Retrofit This: Take Your Ball And Go Home

You know how it is.  You're sitting in Dunkin' Donuts, working on a bagel with the size and consistency of a jogging stoller tire.  Then, next thing you know, there's an actual car tire on your face:

If you're wondering why some New Yorkers get so upset about cyclists when drivers regularly plow into retail establishments, the answer is that they're fucking idiots--which, as it happens, is the same reason people eat the bagels at Dunkin' Donuts.

Meanwhile, in the ongoing effort to coddle you until the police fail to charge the driver who runs you over, the New York City Department of Transportation is turning 12,000 obsolete parking meters into bike racks:

This retrofit merely legitimizes the way people have already been using parking meters for decades, which is why the city will also transform its over 11,000 public telephones into urinals.  Most cyclists are pleased about the additional bike parking these new racks will offer--with the notable exception of David Byrne, who declared the program "Bullshit," adding that, "for $2 million I could have designed 12,000 racks that would be far more useless."  Given his recent work at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, it's hard not to believe him:

With 12,000 characters to work with, Byrne could have written a novella in inconvenient bike racks.

Also in New York City cycling news, the dream of a Brooklyn velodrome is officially dead:

Because Brooklyn is now too expensive even for gazillionaire philanthropists:

“You can’t build a facility of this nature, at this site, at this budget,” said Greg J. Brooks, the executive director of N.Y.C. Fieldhouse, the nonprofit group behind the project. “We’re very excited and eager to find a new home for this recreation center and velodrome. The funding remains intact.”

Not that anybody wanted it in the first place:

Some Brooklyn Heights residents who live near the proposed site, at Furman Street near Pier 5, had objected to the size of the building and its potential effect on traffic and parking. Others chafed at the notion that a millionaire could, with a large donation, impose an obscure sport on a city park.

I agree with them on the "obscure sport" part, and certainly any recreational facility should serve the activities and interests of area residents.  That's why I'm pleased to announce my gift to the city of a new state-of-the-art Wankotorium in Brooklyn Bridge Park, where the people of gentrified Brooklyn can engage in their favorite pastime of "foffing off" over themselves.  Each seat in the Wankotorium will feature a lubrication dispenser, a high-definition LED screen that allows the wanker to gaze lovingly upon himself, and full Internet connectivity for sharing details about the wank across social networking sites.  This should provide an attractive alternative to the currently favored onanistic practice of Brooklynites, which is furtively pleasuring themselves in the bathrooms of new condo developments during open houses.  (It's a rare gentrifier that can gaze upon a state-of-the-art open plan kitchen without experiencing the need for immediate release.)

On-site bike parking at the Brooklyn Wankotorium will of course be designed by David Byrne.

Speaking of bad taste, it's hard not to think "That's the way the ball bounces" as you read about this zorb ride gone horribly awry, as forwarded by a reader:

Sometimes in life the unthinkable happens.  Other times, someone dies after bouncing around on top of a mountain inside of a giant hamster ball.  In any case, this is the biggest large orb-related tragedy since the Flaming Lips guy got stuffed into a hairy vagina ball:

By the way, that video was filmed in Portland, and it remains the definitive document of the local ethos:

Even the naked mass riots in Portland are polite, boring, and racially homogenous.

Of course, dreamy music videos with bikes in them aren't restricted to Portland--even though they should be:



Needs more hairy vagina balls.  And maybe a concerned Scottish guy with a camouflage beard:


Brunette girl with bike bleeding morning of NYE - m4w - 28 (SoHo)
Date: 2013-01-10, 7:14AM EST

You were standing on the corner of Mulberry and Prince with blood running down your knee just above your black stockings and I couldn't help but notice all the blood on your upper thigh as you lifted the edge of your shorts to look at your wound. You caught me starring at you and looked up with the cutest smile I've seen in a while you said sorry and moved closer to the edge of the sidewalk. I asked you what happened and all you said was " I got hit by a truck on Canal street." and laughed like you were happy about it. All I could manage was "You poor thing" as you just smiled and laughed a little and said "Sick jacket." You were on my mind that whole day and I know this is weird but I've been thinking of you and i'm pretty sure I saw you on the damn bike in the city the other day you were cutting through 17th wearing some shorts a black sweater and a denim jacket. Before I could attempt to say something you glanced over at me then took off and turned down on 8th ave. I've never written one of these before and i know you'll more than likely will never see this. but Id like to see you and that amazing smile again. If this is that girl let me know the color of your bike bag and the color of the beanie you were wearing the day you were hit. 

