Breakfast of Champions: Starting the Day Off Right

As a commenter was kind enough to point out, yesterday was this blog's birthday.  To be honest, I never would have realized that myself, owing to my increasing inability to manage or keep track of time.  Also, I believe birthdays are a "Hallmark holiday" and a construct of the greeting card industry, a business concern which has done more to harm this planet than big oil, big tobacco, and the music of Big Country combined.  How many rainforests need to be raped so that a great aunt can mail some brat five dollars?  And don't think you're off the hook just because you opted for the e-card, because every time you send one a greeting card company employee clubs a baby seal to death with another baby seal.

Still, I'd like to pause for a moment to bask in my success, only I can't, because the truth is I'm not successful.  In fact, ever since starting this blog 15 years ago, my life has gone downhill more wildly than a fixie hillbomber with a broken chain.  Before becoming a bike blogger, I was the CEO of a large investment bank, making tens of millions of dollars a year in salary, bonuses, and other forms of compensation (which is financial industry jargon for "hookers").  Now, I have a shitty government job as the Secretary of the Treasury which only pays a measly six figures, and instead of replacing my Ultra-Red Record Ace Electronic shifters after every ride I'm forced to use the same pair for up to two weeks.

I've still never worn a pair of Rapha shorts more than once, though.  At those cheap prices I still consider them "one use only," like tissues or tampons.

Anyway, as a consummate failure, I've been trying to figure out where I went wrong, and I recently came upon an article that leads me to believe it could be due to shortcomings in my morning routine:

In particular, I should wake up early and immediately start praying:

"Seizing your mornings is the equivalent of that sound financial advice to pay yourself before you pay your bills. If you wait until the end of the month to save what you have left, there will be nothing left over. Likewise, if you wait until the end of the day to do meaningful but not urgent things like exercise, pray, read, ponder how to advance your career or grow your organization, or truly give your family your best, it probably won’t happen," Vanderkam writes. "If it has to happen, then it has to happen first," she says.


Unfortunately though, I'm unable to pray, since my religion (Orthodox Lobsterism) forbids it.  "Praying is for losers," it clearly states on the public restroom wall upon which is scrawled our sacred texts and commandments.  Also, I'm not convinced that cramming in a bunch of activities first thing in the morning is a formula for success.  Actually, it sounds more like a formula for constipation.  Whatever happened to pouring a cup of coffee, switching on the TV, and then adjourning to the "porcelain library" for some quality "downloading" time?  Then again, I suppose there might be a direct relationship between success and constipation, which would certainly go a long way towards explaining Mitt Romney.

Of course, while I may be a failure, things could be worse.  For example, I could be a middle-aged IT guy who wears a helmet cam, chases a bunch of idiots half his age, and then hawks the footage on the Internet, like Lucas Brunelle:



Though in all fairness I suppose idiots chasing other idiots is the basis of pretty much every form of "competitive" cycling, from the Tour de France on down.  In fact, idiots are so compelled to chase other idiots that they need to do it even when they're alone, which is why they invented Strava.  I suppose I could blame Strava for this, but it wouldn't be fair, since they're just fulfilling a desire that's already there.  It would be like blaming the Jergens people for masturbation.  Anyway, congratulations to Lucas Brunelle for emptying the "spank bank" of idiot porn he collected during his vacation days, and I'm sure this will appeal to the sorts of viewers who find "Premium Rush" too intellectually challenging.

Speaking of the Tour de France, you've probably heard by now that they're all over Lance Armstrong again:

As someone who finds the subject incredibly tedious, I react to these news stories like I do when I hear the Red Hot Chili Peppers have put out a new album--that is to say with a combination of total disinterest and utter disbelief that anybody is still paying attention.  I also think it's especially absurd that he's now been banned from triathlon, a sport which has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with cycling:

(This is not cycling, it's getting changed.)

Just let the guy dork out during his golden years.  Seriously, they might as well ban him from backgammon.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised the sport of cycling is still fixated on Armstrong though, because, as the saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.  (This explains why triathletes change outfits like three times during a race, yet they still can't ride bikes.)  For example, way back when I started this blog, if you had asked me my predictions for 2012, I'd have said that by then I'd be living in Portland and running a bicycle-based business.  In fact, I even drew up a business plan for a company called "Hold Your Line," which would dispatch trained specialists to your home by bicycle to wait on the phone for you when you get put on hold, thus freeing you to do other things.  Unfortunately, it turned out that people don't actually have other things to do in Portland, since it's not a real city, and so they're perfectly happy to do all the holding themselves.

