Hurry Up And Wednesday Already!

OK, so I have some important stuff to deal with today (waxing appointment) but I do want to take a few moments to share what I've learned from the New York Times's recent piece about "bicycle style" in Portland:



Firstly, I learned that Portland is all about the "hipster chic," and this woman in particular has a whole "flirtygirly" thing going on:

She also bought a bike specifically for this interview:

"The bike culture in Portland is impressive and admittedly I haven't been a part of it until approximately 30 minutes ago when I purchased this lovely bike."

I have no doubt the Portland bike culture will accept her with open arms, because they're very inclusive--just as long as you're not Asian.

Next, I learned that these people are idiots:

And that this guy got his bike stolen a bunch of times:

You have to be pretty hapless to get your bike stolen even once in Portland, let alone multiple times.  I know because I've been there.  The bike rack in front of the Whole Foods was filled with Rivendells secured by flimsy cable locks.  People "lock" their custom whatevers with their helment straps while they get coffee.  All of these people find their bikes still waiting for them when they return.  I brought my own lock from home, and when I'd use it passers-by would stare in amazement and ask questions about it.  An actual lock was clearly something exotic and mysterious to them--like an Asian person riding a bicycle.

So the best I can figure is that this guy is actually taping a "Take Me" sign to his bicycle.

Yet another thing I learned is that the dream of the '90s really is alive in Portland, just like they say in the "Portlandia" theme song:

Wasn't she in Babes In Toyland?

Oh, also, have you noticed that the dainty-handwritten-phrase-along-the-forearm tattoo is the new knuckle tattoo?

If you haven't, you're going to start noticing it now.

But most importantly, I learned that this guy likes to dress in "themes:"

"I like to dress in themes.  So right now this is my Portland-I'm-On-My-Bike-I've-Got-My-Bike-Bag-Going-To-Get-Coffee theme."

This is remarkable, because the Portland-I'm-On-My-Bike-I've-Got-My-Bike-Bag-Going-To-Get-Coffee Theme is identical to the I'm-A-Suburban-Mall-Rat-And-I'm-Waiting-For-My-Mom-To-Come-Pick-Me-Up-In-The-Food-Court Theme:

(I'll bet you $18 this guy doesn't own a bike.)

Oh, and colorful socks on men are apparently a "thing" now, at least according to people who have lived in multiple states:

"This is my fifth state that I've lived in?  So, I take a little bit from Virginia, I take a little bit from Florida, I take a little bit from South Carolina, a little bit from North Carolina, and some from Oregon as well."

That is a seriously uncool list of states.

But then again, as he says, "Bringing a lot of culture into Portland is what makes it so great:"

If this is indicative of the quality of Portland's cultural imports, that would certainly explain a lot. 

Today Has "Wednesday" Written All Over It.

Hey!

You know how I have a new book?

[REDACTED]

(You should always wear a helment while reading or else you could die.)

Of course you do, I won't shut up about it.  Well, in it I wrote some things about Portland which were quoted by The Oregonian, resulting in typical Portland-style hand-wringing:

[REDACTED]

I should stress that I love Portland.  At the same time, it's hard not to find Portland funny and want to needle it.  Certainly I'm not alone in this, which is why they have a whole TV show about it and everything. Plus, the context of the comments is my asking myself the question every American cyclist invariably asks himself at one point or another, which is: "Should I move to Portland?"  Naturally, the conclusion I draw is a highly subjective one, and while I analyze Portland in a deliberately exaggerated and provocative fashion, the above-quoted section is about how I arrive at it and why.

Anyway, one of the subjects I touch on is "diversity," by which I don't only mean ethnic diversity, but also diversity in attitudes, belief, income, architecture, volume and odor of the dog stools you'll encounter when strolling on the sidewalk, and so forth.  Now, I'm as white as they come, and the two friends I have pretty much look like me and act like me.  I'm also incredibly boring.  I keep old person hours, I eat the same thing every day, and any deviation from my routine generally causes me to break out in hives.  Nevertheless, I come from New York, and one of the things I realized in traveling is that even though I spend my entire life hiding in a cubby I also think I'd miss the knowledge that I'm surrounded by millions of other cubby-dwellers and that I'm just a grain of sand in the vibrant mandala that is this city. I'm not saying that's better, I'm just saying it's what I'm used to, so I find it comforting.  Portland, being a considerably smaller city, naturally feels different, and the facile way to express this difference is to say it's not "diverse"--which touches a nerve with people in Portland.