-Scottish guy with the sb camo jacket and beard 

Your beard should always match your jacket.

A Word Of Advice: Beating Your Sword Into A Ploughshare Can Make You Go Blind

From time to time I'm am getting the emails, and the "Blog Douche Handbook" that which is my bible says you should always answer your emails publicly on your own blog (it's called "cyber dickwagging"), so I'm going to do so right now in bulk:

--Yes

--Yes

--No fucking way

--French toast

--650b

--One online dictionary defines it as "The area on a man's body found between the scrotum and anus. Also known as 'the seams of life' because if one tears his scranus his soul will fall out."

--No, it's common knowledge the Canadians were behind the Kennedy assasination

--649

That should about cover it.  If you're one of the three (2) people who has emailed me in the last week or so and asked me a question, just pick the answer you like best and go forth edified and replete with knowingness.

Moving on, there are a lot of different kinds of cars in New York City, and if you ride a bike you're bound to get hit by one of them sooner or later.  Sometimes that car is your typical Nissan Altima with Florida plates and a gigantic "Brooklyn" decal on the rear windshield to make sure you know they're not actually from Florida and just register their car there illegally for the cheap insurance, and sometimes that car is some sort of secret vehicle with untraceable plates right out of the TV show "Homeland"--or at least that's what one hit-and-run victim is claiming:

His lawyer, Steve Vaccaro, also didn't get any hits for the license plate number for the Chevrolet Monte Carlo: "It doesn't exist, so who knows what that means," Newman said. They do have one other potential lead on what organization the driver might work for: the accident occurred near a federal building, so he speculates that it may have been an FBI car. They're still pursuing the NYPD angle, but it's confusing: "I picked up the accident report, we have to file the criminal complaint. We're just not sure where to bring it to."

I only hope the authorities manage to find the driver so that they can let her go immediately.  By the way, proximity to an FBI field office aside, it's worth noting that cars with bullshit plates and emergency flashers driven by homicidal idiots account for only 75% of motor vehicles in the metropolitan area, so that should narrow things down not at all.

Also, this is only tangentially relevant, but awhile back I was IN MY CAR THAT I OWN (I'm not ashamed of owning a car, this is AMERICA dammit!) a few blocks north of that very intersection, when who should I see riding a bicycle but David Byrne, who does not own a car.  He cut a handsome figure in a monochromatic outfit of some kind, and as he approached the red light at 10th Avenue he rode right through it.  Naturally, this being New York City, there was like fast-moving oncoming traffic and stuff, and so he was forced to stop in the middle of the lane and then did that awkward thing people do on bikes where they put their feet down and sort of push themselves along like a toddler on a balance bike, thus Froggering his way across the busy thoroughfare.  If I were in that position I might have instead just waited at the light with my chin held aloft in a patrician fashion and let everybody else gaze upon my elegant attire as they considered my musical and artistic accomplishments, but I guess I don't know that much about riding bikes or projecting an air of urbane sophistication.

Speaking of David Byrne, who does not own a car, he also designs user-unfriendly bike racks, though a reader informs me that someone in Seattle is giving him a run for his smugness:

I wish someone would ask me to design a bike rack already, because mine would be so much better:

Ideally they'd install it in Seattle and position it so it was humping that stupid squid.

Of course, if you appreciate art like I do, you probably also appreciate valuable antiques, and another reader recently informed me that an antique anatomic saddle has sold for 251 pounds, which is almost 114 kilograms:

Note the dimensions:

8 inch in length, 

8.25 inch wide. 

Oval central aperture 3 x 1 inch.