So alas, I'm still here in Brooklyn, and despite my best efforts I'm still periodically losing my temper.  For example, yesterday evening I yelled at a Hasidic minivan driver to shut up.  This was because he was honking at every cyclist he passed, as well as at every car in front of him the instant the light turned green.  Anyway, I feel bad about yelling, but his driving was rather vexing--it was like someone running around a supermarket and yelling, "Move, move!"  Generally speaking, I find that the more religious a driver is, the more inconsiderate he or she is--and this is true regardless of whether the bumper features a picture of Menachem Schneerson, or a Jesus fish, or any similar totem.  I'm not sure why this is--and don't tell me it's because religious people are complete hypocrites, because I refuse to believe that, for at no point in history has that hypothesis ever been borne out.

Speaking of Portland, I was reading Bike Portland's Twitter yesterday, where I learned someone got a ticket for "corking" a cop:

Corking, eh?  He should be lucky a ticket is all he got.  To paraphrase Yakov Smirnoff, here in New York City, the cops cork you!  Sometimes they use a plunger, but other times they just use their nightsticks.

Speaking of getting corked, nothing goes together like corking and tiny shorts:

Tiny shorts walking on Prospect Park on Monday June 11 - m4w - 39 (Brooklyn - Prospect Park)
Date: 2012-06-14, 1:14AM EDT
Reply to: [deleted]


As I was riding my mountain bike on Monday afternoon you were coming down on the left side with some tiny tiny shorts... You are white (I think), super sexy and curvy body, and those shorts... my lord, tiny that when I looked back I almost crashed lol... I raced to go around the bike trail and could not find you to at least say hi. I hope to bump into you again... You are definitely a woman to draw attention and I love that!!!! I will keep riding with hopes to learn about you. I am probably the ONLY guy that rides with smoked up Livestrong glasses, and I have a black TREK mountain bike. 


If it's you, hit me up... gonna be great to learn about each other. 

I wasn't sure what "smoked up Livestrong glasses" were, so I plugged the term into a popular search engine, but the closest thing I found was a recipe on the LiveStrong website for how to make a smoked ham.  Nevertheless, this raises an interesting question: Would you rather be stalked by a guy in smoked up LiveStrong glasses, or by a guy with a shaved head, goatee, mustache, and a bright red velvet smoking jacket?  Well, chances are that if you have a Kurt Vonnegut tattoo you'd opt for the latter:

girl w/kurt vonnegut tattoo on 2/3 train friday night - m4w - 25 (Manhattan)

Date: 2012-06-13, 12:26AM EDT

Reply to: [deleted]

We both got on the downtown 2/3 train at 135th st. around 9pm on 6/9.

You were a brunette with a kurt vonnegut tattoo on your right leg, I believe.

I'm a 25 year old white guy with a shaved head, goatee, mustache and I was wearing a bright red velvet smoking jacket.

I was going to chat you up about mr. vonnegut, but before I got on the train I had a heated argument with somebody and was still settling myself down.

if you see this let's chat! 

I certainly hope they find each other, because a love that pretentious only comes around once in a lifetime.

BSNYC No Friday Fun Quiz Again Because I'm On Tour and Live to Disappoint You!

Yesterday, in the section of this blog where the comments go, a reader inserted the following words:

Anonymous said...


This is bullshit. I've been putting up with your book plugging for at least two weeks, and you can't even manage to put up satisfactory blog posts while on the road.


You need to get your priorities straight. I'm looking forward to a half decent post tomorrow.


March 29, 2012 1:27 PM

I agree that it is, like, totally bullshit, but what am I to do?  For the time being, touring is my reality.  The road has become my bride.  I am stripped of all but pride.  So in her I do confide.  And she keeps me satisfied.  Gives me all I need.  Wherever I may roam.  Woah.  Yeah!  Wherever I may wander, wander, wander.  Yeah, yeah, wherever I may roam.  Yeah, yeah.  Whoaoaoaoaoah!

Sweet Lob, that song is ridiculous.