Really, what it all comes down to is the difference between city living vs. small town living.  It's an archetypal debate, one as old as human civilization itself, which is why it's the subject of some of our greatest works of art:

(It has "Funny" in the title, so you know it is.)

Each lifestyle has its quirks, and each gives one group ample opportunity to mock the other.  The small town people get to ridicule the city-dwellers for paying a premium for pretty much everything, and the city-dwellers get to tease the small town set for being insular busybodies.  And while Portland is technically a city, it does have some small town qualities.  As it happens, after reading the Oregonian reader comments on my Portland comments, I came across the following story on BikePortland:

Now, I haven't been following the story from the beginning so I may not have the timeline completely right, but as far as I can tell here's what went down:

1) The guy in the above photo, Krisapon Chaisawat, joined a bike activist ride in Portland organized by a "new league of tactical urbanists calling themselves VELOPROVO;"

2) Some of the participants in the ride thought Chaisawat looked like Portland Police Bureau Captain Chris Uehara--you know, because he's Asian:

3) The participants came to the conclusion that an undercover cop had infiltrated their ride and that they were living in a "police state;"

4) BikePortland published a story (now deleted, but reposted by Jonathan Maus in the comment section), complete with damning side-by-side photo--you know, damning because they're both Asian:

5) Then, this happened:

[Chaisawat] called me after his wife saw his photos on this site. He said he's from Key West, Florida and just moved to Portland a few months ago. Chaisawat does not speak very good English (he told me that several times I think as a way of explaining why he wasn't more talkative at the event) but said he attended the event after hearing about it on BikePortland and just wanted to go on a ride and meet some people. About the story, he said, "I thought it was an April Fool's joke."

6) Oy.  Just oy.

Now, I should stress that I have nothing but respect for Jonathan Maus, who runs about ten times the blog I do.  I should also stress that I don't think this was anything other than an honest mistake by someone who thought he had a juicy "scoop" and hit the "publish" button a bit too soon.  (Actually, I shouldn't stress these things, I am stressing these things.  Sorry for the lame figure of speech.)

What this does speak to though is that:

1) These "VELOPROVO" characters are clearly hilariously self-absorbed.  They're like a real-life
Judean People's FrontPeople's Front of Judea;

2) When you combine hilarious self-absorption with homogeneity (HSA + HGN = PDX) you make decisions this way:

Caleb said the man he suspects of being Cpt. Uehara was suspicious because he had all brand new "stereotypical biker gear," didn't speak with anyone and was filming everything.

A guy with a bunch of new crap who films everything?  Yeah, highly suspicious.  This only describes every single bike dork on the planet Earth.

Though to be fair it's not difficult to imagine a similar group of "activists" doing the same thing in New York or anyplace else--though it should be noted that when I went to Portland I went to all sorts of bikey events and took pictures under false pretenses without anybody questioning me.

But I guess I must have "looked the part," and therein lies the difference.

Meanwhile, want to know the best way not to be killed by a car in New York City?  Is it crossing in the crosswalk with the light?  Nope:

One harrowing take-away from the report is that no area, it seems, can be entirely safe. Six percent of pedestrians were injured while on a sidewalk. Of those injured on the street, 44 percent used a crosswalk, with the signal, compared with 23 percent who crossed midblock and 9 percent who crossed against the signal. 

In other words, if you choose to walk from place to place you're going to get creamed regardless of whether or not you follow the rules, but fortunately you do have one form of defense, which is to be fat:

Perhaps the most surprising finding was that excessive weight may prove a boon for pedestrians in a collision. Victims with an above-normal body mass index were found to have less severe injuries than their counterparts. “It is not implausible that a greater proportion of torso and extremity fat may protect against injury,” the report said.

So it's finally come to this: obesity is the new helment, and clearly we're evolving to the point that we're developing protective outer layers to protect us on the short walk from the car to the house.  Obviously Bloomberg better rethink that large soda ban.

Also, here's something you already knew, which is that taxis are dangerous:

In a finding unlikely to surprise the city’s cyclists, about 40 percent of injured riders were hit by taxis, compared with 25 percent of the pedestrians. More than 80 percent of cyclists rode with traffic flow, but less than a third wore helmets.

I'd argue that the helment statistic is pretty meaningless, unless taxi drivers are specifically targeting cyclists because they're not wearing helments.  Plus, it doesn't specify what kind of injury.  If a cyclist gets hit by a cab and breaks his collarbone, does it really matter if he was wearing a "safety kippah" or not?