Which take on suggestive anatomical overtones if A) you look at the photo, and B) your sense of humor stopped evolving in the 8th grade:

I can't help wondering if the explanation for the high selling price is that someone's piecing together a steampunk sex doll and they wanted a sumptuous hand-stitched leather "central aperture' for some period-correct pleasure.  If so they should complete the sex doll with this head, which is a bargain at $900:

Sure, you can scoff at the notion of using an antique leather seat for this purpose, but it's a real upgrade to the uncomfortable "clockwork vagina" you'll find as stock equipment on most steampunk sex dolls:

(Seen here.)

I realize I'm getting old, but I don't know how we used to live in a time when we couldn't just plug the term "steampunk mannequin" into a popular search engine and get a bazillion results.  We didn't even have steampunk in those days!  Sure, we had steam and we had punk, but nobody had thought to put the two things together, not even the huge nerds who would have been into such a thing.  Amazing.

Speaking of "clockwork vagina," when I start a bike brand that will almost certainly be the name of the time trial model.  As for the road bike, I'd love to call it the "Maillot Jaundice," but apparently someone has beaten me to it, for this was recently spotted by yet another reader in Fitzroy, Melbourne, which I think is up there in Canada somewhere:

Lastly, I'm glad I left Brooklyn when I did, because apparently the hipster invasion was merely the first wave of a full-scale alien invasion:


The onlookers seem amazed that the lights aren't moving, but it's pretty obvious to me that they're trackstanding.

Junglee Love. It's Driving Me Mad. It's Making Me Crazy. (That's from a song they play on the radio, I didn't come up with it.)

Life is hard here in the urban jungle.  (Pronounced "junglee" like Werner Herzog says it.)  First, I wake up to the din of the cityscape.  Then I drink some puréed bacon and scarf a fistful of coffee grounds.  Needless to say, after that I need to visit the restroom, and a short hour and a half later I head out the front door.  Within minutes I'm on this:

Which turns into this:

Which leads me to this:

From toilet to trailhead, I'd say about 90% of the ride is on car-free paths.  Then, once I hit the trailhead, it's generally only four or five more minutes until I become one with the landscape by landing hard upon it:

I took this photo immediately after I finished cursing, and if you're wondering what caused the crash, I was undone by a laughably tiny obstacle followed by a series of overcorrections which culminated in my falling over like an idiot:

Once I found my woodland legs though it was a lovely morning of cavorting on the mist-enshrouded hillside:

But that's only because I left the bike where it was, removed all my clothes, and frolicked about on foot like a hirsute wood nymph until I was shot with a tranquilizer dart by animal control.

Also helpful was my newly-enhanced wider cockpit:

The new handlebars didn't hurt either.

Speaking of bicycles, people have them, and some of those bike owners like to do the cyclocross on them, and some of those people have the kinds of cyclocross bikes that have no derailleurs and only one gear ratio, and those people generally like their exploits to be photographed and filmed extensively, even more so than the rest of us, and that's why they had the SSCXSSWCCXWC in Los Angeles this past weekend.  I couldn't be bothered to look up the photographs, so here's a Pippi Longstocking costume, which is exactly the same thing:

For the most part, single-speed cyclocross racing is people riding around in skirts and really high socks. That's all you need to know.

In any case, apparently next year's SSCXWCSSCXCXCZ is going to be in Philadelphia next year, which is tremendously goaueiiensnzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.............

I literally actually literally totally fell asleep on my keyboard as I was typing that, though in fairness to Philadelphia this is the most exciting thing that's happened to them since the Continental Congress--not to mention the fact that the outfits will be almost exactly the same:

Not only do singlespeed cyclocross racers and founding fathers share an affinity for high socks and wigs, but both groups are also 100% white.

Of course, if the founding fathers were around today they could have adopted the Declaration of Independence by PDF, which would have saved them a trip to Philadelphia altogether.  Yes, email is a miraculous miracle, which is why I read mine occasionally, and when I do I am delighted to find messages like this:

Hi Bike Snob,
Nice rants
I'd like to know what do you think about these wooden hats... eeeerrr... helmets

http://www.indiegogo.com/CoyleHelmets

Stefan A

Hello, Stefan, thank you for writing.  Firstly of all, it's spelled "helments."  Secondly, I think I've actually mentioned these wooden helments before, but frankly I can't be bothered to check because honestly who even reads this crap anyway?  So here's the video for the first time or again as the case may be:



So what do I think?  Here's what I think.  I think I'd rather wear a salad bowl on my head.  Not only do they come in wood, but if you get the nesting variety you can dial in the perfect fit:

Whereas with the wooden helment you need to go to work on it with a power sander before you can ride around looking like George of the Junglee:

(Actually, I don't think George of the Jungle wore a helment, so presumably this is for Fred of the Jungle.)