(Via AHTBM)

Anyway, rest assured that it won't be long before my tour is behind me, at which point this blog will revert from its current state of sucking to its usual state of sucking.  In the meantime, I'll add a gratuitous and self-serving reminder that I'll be in the following places this weekend:

AUSTIN

Saturday, March 31

1:30pm ride/3:00pm talk and booksigning

Mellow Johnny's 

400 Nueces

Austin, Texas 78701

(512) 473-0222

www.mellowjohnnys.com

BOULDER 

Sunday, April 1

2:00pm ride

Vecchio's

1833 Pearl Street

Boulder, Colorado 80302

(303) 440-3535

www.vecchios.com

3:00pm talk and booksigning

Boulder Book Store

1107 Pearl Street

Boulder, Colorado 80302

(303) 447-2074

Cost: $5.00 (good for $5 off The Enlightened Cyclist at any time, or $5 off any purchase the day of the event)

www.boulderbookstore.net

With regard to the $5 thing in Boulder, I did receive at least one irate "Tweet" about it, and in fact was quite surprised myself.  However, when I balked, my publisher explained to me that this is the bookstore's policy, and the $5 simply goes towards the purchase of my book or indeed any book if you don't want to buy mine, and that purchasing something from the store obviously offsets the time and effort the staff puts into hosting wiseass bloggers from New York City who track mud into the store and fail to put the toilet seat down after using it.  Once I looked at it in this light, I agreed that there are far worse things than supporting your local bookseller.  I hope you'll agree as well, and if not you can always just join the ride and then give me "the finger" and leave once we get to the bookstore.

Moving on, from time to time I receive emails from people or businesses asking me to help them promote their products.  Far more often than not, I either decline or ignore these requests.  However, once in a great while I come across a product I feel I should share with my readers, and when I received the an email that contained both the phrases "Burning Man" and "beautiful dust masks" I knew right away that this was one of those products:


I am a designer from the skateboarding industry in Santa Cruz California. I have done the artwork for many famous skateboards and surfboards. A few years ago I started going to Burning Man and I noticed that there were no beautiful dust masks in the world. I decided to make them myself and this adventure took me to the far east where I found a manufacturer who could put vibrant colors and designs onto dust masks. 


And thus, the Vogmask was born:


...now I have created vogmask - the world's first designer dust, allergy, particle masks. They are very soft and comfortable and my friends and I wear them while cycling, traveling on airplanes, working with lathes and spraypaint, cleaning out the chicken coop and doing other things where we'd rather not breathe all the contaminants in the air.

Inspiration is like lighting, or herpes, or a rabid monkey on PCP, and we never know when or where it is going to strike.  Alexander Fleming was messing around with some fungus and he discovered Penicillin.  Two idiots crashed into each other and invented the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.  And the inventor of the Vogmask apparently went to Burning Man, "wigged out" on some bad acid, and strapped a pair of panties on his face:

Vogmask is poised to become the face mask of choice for the discriminating germaphobe, though the first thing I thought of when I saw the above image was this song:

And then I saw this image:

Which will no doubt result in thousands of Vogmask orders from Japanese perverts who are into that whole "pantyface gardening" thing.

In any case, I sincerely with the inventor the best of luck with his venture, and if you lead a lifestyle that requires you to look fabulous while being exposed to dangerous particles or fumes I hope you will consider the Vogmask.  (As a semi-professional blogger my own vocation does not require a face mask, unless I've consumed a particularly "epic" burrito before going to "work.")  Indeed, there's no reason that the Vogmask shouldn't become all the rage among the artisanal bicycle craftspeople of Portland.

Speaking of Portland, I previously believed it to be the mostest bike-friendliest city in which to bicycle cycle for transportation in the United States.  But then I visited the midwest, and I daresay that Minneapolis and Madison may be even more rideable than "The Artisanal 'P'."  In particular, riding in Madison was like riding a cotton candy bicycle while being tickled with buttercups, and my commute from my quarters in Middleton to downtown Madison looked mostly like this:

Sure, Madison's a much smaller town than Portland, but that doesn't mean Portland can't feel the Midwest breathing down its neck hair dreadlocks.  This could be why Portland's bike-related endeavors increasingly seem to be born not of exuberance but of desperation.  For example, having already done wooden bikes, they're now moving on to wooden helments:

(Yes, I realize Corvallis isn't Portland, but I'm sure it's close enough that the Smugness Cloud rolls in if the wind direction is right.)