Either way, my prediction is that the next mayor is going to use this study as the basis to tear out the bike lanes and force all pedestrians to wear helments and gain 20lbs--which will make you stand out as an obvious New Yorker should you attempt to infiltrate a Portland activist ride.

Wednesday Comes But 52 Times A Year

Emails!  Yeah, I get them.  This is a cutting-edge blogging operation I'm running here.  I fire up the AOL, my modem makes a crazy screeching sound, and in pour the electronical missives.  Every day it still seems like a miracle to me, as though God Himself is making pee-pee right into my computer.  Then I forget that there is no god, only Lob, and I flagellate myself for my impudence.

Anyway, here's a subject line that topped an email I recently received:

The Budnitz got angry and Hulkified?

And here's the picture that came along with it:

Yes, that what happen when Budnitz get angry.  In fact, it looks like The Budnitz has burst out of its fenders like the Hulk bursts out of his shirts--that is, if the Budnitz had had any fenders in the first place, which it didn't.  Either that, or it could just be The Budnitz on HGH.  Regardless, having expunged the The Budnitz and its infernal ticking from my life, I feel a sense of relief, like when you extract a deeply-lodged booger, the kind that feels as though it's rooted somewhere on your frontal cortex.

Also via "God's pee stream" comes this short video via a reader with the improbable and likely fictitious name of "Paul Bowen:"


Jauregui from Jacky Durand on Vimeo.

Mon dieu!  (Or lack thereof.)  I had to watch that about four times before I could finally see the sleight-of-bike, and it puts yesterday's failed triathlon transition into stark perspective.

Speaking of perspective, a number of people have informed me that some baseball guy has had a boneheaded bicycle crash and managed to fall down the only hill in Manhattan south of 110th Street:

Fortunately, in lieu of using his brain, he had encased it in a piece of styrofoam:

“I shouldn’t have been reading a text while I was riding,” he said. “That’s the wrong thing to do. But at least I was wearing my helmet.”

"I shouldn't have been pleasuring myself while driving," said the man who drove through a sidewalk café as he reached climax.  "That's the wrong thing to do.  But at least I was wearing my seatbelt."  Evidently wearing a helment has finally become a license to completely fuck up everything you do on a bike.  I wonder if we'd see better bike-handling if helments were banned from triathlon.

Moving on, recently I was browsing Twitter (if email is God's pee stream then Twitter is His post-urinary drip) where I saw that the Giro d'Italia was having a little caption contest:

The New Yorker reader in me wants to go with "I now pronounce you husband and husband, you may kiss the Cav," but the perennial child in me keeps shouting "I'm gonna fingerbang you like a stage win."

You can probably guess which one won.

Meanwhile, in Portland, an anti-fascist group is organizing a boycott against a local bike co-op:

Because they claim the founder is a racist, and in particular that he hosted a talk given by a "white separatist:"

The 2009 dust-up revolved around Calvert's hosting of a controversial white separatist Valdas Anelauskas at a local bookstore. Calvert ultimately apologized for hosting Anelauskas and distanced himself from the Lithuanian-born activists extreme views about race and other topics. The issue died out, but it has now come roaring back. RCA points to a recent picnic organized by Calvert that included a guest the group calls, "an individual deeply connected to antisemitic, white nationalist, and militant anti-choice organizing."

I was quite ready to dismiss this as typical Portland hysteria, like maybe they overheard Calvert trying to do a Katt Williams routine for his co-workers and took it out of context.  So I went to the organization's site to learn more:

Anti-racists first raised the issue of Calvert’s antisemitic organizing in 2009, after Calvert and his cohorts in the Portland 9/11 Truth Alliance hosted a speech by Valdas Anelauskas, a racist organizer who proclaims that evidence for the Holocaust is “shaky.” Citybikes mishandled its response during 2009, making excuses for Calvert and declaring that no problem existed after Calvert issued a bogus apology, even though Calvert’s organizing against Jewish people continued unabated. In September of this year, anti-racists again drew attention to Calvert’s antisemitic organizing. In particular, we noted that Calvert twice gained venues for Fritz Springmeier, an antisemitic author convicted of bank robbery charges alongside a white supremacist accomplice. (Springmeier’s 1997 robbery plot also involved detonating a bomb at an adult video store as a diversion.) Footage of the Citybikes President giving an extreme antisemitic speech was also pointed to at this time, and Rose City Antifascists provided an extensive chronology of organizing by Calvert and his Portland 9/11 Truth Alliance organization. 