According to the guy who wants your money so he can whittle these for you, the big selling point is that they're more environmentally friendly than styrofoam helments.  Well, you know what's even more environmentally friendly?  Wearing nothing on your head at all!  How much could you possibly love the environment if you need to cut down a tree before you're willing to get on a bike?  As the saying goes, there's no such thing as a complimentary breakfast.  Here's how it works: If you want personal safety at all costs, fuck the environment and drive a tank while wearing flame-retardant body armor.  If you want to tread as lightly on the Earth as possible, ride a home-grown bamboo bike naked.  And none of this bamboo-with-crabon-fork-and-components crap, either.  That's like calling yourself a vegetarian because you put avocado slices on your bacon cheeseburger.  No, I mean the full-on Gilligan shit:

In fact, at that point you could go with a car or a bike, it really doesn't matter:

By the way, if you're unfamiliar with "Gilligan's Island" because you're under 100 years old, it was a thinly-veiled Marxist allegory masquerading as a fatuous TV show.  Also, adolescent boys everywhere were stunned and confused (and in some cases aroused) by the episode in which it was revealed that sexpot Ginger was actually a man.

But the biggest problem with the wooden helment, even more so than the quasi-environmental aspect, is the way it looks:

I like to think I'm above superficial matters like appearance.  At the same time though we are animals who live in a society, and it's foolish to deny that appearance is an important part of human interaction.  So, while it may be acceptable to wear bits of the forest on your head in a "state" like Oregon, the simple fact is that you can't go around in a real city like New York with a hollowed-out stump on your head that looks like a chipmunk is going to pop out of one of the vents at any moment.  Well, I mean you can, but it's going to adversely affect your life.  People won't hire you.  They won't rent you an apartment.  It's even dangerous, because while you may think you're safer if you fall of your bike, you never know when someone's going to mistake you for a human game of Whac-A-Mole and hit you over the head with a mallet.

Worst of all, something like this has the potential to set the cause of cycling as transportation back at least 20 years.  It's hard enough for people to wade through the morass of bicycle marketing, so once they've actually gotten a bike you can't then tell them, "Oh, one more thing, you have to wear this wooden turtle shell on your head so you won't die."  That's going to be a deal breaker, and their next stop is going to be the Hyundai dealership.

Lastly, on the subject of helments and clothing, Giro makes them, and they're also going to be making some new cycling clothes that look pretty much like regular clothes, and they're so excited that when they were in New York last week they added me to their list of people to talk to about the clothes in person.  So we went to a fancy restaurant in Manhattan, where they can't throw me out because my brother's pretty much in charge of the whole place and if he tried it I'd tell on him:

Once seated and furnished with designer alcohols, we played a serious game of "male model poker:"

The clothes actually looks really nice, but you can't truly judge a cycling garment until it's spent at least six hours on your scranus (if it's pants) or your nipples (if it's a shirt).  I'm still not sure why they wanted to tell me about these clothes though, since I'm currently working my way through team clothing I over-ordered back in the late 1990s and have a good 1,500 more forest falls to go before I need to re-stock.

Also at that very same restaurant on that very same day I had lunch with some other blogger and his wife.  (Yes, I camped out in a fancy restaurant all day talking about clothes and blogging like a metrosexual Cliff Clavin.)  This blogger says he's fat but is actually pro cyclist skinny, probably because, unlike me, he does not drink at lunch.  He's also doing good stuff for good causes, so help him.

Once finished with my meetings, I plopped my salad bowl back on my head and went home smelling like vinaigrette.

"Wednesday" spelled backwards is "Yadsendew." Think about it.

Once in awhile, people ask me questions electronically.  This is because I'm so approachable electronically.  Recently, the most common questions have been, in reverse order of frequency:

3) Why do you suck so much at everything you do?