It would make me exceedingly happy if, by the time I get there for my BRA, half of Portland is riding around on wooden bikes while wearing wooden helments and SPD-compatible clogs:

Of course, the danger there is that they might all catch fire, but don't worry, because help is on the way in the form of an emergency "bake feets" squad:

I can certainly see bicycles being useful in a disaster, but the main problem with them is that they're ridden by cyclists.  And if you've ever set out with a group of cyclists you know there's that inevitable ten or fifteen minutes during which the two or three biggest know-it-alls in the bunch have to settle on a route.  "Scranus to Frumunda then through the park and onto South Grundle?"  "No, South Grundle's gonna be a mess this time of day, let's go around to Vulvanus."  "Vulvanus is being resurfaced, let's take the Vas Deferens."  And so forth.  It's like a People's Front of Judea meeting.  You can even see them doing it in the photo above, and that period of deliberation is going to mean the difference between life and death.

But don't worry, at least there's going to be a disaster theme ride:

"There's even a cargo bike/disaster-themed Pedalpalooza ride in the works."

Presumably it will happen after the Allergy Pride Parade, and of course they'll all be wearing Vogmasks.

Yes, feeling more prepared than everyone else in the event of Apocalypse is the ultimate expression of smugness, just as the Bridgestone X0-1 is the ultimate platform for the sporting retrogrouch, and if you've ever dreamed of owning one a reader has forwarded me the following Craigslist ad:

Bridgestone XO-1 - $600 (Olympia)
Date: 2012-03-29, 9:43PM PDT
Reply to: [deleted]


In the beginning...


9 bikes were given to Man to race and crash and make a mess of things.
7 bikes were forged for the Dwarves who kept their bikes forever in the garage.
3 bikes were given to the elves who turned them quickly into fixies and were never seen from again.
But one bike was made by the Master Grant Peterson...One bike to Rule Them All!


That bike is the XO-1 It is the one bike that is truly designed to do it all. At home on the road as the trail, this bike is designed to take you to Middle Earth and beyond. 


This is a Purple 1993 bike that is small, not large: no, you crank-apes cannot ride this bike. This bike measures 43 cm (yes they made them that small) 
I will provide pictures of the bike to people who request it. Only the worthy are able to gaze upon greatness. 


The bike is getting ready to be rebuilt. It has non-standard handbar and shifters. I have the Moustash bar and Suntour Barcon shifters to make it right. With this bike, many people wish it to be set up to their needs and not mine. 


I will ship this bike if you need me to. Shipping will be extra. This is the real deal. Of course, you need to be the height of Frodo to ride it!

It's too small for me, but I think it would fit my helper monkey, Vito.

Slow Reveal: Synergize This

Pope Alexander once said, "To air is human; to forget, divine." I couldn't agree more, for as a human animal myself I make airers and forget to do crap all the time. Fortunately, now and then people email and alert me to the airer of my ways. For example, I recently learned that the phonetic pronunciation of bakfiets isn't "bake feets," as I have heretofore been rendering it:

Dear snob,
I must take issue with your fonetic spelling of the word 'bakfiets'. 'Bake-feets' is incorrect; the a in bak is short, it rhymes with 'fuck'.
Here is how it is pronounced.
best,
Remco

Well fuck my feet, I've been pronouncing it wrong all this time! Given the ".nl" at the end of the sender's email address, I'm assuming he's from the Netherlands (or possibly their hated neighbor to the east, Holland) and as such that he knows what he's talking about. Anyway, the upshot of this is that I guess I should start saying "buck feets" from now on, but as an American it is my civic duty to mangle any and all "furrin" words, so I'll probably just keep saying "bake feets" anyway.

Speaking of linguistic matters, a commenter yesterday also had the following question:

Anonymous said...

Dear Snob,
Regarding the line "SRAM has picked this week to flog its new Red group", when did you abandon the treatment of corporations as plural nouns, e.g. "Cinelli have become the bicycle equivalent of a middle-aged divorcee in a Versace dress" or "Mavic may very well have found a solution to their self-destructing carbon spoke problem"? I always found the use of plural nouns for corporations on this blog jarring, although I do not believe it is in fact grammatically incorrect.

December 19, 2011 4:54 PM

My response to this is a hearty "Whuh?" The truth is, I don't worry about stuff like grammer and spealing when I write for the same reasons I don't use a power meter when I ride, and those reasons are: 1) I don't understand it; and B) What little I do understand is extremely boring to me. However, there are certain misteaks that even I can spot, such as this one which was forwarded to me by a reader:

(I can't believe I forgot to get Sidi a fiftief anniversarsary present!)

Obviously, the mistake is that the "s" in Sidi should be capitalized. Duh.