And then I looked up this Valdas Anelauskas guy, and wouldn't you know it, he does actually sound like a boner-fried racist and Jew-hater.  For example, here's his take on the history of the Holocaust, which he says is "shaky:"

Holocaust critics persecuted

In his rather hysterical June 20 letter, Bob Bussel decries any questioning of Holocaust history as a “profound act of intellectual fraud and moral bankruptcy,” a “loathsome and repugnant monstrosity.” 

British writer George Orwell said that “who controls the past, controls the future,” and our perception of past events alsoshapes the way we look at the world around us today. The Zionists understand this, and know that the story of the Holocaust is crucial to their power. 

This is why such harsh measures are being exacted against those who ask too many questions. The Holocaust history seems so shaky that governments have to actually imprison people who openly question it. 

Today, it’s becoming more like the new state religion and, as in the Inquisition, people are being locked up again for questioning even the smallest detail of dogma — no matter what the evidence, no matter what the conflicting testimony or history. Anyone who breaches this faith will be deemed a “Holocaust denier,” and punished accordingly. 

Therefore, as I see it, the “standard” version of the Holocaust history simply cannot be trusted as long as they’re jailing or otherwise punishing those who question it. To make jail sentences be your response to critics is exactly the same as getting up on a rooftop and shouting as loud as you can for all to hear: “I am lying!” Is anyone supposed to believe someone who, in effect, proclaims in this way that he’s lying? 

VALDAS ANELAUSKAS - July 5, 2008

Pretty creepy.  Oddly though, Portlanders, who would probably boycott a café for serving milk from a cow that wasn't milked orally, seem mostly to be shrugging this one off--at least that's the way it seems in the comments on the BikePortand article.  Alas, this is the one time their batshit hypersensitivity might actually be warranted, but instead they're just arguing about the correct definition of "fascist."  Not that the shop should be driven out of business or anything, and I'm sure everybody there is wonderful (with the possible exception of the guy who organizes racist talks in his spare time) but Portlanders could at least write some more of their trademark outraged BikePortland commentary, or maybe organize a "The Day the Clown Cried" theme ride:

(Oy.)

That seems appropriately tone-deaf for Portland.

Moving on to technical news, an enterprising person has launched a Kickstarter campaign for a bicycle crank shaped like a chicken leg:

The quest to reinvent the bicycle crank is nearly as popular and quixotic as the quest to reinvent the bicycle wheel, and in this case the green pie is supposed to show you why the Z-Torque is better:

In other words, it compensates for the fact that you're riding a department store mountain bike.  Still not convinced?  Here's a race between a bike with a regular crank and one with a Z-Torque crank:

This proves conclusively that the Z-Torque produces the same effect of selecting a different gear.

Or, if you've got lots of money to invest but you're more the "patron of the arts" type, why not fund a documentary about LSD?

Here's the pitch:

THE PITCH

The story of Dr. Albert Hofmann is an interesting one -- an unassuming Swiss botanist, who very purposefully created LSD, then very accidentally spilled it on his hands, and evidently wound up being the first to learn of it's psychoactive effects. BICYCLE DAY is a fictionalized retelling of Dr. Hofmann's story and famous LSD-induced bicycle ride, combining live action sequences with digital and hand drawn animations from animators all over the country. It's a home-grown, nation-spanning, locally-produced, mind-bending, eye-opening, trippy-good time of a film and we want each and every one of you to be a part of it with us.

Or you could just watch this:


Turn on, tune in, be nonplussed.

Lastly, by way of turning my attention back to the Biennial Whatever-It's-Called-Cockpit Contest (sponsored by Knog, Australia's largest and most powerful mega-corporation), I'd like to share one I spotted recently:

Which is clearly evil:

Or good, since I guess it's not upside down.  I'm a little hazy on my adolescent satanic imagery.

Then, there's this collagen bar tape, submitted by a reader::

As well as this submission, which is isn't really a cockpit at all:

(Uh, wrong end.)

And finally this one, which I frankly found very refreshing:

Garmin, schmarmin.

Contest: This Is Supposed To Be A Bike Blog So I'm Giving One Away

Here at Bike Snit NYC Industries, LLC, we all love bikes and bicycling and bi-keen!  Whether it's my helper monkey, Vito, training for another Ironman on his Cervélo while wearing a monkeykini, or its my cadre of Estonian thugs "working over" another debtor with a box crown fork, or it's just me wearing head-to-toe Rapha while driving around town with a custom road bike on the roof of my Mercedes, the whole staff at Bike Douche NYC Enterprises, LTD live, breathe, eat, and occasionally vomit cycling.  Therefore, in an insecure attempt to prove how much we love bikes and to curry favor (or curry flavor, mmm delicious, etc.) with our vast readership of six (6), we're going to spend the coming days giving YOU free stuff.  And we're going to start with the Mother of All Free Bike Stuff, which is A Bike.