Look, I don't know, I just do.  What do you want from me?

2) How do you tell the weather from inside now that you've moved and no longer have a view of the ursine man who's always smoking on his fire escape?

Easy, I study the hue and volume of the exhaust fumes emanating from the luxury cars as they drop off children at the elite prep school on the corner.  Or, if it's a weekend, I just throw cash out the window to determine how windy it is.

1) Some variation of the following:

@bikesnobnyc do you know of any bike shops in #NYC worth a visit? Over from the UK in December
— Kirsty Medlock (@cyclebybicycle) November 28, 2012

(I just figured out you can embed Tweets, coincidentally just after I figured out what "embed" means.)

I've probably said it before because I repeat myself endlessly and I'll say it again because I repeat myself endlessly: don't come visit New York City and waste your time in bike shops.  This is not to say I have anything against hardworking bike shop proprietors.  Quite the contrary--I hope they all make a million billion zillion dollars.  It's just that, as a gigantic bike dork, I know how important it is to take a break once in awhile from being a gigantic bike dork, and visiting one of the greatest cities in the world is a perfect opportunity to do just that.  Seriously, just give it a rest.  Go to a museum.  Go to the theee-ay-ter.  Go eat some of that spicy food that the "ethnics" are so good at making.  Go to a trendy bar and rob some hipsters, who are the only group in New York City more haplessly inept than the tourists.

Nevertheless, I do acknowledge that a great city's "bike culture" is worthy of some degree of exploration.  The problem is that there's only so much you're going to learn by standing around in a bike shop and watching the staff service New York City's disgusting overabundance of filthy rich Freds.  (Or, increasingly, New York City's disgusting overabundance of haplessly inept hipsters.)  Therefore, I think what the city needs is a Museum of Cycling, a place where bike dork tourists can satisfy their curiosity in a single visit.  In fact, I may open just such a place, since thanks to Obama's liberal regime the government is handing out cultural endowments and grants like Mario Cipollini hands out herpes:

(Mario Cipollini giving Danilo Di Luca his trademark "herpes hand-up.")

By the way, speaking of grants, this portrait was commissioned by the US government and paid for with taxpayer funds:

Some might say that $500,000 is a bit much, but I say that America now has its Mona Lisa.

So right, the museum.  Well, once the funding comes through and I get that loft in West Chelsea, I'm first going to buy that Cipo portrait for a million dollars.  Then, I'm going to curate (which doesn't require quotes around it for once) such permanent installations as:

Badass Food Delivery Bikes

It's not a truly badass New York City food delivery bike unless the motocross fender is "slammed" against the saddle rails.

New York City's Greatest Freds of All Time

(New York City GFOAT George Hincapie)

This exhibit will feature all the accomplished professionals who used New York City's stultifying round-and-round-Central-and-Prospect-Parks racing scene as their springboard to the elite ranks of competitive cycling.  GFOATS include George Hincapie, George Hincapie, and various other dopers you've long since forgotten if you've even heard of them in the first place.

The Hall of Byrne

The consummate New York City cyclist, David Byrne does not own a car, nor does he own a car, and this exhibit will be dedicated to his many contributions to New York City bicycle culture, including an exhaustive retrospective of his whimsical bike racks:

(Lip.  Rack.  Now that's good spondee.)

With a typical u-lock you can just about secure the bike by the front wheel only.  Now that's good design.

Not only that, but Byrne has committed to designing my museum's bike racks, and he promises they'll be his most impractical designs yet.  Here's an early sketch he sent me on a cocktail napkin:

An elegantly minimalist sweeping arch, he calls it the "Steal Me."

Oh, there's also going to be one more permanent exhibit:

The Sleep-Inducing Bicycle Historian Who Constantly Reminds You That There Used To Be Six-Day Races At Madison Square Garden

Did you know there used to be six-day races at Madison Square Park?  Sure you did, people bring it up constantly.  And what does that mean?  Absolutely nothing.  There also used to be a cholera epidemic.  Track racing is not coming back.  Get with it already.

Anyway, obviously there will also be changing exhibitions that are more in tune with the zeitgeist, and the first one will probably be a series of photographic portraiture called "Ass Cracks Across the Williamsburg Bridge."