But if you're into grammatical mistake porn, there's no better place to find it than Craigslist:


To my star crossed lover - m4w (Park Slope 7th Ave and 5th St)
Date: 2011-12-18, 1:57AM EST
Reply to:

I was wearing a black jacket with white writing, and my heart on my sleeve. You were on a bike wearing a beanie. Our eyes met and worlds collided, boooom! (that was the worlds colliding)

Who are you...I want to know

Sincerely

You're Future

I hope "You're Future" and his erstwhile lady in a beanie eventually find each other, get married, and celebrate many, many anniversarsaries together. Then, they can have the world's douchiest wedding--though they'll have a hard time out-douching the current pretentious nuptial champions, as forwarded to me by a reader:

Apparently, instead of just having a wedding, these people decided to turn their union into an allegory of douchefication:

It would be easy to say that the couple, in their mid-30s, abhorred the idea of a traditional wedding, but Mr. Friedlander and Ms. Schmidt are not the sort of people who are in the business of abhorring things. They did not want their wedding “to be just about us,” the groom told me, but rather, about the world of creativity and social purpose that they inhabit.

Also, they figured they'd save the Earth while they were at it:

During the reception, Mr. Friedlander asked his guests to please recycle their cups, “because we’re really in a serious situation with climate change.”

If someone asked me to recycle my cup at a party "because we're really in a serious situation with climate change," I'd collect every cup in the joint, make a big pile in the middle of the dance floor, and start the world's biggest plastic cup fire--assuming of course I wasn't too busy proving myself worthy of attending in the first place:

When guests arrived on Saturday night two weeks ago, they were greeted with name tags that asked them to declare a commitment. Lest they not take the request seriously, the hosts had additional cards printed that asked them to “Name something you are really committed to.” The cards contained further imperatives: “Name one action you can take in the next 24 hours that is aligned with your commitment.” Other cards prompted guests toward a treasure hunt in which they were encouraged to meet new people.

I suppose a typical card looked something like this:

Name something you are really committed to: Saving the Earth by recycling cups at parties

Name one action you can take in the next 24 hours that is aligned with your commitment: Using the same cup twice.

Though I take it a step further and have officially pledged to become a one-cup household. One-cup households are on the forefront of the sustainability movement, and we use a single cup for everything: drinking, rinsing after brushing, playing Yahtzee, and even collecting our menstruation. "A toast to the bride and groom!," I'd announce to all assembled, though the "clink" of glasses would be replaced by an eerie latex silence. Anyway, a lot of people are worried about the state of the environment, but I'm not, because with visionaries like these we should have the whole global warming thing sorted out in no time.

Of course, when you read something like this, the inevitable question is, "What the hell do these people do?" Well, here's what, though it raises more questions than it answers:

Ms. Schmidt, who once served as the creative director of Moomah, the children’s cafe in Tribeca that caters to parents in denial about some of the distasteful aesthetics of child-rearing, made the cards in her favored style of heavy stock, neutral paper and quaint typefaces. Through her company, Screech Owl Design, Ms. Schmidt makes beautiful, twee paper products that would seem to demand an existence inside a Miranda July snow globe. Synergistically, Powerhouse is among the many places where Ms. Schmidt’s work is sold.

I was especially confused by Moombah, the place "that caters to parents in denial about some of the distasteful aesthetics of child-rearing," but then I went to the website, and I figured out it's just a Chuck E. Cheese for assholes:

In any case, if you're wondering what all this has to do with cycling, the answer is "nothing," apart from the fact that I wish the wedding had been crashed by a bunch of drunk naked people on recumbents. Also, this wedding was about "synergy," and (further to yesterday's post) SRAM is/are continuing to capitalize on the intense synergy that results when you combine the soporific words of Levi Leipheimer with boringly ambiguous photos:

Really, that? That's your favorite part? Guess the new Red group is all downhill from here. Still, this is high praise coming from Leipheimer, who is not easily impressed:

And whose vision knows no bounds:

I can't wait to see the right front brake pad.

Some Nerve: The Audacity of Audacity

This past Friday, you may recall that I mentioned the following Wall Street Journal article about the Portland bike racer couple whose exotic homestead features a luxurious crabon-filled bike cabaña:

To my surprise, Friday's post has subsequently accumulated something on the order of 15,000 comments, due largely to the fact that some readers objected to my irreverent take on the article.

