the Dachshund of Time lost interest in their moist city and instead began sniffing curiously at the fragrant crotch of Minneapolis:

(Recent Fixedgeargallery entry, via a reader. I believe Hüsker Dü may be from St. Paul and not Minneapolis, but honestly most of us don't know the difference.)

And as if this wasn't bad enough, another reader recently informed me that "The Economist" has downgraded Portland from citadel of cycling to simply "strange:"

Not only that, but they also called Portland "white, young and childless," after which they went ahead and rubbed Portland's nose in the whole Minneapolis thing again just in case they forgot:

Moreover, the article suggests that the Portland lifestyle is an "elite" one that is simply not tenable for those who are not a part of the leisure class, and that it's bike-friendliness is something that cannot be replicated in larger cities.

Naturally, immediately after reading this I headed over to BikePortland, where the latest item of concern was improving cycling in a local cemetery:
For all my jokes about Portland, it should be fairly obvious that they are born of jealousy. I am quite fond of Portland, and what New York cyclist does not envy his or her damp siblings to the west? As much as cycling has improved here in New York City, anybody who either does not inhabit or else regularly travels outside of the "Gentri-verse" knows just how difficult (and potentially fatal) riding a bicycle here can be. Naturally, then, when we read about how Portlanders are complaining about the lack of adequate signage in a cemetery we are simultaneously envious and amused. (For much of the country, Portlanders are the princesses sleeping on the pea, while the rest of us sleep on a single Kleenex facial tissue with lotion on top of a bed of nails.) Plus, while bicycles should certainly be given every consideration out on the roads, we can't help but think that perhaps mourning should take priority over cycling in a cemetery. Then again, this is Portland, so instead of banning bicycles the cemetery installed speed bumps--about which the cyclists then complained:

Apparently, the speed bumps were "unfriendly:"

I guess I must not understand the concept of the speed bump, since I always thought the whole point of them was to be "unfriendly" and jarring if you went over them too fast. They're pretty much the opposite of a "pump track," which is probably what Portlanders are going to start demanding next since pretty much the only hardship they still have to deal with is actually pedaling their bicycles. I mean, I suppose it's possible these things inhabit the grey area between "speed bump" and "booby trap," but I think it's also reasonable that people should be able to mourn their dead without having to dodge someone delivering coffee on a porteur bike or hearing the horrific sound of a locally-machined Chris King hub coasting at 20mph.

Anyway, I'm sure the cemetery and the cyclists will work it all out, and in the end what I found most remarkable was the use of a pair of sunglasses for scale:

I'm excited to see that sunglasses have joined milk and babies as an acceptable unit of measurement, though I'm less impressed by the size of the speed bump. Here in New York City we regularly encounter potholes that are like ten sunglasses wide and four sunglasses deep. Now that's a booby trap.

However, to Portland's credit, the truth is they're not just riding around looking for things to complain about, and they are concerned about the perception of cycling as something that is the domain of the white and privileged. In fact, they even have a non-profit organization ("non-profit organization" is pretentious for "privileged white people") looking into the matter, and here's what they've found:
This is important, not only in the context of Portland but also as it pertains to this whole notion of "bike culture." Yes, it seems that when people look at the "bike culture" they come to the conclusion that cycling is for kids and white people--though I can't imagine where they'd get that idea:

("Ghettospoke!" Get it?!? Ghettos are like so funny!)

In turn, the "mainstream" then looks at the "bike culture" and, instead of picking up on the practical they instead tend to focus on the "trend" aspect, which they take to its logical conclusion:



And even the face of ostensibly "practical" cycling isn't always appealing or relatable as portrayed in the "media:"

Putting your front wheel in the camera is the bicycle equivalent of "karate hands." Incidentally, if you're wondering, the Big Dummy is about 20 sunglasses long, but it can carry like 57 babies.

So what is the fate of everyday, practical cycling in our nation's cities? Well, I'm not sure, but I do know the SignedDutchBikeDex has fallen, since this bicycle bearing Janette Sadik-Khan's autograph originally sold at auction for $700 but is now on Craigslist for $650:




Batavus NY400 Dutch Bike Signed - $650 (East Village)
Date: 2010-04-19, 4:36PM EDT
Reply to: [deleted]

Limited Edition Batavus NY400 Dutch City Bike signed by NYC DOT commissioner.

Janette Sadik-Khan.

NY400 Bikes were a gift from the Dutch Government to the City of NY to celebrate Henry Hudson's arrival here some 400 years ago.


Bike includes Shimano generator hub and lights. Internal three speed drive train, full fenders and chain guard, integrated rear wheel lock and heavy duty rear rack. Bicycle is sized for someone 5'7" to 6'2"

I purchased the Batavus at a Benefit to support Recycle a Bicycle. I love it but have to many bikes in my tiny Manhattan Apartment.

Ah, the Dutch--New York's original gentrifiers.