Moving on, I find myself moving on in life, by which I mean I'm confronting the fact that I'm getting to be an old fuddy-duddy with an uninteresting lifestyle.  This realization creeps up on people in various ways.  Some people never realize it.  Other people realize it when they discover they need a toupé.  (I don't need a toupé, I just stick the hair that collects in the shower drain to my cranium with soap scum.) Still others realize it when they figure out that they need Viagra.  (I don't need Viagra since I don't have genitals.)  As for me, I realized it when I suddenly discovered I badly wanted a folding bike:


I haven't actually gotten a folding bike yet, but I think it's only a matter of time, and that's a scary notion to contemplate.  The thing is, due to geography and new travel requirements I want to be able to get on and off of different trains and stuff yet still have a bike with me, and so all of a sudden I find myself exploring a contraption about which I know little.  So, like any consumer, I find myself studying manufacturer websites:

I guess you could say I'm under "life pressures," assuming you consider shopping for a folding bike a life pressure.  I'm also under economic pressure, in that I live underneath a gigantic mountain of money and huge amounts of cash do weigh a lot.  However, I'm under no environmental pressure whatsoever, since I don't care what my crabon toof pirnt is, nor do I worry about the cost of gas, since even though I OWN A CAR I burn very little gas with it.  Really, I have only two concerns, which are as follows:

1) Which folding bike should I get?

and

2) Where can I get a bear suit to wear while riding it?

Feel free to offer answers to one, both, or none of these questions in the comments.

Lastly, bike racing person Barry Wicks asked me to mention some sort of cyclocross beer-and-pushup contest in Bend, Oregon:

Frankly, I was enraged and disgusted.  How dare he ask me that?  In fact, I was so mad that I didn't even realize I was posting the flyer, and by the time I figured out what I was doing it was too late.

I told you I suck at everything.

It's Monday: I'm Back, But Barely

You know those Rapha videos that are supposed to convey suffering?  The ones were people on exquisite handmade bicycles ride across beautiful landscapes while wearing foppish scarves and facial expressions that make them look like they're trying to solve math problems in their heads while someone gently flicks their testicles with thumb and middle finger?  Well, that's not suffering.  That's a vacation.

No, if Rapha really want to capture a "suffer fest" then they should make a video of a move.  I don't mean one of those Portland moves where fifteen people portage a futon, a bunch of houseplants, and a litter box across town on their cargo bikes.  No, I mean a real grown-up move, with trucks and elevators and traffic and lawyers and people stepping barefoot on staples inadvertently dropped by the cable guy and then crashing through French doors.  Because this is not impressive:

Strap a couch on each of their backs though and maybe you're getting somewhere.

In any case, I'm pleased to report that my family and I have successfully moved from one residence to another, and we now live in a warren of boxes so labyrinthine that we must carry flags around with us lest we get lost going from the kitchen to the bathroom.  As for where we live now, I'll let you know as soon as I figure it out myself, but I can tell you that when I look out my living room I see the Statue of Liberty, and my study offers an unobscured view of the Empire State Building, and my bedroom balcony overlooks the polar bear habitat at the Bronx Zoo, and my indoor swimming pool has a glass bottom that overlooks the Goethals Bridge.  Also, I did notice that in the comments to last Monday's post a number of people speculated that I had relocated to Queens, which surprised me.  I mean, I said I was moving.  I didn't say I was giving up on life.

One thing's for sure though, which is that I no longer live in Brooklyn, and if you're wondering why then clearly you don't read the New York Times Real Estate section.  If you did, you'd know that a one bedroom apartment with a closet in which to store your one (1) baby costs well over half a million dollars:

Though to be fair, in this case the baby storage closet actually has its own closet:


But this apartment was different. “We both had that immediate feeling,” Ms. Fox said.

They loved the high ceilings, large windows and prewar character. They didn’t mind the fact that the bedroom was on the small side. The requisite extra room, in use as a child’s bedroom, had a closet. There was even a wood-burning fireplace. The asking price was $579,000, with maintenance in the high $800s.