As a blogger, I welcome and enjoy all commentary I receive, whether it's positive, negative, indifferent, or just random anonymous people posting one-word comments such as "scranus" and "nipples." This is because I love my "job," and anybody who so much glances at this blog--to say nothing of actually reading it and taking the time to leave a comment--makes my "job" possible and is therefore exalted in my eyes. Furthermore, I expect to receive negative comments, firstly because I often deserve them, and secondly because, well, this is the Internet and not a kindergarten classroom, and it's vital for society to have a socially-sanctioned blow-off valve in which it's acceptable for people to call other people douchebags.

Nevertheless, I was a bit puzzled by the negative commentary in this case, since I really hadn't even said anything mean about the owners. If anything, I gently ribbed them by trotting out the same tired Portland jokes I've been making for years, since I am a sustainable green blogger and thus recycle all my jokes. In this case, the joke was basically that the Butlers' bike room was not "smug" enough by Portland standards, because it had a bunch of race bikes and no "bake feets." Har, har.

At first, I was tempted to put the negative reaction down to regional cultural differences. See, the owners of the house are from Portland, as are the offended commenters. Sometimes I forget that as a New Yorker I'm regularly exposed to something called "humor," whereas Portlanders only encounter it maybe once or twice a year. Therefore, on the rare occasions when they do happen upon it, they tend to get confused in an endearingly Spock-like fashion.

To test my theory, I headed over to BikePortland, where proprietor Jonathan Maus had also mentioned the article. More to the point, he mentioned it in a sincere and joke-free fashion, just as I suspected he would:

Nevertheless, Portlanders were mad at him too. Even more interestingly, they were mad at him for exactly the opposite reasons they were mad at me:
Babygorilla December 2, 2011 at 11:29 am

Wow. Just wow. I'm generally pretty cynical in my postings, but I think I'm done with this site. A $1.5 million house for a "financial analyst" and his wife and they're holding fundraisers as the thing's being built and it took the comments to point this out on a site that is simultaneously cheerleading the OWS/Bike Swarm movement? I hope that the community support last winter saved the Butlers enough to upgrade to a redwood sauna.

http://bikeportland.org/2011/01/14/buck-a-pint-fundraiser-will-help-send-portland-racer-to-cyclocross-worlds-46058

Recommended 30

As you can see, 30 people "up-thumbed" that comment--that's more approbation than was received by any other comment on that post. So basically, people were angry with me because they thought I was being mean to the Butlers. Yet, at the same time, they were also angry with Maus for not indicting the Butlers on ethical grounds and castigating them for a perceived lack of integrity.

Of course, this is only part of the story, and other commenters were angry at me because they somehow thought I was actually encouraging #Occupy protesters to break into the Butlers' house and form a drum circle. Obviously this was not my intention, and to think that it was is--let's be honest--completely crazy. I mean, to say that I wanted anybody to break into their house is like saying these guys actually want you to jump into a garbage disposal:

Though I do maintain that the fork-in-the-garbage-disposal dance is poised to become the new drum circle. Just imagine thousands of people doing this at once. "The system" would topple overnight.

However, in retrospect maybe it was a bit irresponsible, since those #Occupy protesters are pretty impressionable. For example, a lot of anti-#Occupy people like to tell the protesters to "Get a job!," and at least one protester has gone and done just that--as a financial analyst no less:


She’s gone from Occupy Wall Street to occupying a job on Wall Street.

Down-on-her-luck protester Tracy Postert spent 15 days washing sidewalks and making sandwiches at Zuccotti Park — then landed a dream job at a Financial District investment firm thanks to a high-powered passer-by who offered her work.

Given the fact that the protesters will clearly do anything you tell them no matter how antithetical to their cause, it's only a matter of time before the 1% changes their heckles from "Get a job!" to "Wash my car!," thus transforming the #Occupy movement into one giant brush-free car wash.

Nevertheless, if you're crazy enough think I was telling people to break into the Butlers' house, then you're also crazy enough to think that Jonathan Maus was doing the same thing:

That sounds to me like a threat--assuming, of course, you're completely insane.

Anyway, I try to learn from all my experiences. So what have I learned from this one? Well, I've learned the following:

1) Portland's hemp veil of smugness is actually masking a lot of repressed anger that they are channeling into cyclocross, artisanal handicrafts, and blog commenting;

2) Never, ever, ever leap into a garbage disposal;

3) Dried fruit is delicious. (This has nothing to do with the house post, I just ate some dried fruit for the first time in years recently and really enjoyed it.)