See this book?  It's called "100 Best Bikes:"

I haven't received my copy of "100 Best Bikes" yet, so I don't know if the 99 other bikes in it are truly the best, or if they're just kind of silly like the one on the cover is.  When I do get it, I'll let you know.  Either way, the publishers of this book have asked me to give away a Biomega folding bicycle, and since at least three of the six people who read this blog probably love bicycles (free ones especially, which are the best kind) I was happy to oblige.  Here's the bike:

I've never actually ridden one, but it seems like it would be useful for getting around town since: A) It folds; and B) If you ever find yourself getting chased by Amazonian warriors you can use that downtube cable to fire their arrows back at them.  Speaking of the downtube cable, here's the idea behind it:

The most media-recognized bike ever made, the Boston includes an integrated lock that’s a structural part of the frame (if a thief cuts the wire, the bike’s unrideable…but repairable), and quickly folds to fit wherever you need to go: on the bus, in your office, or in your apartment. 

Because if a thief cuts the wire and learns the bike is unrideable, he's of course going to take the time to return it to exactly where he left it.

Nevertheless, it still seems like a handy bike--especially if it's free--and it also seems way more practical than the Biomega Brookyn, described thusly:

The Brooklyn is urban in the American sense of the word. It is designed with a free style BMX in mind with heavy duty steel pedals & frame. The wheels are smaller & the tires are extremely fat to give it a bouncing ability yet unseen. There’s nothing practical about this town hopper made for keeping it fun regardless of how harsh the terrain might be. You can take this bike from your habitual city playground to a dune or a heap of snow & maintain your thrust. The Brooklyn has eminent braking power covered by mechanical disc brakes & stays in tune with the Biomega style & elegance with its leather saddle & cool gear. Try the toughest free style grind yet - in luxury.


As a Brooklynite myself, I can assure you we do spend a lot of time riding on sand dunes here, and I'm tempted to try to ride one of these across Gerritsen Inlet.

Anyway, when you have one bike and six readers you need to figure out a way to pick which reader will get it, and that means you have to curate a contestway.  And it doesn't seem fair to give it to someone who already has a bike, nor does it seem fair to give it to someone who doesn't have a bike, but only because they're too cheap and lazy to go buy one.  So that leaves people who had a bike but don't anymore because their bike got stolen.  Therefore, if your bike got stolen and you really need the Biomega folding archery bike because you're screwed without one, here's what to do:

Send an email to "bikesnobnyc (at) yahoo (dot) com" with the following subject line:

BIEK ME UP, WILDCAT!

Please use that subject line verbatim, and note that any variations or deviations are grounds for disqualification, which means you won't get the bike with a downtube that can make a sound like this.

Then, in the email, tell me the following as concisely yet entertainingly as possible:

--Who you are, where you live, what you do, and what your favorite TV show is;
--How your bike got stolen and what you learned from the experience;
--Why you need a folding bike (hint: because you're apparently unable to keep your regular bike from getting stolen);
--How, when you receive it, you will proceed to make the world a better place.

From these emails I'll pick a winner by means of some completely subjective and unfair process as yet to be determined.

The deadline for submissions is this Friday, September 14th, at 12:01AM my time, which is New York City time, the only time that counts.  (Other cities and towns may share our time, but it's really ours.)  Keep in mind that Friday at 12:01AM is what you might still consider Thursday night because you're up smoking Wednesday Weed and watching Jimmy Kimmel, but I can assure you that it's technically Friday, and that's what we're talking about here.

I think that about covers it.  By the end of the week, somebody's going to have a free bike, which I'm sure you'll agree is pants-wettingly exciting.  And don't worry if you miss out on the bike, either, because as soon as this contest ends another one is going to begin.  I won't give you the details yet, but here's a hint: it will be a cockpit photo contest, and the winners will get Knog Blinders, just in time for the increasingly short days of fall.  Actually, I guess I just gave away almost all of the details, but you do still need submission guidelines, so a tantalizingly small bit of mystery still remains.