"Extra room" is brokerese for "windowless firetrap."  I'm sorry to bore you with matters of real estate, but the truth is all New Yorkers are deeply obsessed with the subject, and when you're moving you become doubly so.

By the way, renting in Brooklyn is no better, since then you have to compete with Sandy-displaced Red Hookers who are looking for apartments with space for their chickens:

Yes, it's a familiar story here in New York.  A farm girl comes to the big city and settles Red Hook, where her rugged wardrobe and quirky country bumpkin ways are, by an accident of geography and demographics and the zeitgeist, the absolute height of urban chic:

Ms. Kirshner, 27, grew up on a farm in Washington State, home to goats, sheep and, yes, chickens, which when she was young she was charged with caring for. As an adult living in Brooklyn, she arranged to have chickens again, for the eggs, but mostly for fun. The four she currently has — Chicki Minaj, Hillary Chicken, Black Betty and Salt Hen Peppa, who is also called Cookie Dough — were born in New Jersey in May.

Then, a giant hurricane comes and threatens to sweep her chickens out to sea, but her neighbors rescue them just as they're up to their wattles in storm surge:


“On Monday night as I was getting the news that I’d lost pretty much all my belongings, I was also getting news that someone had heroically saved my chickens!” she said.

Ms. Swenson and her partner, Monica Byrne, who live above the restaurant, decided to huddle at home.

When the water began to rise, Ms. Byrne and Ms. Swenson headed over to the lot with the chickens and plunged into chest-deep water to save them.

“We had to,” Ms. Swenson said. “We’re big suckers.”


Suckers is right.  There is no way on Lob's red Earth that I'd risk my life--or even get the slightest bit wet for that matter--to save a bunch of pending Chik-fil-A sandwiches.  But then again, clearly I don't have what it takes to live in today's Brooklyn--by which I mean huge amounts of money and a willingness to die for barnyard fowl.

Nevertheless, I do owe Brooklyn a tremendous debt of gratitude for being the place that nurtured me my entire adult life.  Indeed, this past weekend I had what felt like sort of a symbolic "last ride" out of the borough.  Sure, my tires will roll upon it and I will pull over to surreptitiously pee on it many, many more times, but merely as a visitor, and perhaps never again as a resident.  As I rode along the Great Hipster Silk Route, I was stricken by the fact that roughly every 20 feet there was somebody photographing or filming something.  Either it was the woman taking pictures of "street art" on some warehouse-turned-luxury condo, or the shitty skateboarders filming each-other failing to land tricks off the Jersey barriers along the protected bike lane, or just the absurdly trendy couples snapping Instagram shots of one another's outfits.  Brooklyn is increasingly becoming a place of self-invention, and having invented a persona for myself over the years that is as fatuous and ersatz as any, I have now moved on, secure in myself, delighted by my new surroundings, and looking forward to pointing and laughing at the place from whence I came from a comfortable distance.

Speaking of laughing at stuff, a reader who was uncomfortable at the idea of laughing at someone's stolen bike recently sent me this photo:

I, however, have no such compunctions.  As they say, when life gives you lemons you make lemonade, and when life steals your artisanal bamboo bike you make an artisanal sign that's probably worth more than the bike itself.  It must be crippling to live the artisanal lifestyle.  First you spend a bunch of time making a bike out of sticks, and then it gets stolen so you spend a bunch more time making a fancy sign, then maybe someone finds the bike and you spend three more weeks making them a hand-lettered Certificate of Gratitude on parchment, and so forth.  It's a vicious cycle of arts and crafts.  At the very least, if you're going to turn your stolen bamboo bike into an art project, you should paint a decent "Wanted" poster:

The first place I'd look for the stolen bamboo bike would be in his droppings, though you'll be lucky to find anything rideable.

By the way, I did check the Threepenny Bikes website, and my favorite model is the "Hemp Mixte:"

Lugs are for bike frames.  Hemp joints are for Wednesdays--though I guess they couldn't be any worse than this bike, forwarded by another reader:

I'm not sure I'd agree with the seller's "sturdy" assessment:

Though it is a good candidate for some bicycle taxidermy, as forwarded by yet another reader:

It's the perfect accessory for your quasi-rural Brooklyn apartment.