Most of all, though, I grew nostalgic, for I remember a time when, like the Butlers, I too warranted a mention in the Wall Street Journal. In fact, I warranted two: here; and here. However, in those cases all the responses were universally positive. To wit:

3:17 pm March 30, 2010

Robert wrote:

Well it’s terrific that this self acclaimed bike snob “is at peace with revealing himself”.

Is this some kind of early April Fools Day joke!

New York is filled with snobs. Delicious to know we now have one for bikes.

3:23 pm March 30, 2010

Anonymous wrote:

Who cares?

3:40 pm March 30, 2010

Anonymous wrote:

Never heard of him, love it when the snobs put down 10 grand on a silly bicycle, more money back into the economy. Most of these people are just buying the bikes to impress their friends…

Actually, now that I look at them I guess they weren't so positive, but at the time I was much too happy to care, and I'd like to think the Butlers are feeling the same way.

And while we're on the subject of bike storage, here's a question:

Which is more ridiculous, having a lavish storage space for your 22 bikes, or having one custom bike that takes up your entire home?

I'd say you can make the strong case that the latter is far more ridiculous, especially since it describes me. 29-inch mountain bikes are very large, especially with appropriately voluminous tires and wide bars, and mine makes me the equivalent of those people who buy flat screen TVs that take up their entire living room. Here's my bike filling a Long Island Railroad this past weekend:

Sure, you might say having a fancy Engin singlespeed makes me something of a hypocrite, but in my defense I need those high-end bearings because it's physically impossible to keep it in my tiny home without at least part of it being in the shower. This means the bike is subject to water each and every time I bathe, which can be as frequently as twice a week. Also, bike bloggers need fancy bikes so they can make "epic" offroad excursions in faraway, exotic places like Queens:

Where they compensate for their poor riding skills by taking pictures of their fancy bikes:

And rummage around inside their impossibly smug Rivendell fanny packs (oh yeah, I totally rode in a fanny pack this weekend) in search of dignity:

After which they go back home:


And luxuriate in their designer saunas along with members of the Liquigas team:

(Forwarded by a reader)

While watching irreverent singlespeed videos on YouTube:

Of course, while taking gratuitous photos of your equipment is important, if you don't also upload the details of your ride to a social networking site then the ride didn't happen, so if you want to see my ride on Strava you can do so here.

It was, I'm sure you'll agree, "epic."

And if all of this hasn't yet turned you against me once and for all, consider that this stolen "bake feets" was recently recovered not far from where I live:

And despite walking right past it while was missing I did nothing whatsoever to aid in the recovery. Granted, I had no idea it was stolen, but that's only because I don't do my part for the "bike culture." Everybody true "bike culture" member knows that you're supposed to regularly read "bike culture" blogs and study stolen bike postings, and that you should determine the provenance of any "bake feets" you see in Brooklyn before moving on--especially if it's located outside of the Park Slope/"BoCoCa"/Williamsburg/Greenpoint smugness nexus.

At the very least, I should have photographed it and made fun of it, and maybe the owner would have seen it and something good might have come out of this blog for once.

Really, I should be forced to forfeit my fancy bicycle and ride a "bisexual" bike, like this one I saw on the Twitter:

70's Raleigh 3 SPEED Bisexual i suppose boy or girl could ride it :>) - $80 (EAST LANSING)

Date: 2011-12-04, 2:08PM EST
Reply to: [deleted]

Nice shape

Will need a little Hub work that little thing that goes in and out in the center of back wheel is not shifting good

CLEAN WE HAVE KEPT IN THE BASEMENT

Space might be a problem, but I could always put it in the sauna with the Liquigas guys.

Golden Verse: Haiku You

Speed.

Grace.

Souplesse.

Umami-esque.

These are just a few of the nouns adverbs words that describe the time-traveling t-shirt-wearing Retro-Fred from the planet Tridork Bret, whose near-ubiquity has transformed him from merely a man into a legend. And not a "legend" like this guy thinks his penis is:

But a real, genuine, bonerfied legend:

In fact, in a lot of ways, Bret is like Jesus. It doesn't matter whether or not you worship him. Indeed, it doesn't matter whether or not you believe he ever even existed. Regardless, his image is everywhere, and his myth continues to shape the course of human history. Also, Jesus has been known to appear in tortillas, while Bret occasionally pops up on Canadian bread:

(All You Haters Taste My Pumpernickel)

And the similarities don't end there. For example, different cultures depict Jesus differently. Some people render him like this:

(Europeans tend to depict Jesus as a hot chick with a beard.)