Moving on to the exciting world of professional bike riding, a reader informs me that every single competitor in the Paris-Bruxelles bicycle race except for Tom Boonen has been killed dead:

Here's a gripping account from the race's only survivor:

"The finish here at Paris-Brussel is not so easy. The team led me perfectly until the last corner. [Nikolas] Maes literally killed everybody during the lead-out. His job permitted me to pass the train of Rabobank and have a good sprint."

This is the worst tragedy to hit competitive cycling since an entire Cat 4 field "literally exploded" on a tiny hill during a race in Prospect Park.

Meanwhile, eerily, Alberto Contador has now won seven Grand tours...in his mind (insert spooky reverb here):

Here's his reasoning:

"That other number appears on paper, it is ultimately secondary to me. What matters is my own feeling and the impressions that remain in the retina of the spectators," he said.

In a sport full of trite soundbites like "I felt super strong that day" and "I couldn't have done it without my team" it's almost shocking to read what amounts to a discourse on subjectivism versus relativism.  People go to school for like 19 years and get multiple doctorates to draw conclusions like the one Contador just threw out as an afterthought after winning the Vuelta.  I don't know what kind of steak he's been eating recently, but it must have been marinated in brain tonic.

Speaking of carnage and subjectivism, every single newspaper in New York City has successfully managed to completely ignore the fact that drivers are free to kill without consequence--until today, when it was finally acknowledged by the New York Times:

Not only that, but there's even an acknowledgement that drivers routinely break the law:

I conducted my own anecdotal study. This Monday morning I stood by the lamppost on Broadway and 14th Street that has become a de facto altar for Ms. Buta. In 25 minutes I watched three trucks, including an 18-wheeler, narrowly miss pedestrians walking the intersection. I counted 17 cars, trucks and a “New York Waterway” bus running red lights.

Though if he had performed his anecdotal study in my neighborhood it would have read more like this:

This morning I stood by the lamppost on the corner outside of the deli, and in 45 seconds I watched a car service driver run me down and kill me.

Anyway, people like John Del Signore at Gothamist as well as the smugness cabal over at Streetsblog have been pointing this stuff out for years, and hopefully it's a good sign that the "Old Gray Lady" has finally pulled her head out of her old gray posterior.  I'm also looking forward to The Daily News's take, which I'm sure will sport a headline like this:

"Reckless Bikers and Pedestrians Who Fail To Wear Helments Face Few Penalties in New York."

It will also spell "pedal" as "peddle" fourteen times.

Fortunately for us, the News is not distracted by this murderous driver smokescreen nonsense and instead have the real enemy squarely in their cockeyed sights:

(This blog observes a strict no-direct-link-to-The-Daily-News policy.)

Not so fast, bikers.

The NYPD has stepped up its offensive against scofflaw cyclists in Central Park a month after a Daily News investigation exposed the dangers of speeding riders in the park.

Auxiliary cops fanned out across the park Saturday, handing out bicycle safety pamphlets and telling cyclists to heed Central Park’s speed limit of 25 mph.

Relieved pedestrians welcomed the new crackdown on speeding bicycle riders.

“I’ve never seen that before,” said jogger Nick Spangler, 27, who spotted cops telling Central Park bikers to slow down and follow traffic signals Saturday morning.

I only hope there's an end in sight to all this newspaper anti-cycling stuff, and I also hope it's an ironic one which involves the entire staff of The Daily News getting run over by one of the paper's own trucks.

Lastly, one of the principals of this Kickstarter project asked me to share it with all six of you:


I really have only one reservation about this project, which is that this is a guide to riding a bicycle around Portland and finding beer.  I don't see how this requires a guidebook, since finding beer on a bike in Portland is about as hard as finding a duty-free shop in an airport.  Portland is essentially just a city of bars, coffee shops, and bikes shops connected by bike lanes.  You have a one-in-three chance of walking into any building in Portland and being able to buy beer in it.  It's also almost impossible to get lost in Portland, which is about the size of Park Slope.  (Sure, I've been lost in Portland, but do keep in mind I'm an idiot.)  Then again, maybe there is a market for obvious books, in which case I'm going to launch a Kickstarter campaign for a guide to how to get your bike stolen in New York City.

Also, you'll notice that in the video it's a beautiful day:

Portland has exactly three-quarters of a beautiful day a year, yet between Kickstarter and "Portlandia" there are about a billion videos of people riding around Portland in the sunshine.  This leads me to believe that during those few short hours the entire city must shut down and give itself over entirely to filming.  (Inasmuch as a city that consists entirely of bike shops, breweries, and coffee houses can "shut down," of course.)