While others portray him like this:

(Jesus hanging a picture of an aging Chris Rock.)

And still others depict him like this:

The point is, Jesus is a reflection of who we are, and so is Bret. Some cultures portray Bret in the traditional yellow t-shirt motif, while others like to use the miracle of Computers to dress him in more modern roadie vestments, as in this rendering that was forwarded to me by a reader:

Speaking of The Jesus, the word "zounds" is an old-timey curse word that means "God's wounds," and a number of people pointed out that the mystery bottle I mentioned yesterday:

Actually powers something called an "Airzound:"

And here is dramatic video from some country where they drive on the wrong side of the road, in which the mighty blast emanating from an Airzound actually causes a motorist to extract his or her head out of his or her own ass:

Maybe I'm just self-conscious, but I don't think I could use an Airzound. I do, however, occasionally use a more sustainable high-decibel warning system that I carry with me at all times. It consists of two high-volume air canisters:
Vibrating cords that look like an alien's vagina:


And a sort of "mouthpiece" that allows me to form these sounds into recognizable words:

In the event an obstacle enters your path, you can engage this system to loudly broadcast any message you like, from a friendly, "Hey, watch where you're going" to a bracing "Cocksucker!" The mouthpiece is also customizable so you can match it to your bike, and popular accessories include "sulky teen:"


"Hipster:"

And, of course, "Bret Disciple:"


But when it comes to street safety, the New York City Department of Transportation is forgoing deafening blasts and shouted invectives in favor of a more subtle subtle method of which Jesus himself might even have approved. That's right, the same people who brought you the "Don't Be A Jerk" campaign are finally harnessing the gentle, soothing power of haiku poetry:

Apparently, the DOT is putting "eye-catching designs" accompanied by haiku in "high-crash locations," and you can see this one as well as the others here:

A sudden car door,

Cyclist’s story rewritten.

Fractured narrative

Well, in lieu of law enforcement that actually protects the more vulnerable road users I suppose some irreverent verse that makes light of "dooring" will have to do, though frankly I think the haiku form is a little pretentious and that they should have "kept it real" with some limericks instead:

There once were some hipsters on fixies,

Who wore vintage shirts from the Pixies.

Through red lights they would fly,

'Til they clipped the wrong guy,

And he punched all of them in the dicksies.

Of course, the DOT realizes that people don't want their tax dollars funding haiku, so they're making sure you know the project is actually funded by DWI fine money:

To me, this is just as bad, if not worse. Basically, what they're saying is that they got this drunk driver money windfall, and of all the things they could have done with it they went and paid somebody to make some stupid art. Frankly, I think they should have used the money to buy all the victims of the recent NYPD bike crackdown gold-plated bicycles instead--like this one forwarded to me by a reader:


GOLD PLATED BICYCLE - CONDOR - $1200 (WISCONSIN)

Date: 2011-11-21, 7:56AM CST

Reply to: [deleted]

FAMOUS ANNIVERSARY GOLD CONDOR BIKE FRAME.

ALL REAL GOLD PLATED.

THE ONLY GOLD PLATED BIKE EVER MADE.IF YOU HAVE SEEN ANOTHER, PLEASE SEND ME A PHOTO.

$1,200.

HAND SILVER BRAZED, FANCY NERVEX LUG WORK, GOLD CONDOR HEAD BADGE, REYNOLDS 531 TUBING, CAMPY DROPOUTS AND FORK.

SERIOUS BIKE "COLLECTORS" ONLY.

SCAMMERS DON'T EVEN BOTHER.

"The only gold plated bike ever made?" Like, seriously? What a total "noob!" First of all, every bike dork knows about that gold-plated bike Colnago gave to the Pope:

The stuff of which Fredly dreams are made, I'm sure this celebrated bike is sitting up the attic at the Vatican as I type this, along with all those holy relics and Nazi gold and first edition Batman comic books and whatever other treasures they've been sitting on for the past millennium.

Also, who could forget that gold-plated and crystal-encrusted fixie some company was trying to sell back in the gilded age of the fixed-gear trend?

It was a bargain at just €80,000. However, being what the crabonmongers now call a "halo bike," they also offered a cheaper non-gold "value" model for men with "Jew-fros" and Ken doll genitals:

(2009, when fixies still meant something.)

Those were the days.