Other than that, I'm totally on board.

Seriously, Why Not Just Spell It "Wensday?" I Mean Come On.

I used to think the United States in America was the world's bestest country in the world.  But then I got older and learned about this place they have up north called Canada, and it turns out that Canada is beating us at everything.  Their Pacific Northwest is more smug and weed-addled than our Pacific Northwest.  Their French-speaking population is vastly more pretentious than our French-speaking population.  And the Mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford, is a bigger idiot than any big-city mayor we have down here in Canada's scranus:

(I will heretofore refer to Rob Ford as "Robs Fords," as his considerable girth technically qualifies him as plural.)

If you recall, Fords had the following to say on the subject of cyclists:

"And what I compare bike lanes to is swimming with the sharks. Sooner or later you're going to get bitten," said Ford speaking in 2010 as a Toronto city council-member.

"And every year we have dozens of people that get hit by cars or trucks. Well, no wonder: roads are built for buses, cars, and trucks, not for people on bikes.

"My heart bleeds for them when I hear someone gets killed, but it's their own fault at the end of the day."


I'm not sure what comes out of his heart when it bleeds, but I'm assuming it's some form of custard.

In any case, now a reader tells me that Fords has been caught reading while operating one of the only vehicles large enough to contain him:

Here's how he explained it:


Reporter: "Sir, there's a picture that went out on Twitter this morning of you reading while still driving on the Gardiner [Expressway]."

Ford: "Yeah, probably. I'm busy."

Reporter: "So you read while driving?"

Ford: "Yeah, probably, yeah. I'm try[ing] to catch up on my work and you know I keep my eyes on the road, but I'm a busy man."

Reporter: "You don't see a problem doing that on the Gardiner?"

Ford: "Well, I'm busy. I got to be — I don't know what that has to do with a trade mission, but anyways. Ridiculous questions sometimes, seriously."

This further debunks his "swimming with the sharks" comments, since "sharing" the road with people like this is less like swimming with sharks and more like swimming with distracted manatees.  I'd also add that my heart bleeds hummus for obese mayors from Toronto who get killed because they were reading recipes they printed out from "Bon Appétit," but it's their own fault at the end of the day.  And even the police are taking him to task:

"Finally, on behalf of all the citizens of Toronto that value road safety, Mr Mayor... please get a driver. It is obvious that you are busy enough to require one and no amount of money you are saving by not having one is worth the life of one of your citizens."

In fairness to Fords, it's not an issue of money.  It's more about finding a driver who can be sealed in an Escalade with Fords and not lose consciousness due to all the flatulence.  Plus, the records shows that he's actually an excellent driver:


Ford in July admitted he drove past a streetcar's rear doors, and was then confronted by the operator of the streetcar.

In October, Ford was accused of illegally dialing numbers on his cellphone and talking on it as he steered his gold minivan westbound along Dundas Street West near Spadina Avenue.

And last July, the mayor denied accusations that he gave the middle finger to Ottilie Mason and her six-year-old daughter after the mother accosted him for talking on his cellphone while driving.



That little six-year-old snot had it coming I'm sure.

Meanwhile, by now you've probably seen the video that's taken the Internet by storm, in which a Portlander engages in some "artisanal policework" and busts the guy who stole his bike:



I'd like to be happy for the guy who got his bike back, but to be perfectly honest I thought he was kind of a jerk about the whole thing.  Sure, I'm glad he retrieved his property, and sure the thief deserves whatever he gets, but this video is also less like watching justice being done and more like watching someone go "BOOSH!" for nine minutes.  Then again, I shouldn't be surprised, since absolutely nobody does "hissy fits" like people from Portland.  Anyway, here's how it all went down.

First, the bicycle's owner makes a big deal about how he's up at 6:30am because he has to go to Seattle to recover his stolen bike:

If you're reading this in Portland, you'll be stunned to learn that this really isn't in any way noteworthy, since 6:30am is when a lot of people in the real world actually start their day.  (I mean, I don't, but people with actual professional lives do.)

Then, he and his friends get minus three thousand smugness points for driving from Portland to Seattle:

On my first BRA tour, I failed to take the train from Seattle to Portland, and nobody in either city would let me hear the end of it.  You can be sure I learned my lesson, since being lectured by Pacific Northwesterners is worse than being waterboarded.  Also, if nothing else, the Hardy Boys here missed a great opportunity to turn this into a quintessentially Portland film by including a folksy montage of evocative train shots accompanied by banjo music.

Once in Seattle, the rightful owner of the stolen bicycle outlines a lengthy plan that made me feel sorry for the friends he roped into this:

He also adds that he's "trying to chill out and think of a plan and not be emotional about it," though in a stressful situation like this nobody's above suspicion--and that includes grandpa pushing the shopping cart:

"This guy's going down for a felony," he concludes, while squinting sherriff-like in the sun I didn't think Seattle had:

And here's the guy who's "going down:"

Shifty and rat-like, you can tell he realizes this sale is easy.  Too easy.  That's when the plan goes awry and, despite his earlier assurances, the rightful owner gets like totally emotional about it.  And when Portanders get emotional, they act out things they've seen in movies:

"You're under citizen's arrest!," cries the bike's owner, which is about as effective as pretending to be Spider-Man and shooting webs out of your wrists.

As the "perp" flees, we get a glimpse of his girlfriend, and perhaps my biggest problem with this film from a narrative perspective is the lack of female character development:

Who is Jessica?  How did she get wrapped up in all this?  How was she "involved?"  Was she turned on by Rat Face and his audacious Craigslist caper?  Are they a Tarantino-esque pair of tandem outlaws?  Or is she simply a naif who unwittingly stumbled into the dark and sordid world of Fred-dom gone bad?

Alas, all we'll ever know is that she's the proverbial "one who got away:"

Also, the film makes too much use of the "shaky cam" conceit, as in the scene during which the rightful owner cries, "I got your face on camera, asshole!  You are fucked!," and his friend Simon follows the "perp" in lukewarm pursuit:

The "black screen" effect on the other hand does ratchet up the suspense considerably, and also heightens our awareness of Rat Face's utter stupidity:

Between amateur policing and poor legal advice, the Internet is clearly unraveling our social fabric faster than a cheap chamois.

Finally though, the actual police arrive on the scene, and the cop has that look of weary resignation people get when they're dealing with someone from Portland:

Meanwhile, the chase continues on foot, and the rightful owner begins to taunt the perp:

"This is how it goes down everybody, this is why you don't steal from bicyclists." Yes, because they will annoy you to death.

And the taunts continue as the perp is finally arrested in the parking lot of a Safeway:

This is where I thought the owner went too far.  You got your bike back, and you got the pleasure of seeing the person who may have stolen it actually getting arrested, which is something few bike victims will ever get to experience.  Given this, the jeering is just gratuitous.  Plus, Rat Face is totally going to go "Cape Fear" on him.

And then comes the Big Reveal, when we finally learn that the bike in question was...a Fuji:

That's it?  A Fuji?  Sure, there's nothing wrong with a Fuji, but given the buildup and the Portland backdrop I was expecting something a bit more exotic.  This is like if the car in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" was a Hyundai instead of a Ferrari.

Anyway, after this there's a little more gloating:

And, as the cineastes say, "Fin:"

Again, I'm glad the guy got his bike back, but it seems like there was a way to edit this down to about 45 seconds and not make the owner look like a vindictive nutcase.

Speaking of smugness, another reader has sent me this video, in which a vegan boasts about breaking his bamboo bike:

"I just wanted to kind of bring up the whole issue here with people who think that vegetarians and vegans and raw vegans are really weak," he explains:

Actually, most people don't think vegetarians and vegans are weak, they just think vegetarians and vegans are annoying.  He's also incorrect in saying that cyclists are strong.  Cyclists have physical proficiency in exactly one thing, which is propelling a bike, and once you take them off that bike they're mostly just spindly and useless.  Sure, there are some cyclists who try to develop strength in other areas, and those cyclists are called "triathletes."  Unfortunately though they just wind up like the dog who saw his reflection and make a complete mess of everything.

Nevertheless, this particular vegan wants to prove that vegans are strong, and his proof is that "I broke, literally, my bamboo frame on my bike:"

Wow, really?  You broke your crudely constructed frame made from twigs?  This is a feat of strength akin to tearing three plies of wet toilet paper.  Here's a closer look at the rolling bird's nest:

Fortunately, the frame is not a total loss, since he can at least use the tubing to make some delicious vegan bamboo soup.  Instead though he tells us that, "It's gonna go as a trophy piece in the hostel," as he surreptitiously shows off his ink:

So has he learned his lesson and decided to get a frame made out of something that can withstand his strength, like metal or even candy canes?  No, he hasn't:

"I will have another new bamboo bike," he declares.

Then he goes on to humiliate the locals:

Silly foreigners with their wacky "languages..."