Snubbed: Season's Greetings, Or Lack Thereof

Hi!

So you know how in the United Britain they have this show on TV called "Top Gear?"  If you don't, it's a show about cars, and they made a shitty American version of it even though it was already in English.  Well, yesterday a reader forwarded me an essay by one of the "Top Gear" guys about the bicycles:

I liked the essay.  In particular, I liked this:

The bicycle was without doubt one of the greatest inventions ever.

And this:

Only the ability to ride a bicycle remains with us after decades of inattention, and that's because riding one taps into some innate understanding of basic physics. A bicycle really is an extension of both your body and your psyche.

And this:

Bicycles should never be regulated, they should never be subject to road tax, they should not require third-party insurance and competence to ride a bicycle should not be tested. It tests itself, because if you can't do it, you have a crash. Bicycles are the first rung on the personal-transport ladder and should be free at the point of use.

But I'm not so sure about this:


Cyclists have become miserabilists.

Several times a week, I go for a bike ride alongside the river near where I live. It's good for me. Or at least it is until I meet another cyclist coming the other way. "Morning," I chirp, cheerfully, because I am cheerful, filling my lungs with the airy elixir and freeing up my tired old bones. Nothing.

I was keeping score for a while, but I've long since lost count. It stood at something like - May, 8,000; other cyclists, nil. I supposed I might just be coming across as a weirdo. So I then tried smiling instead. Still nothing.

There are numerous great debates that rage within the topic of cycling.  Obviously, the king of all of these is the Helment Debate.  Then, just after that (I'm not going to continue with the royalty metaphors, I know nothing about royalty because I'm not from a primitive monarchy like England, I'm from an oligarchy south of Canada), you have the stupid equipment and frame material debates, like Dick Breaks vs. Tubulers, Crabonium vs. Lugged Aluminium, and Ridged vs. Supsension, or whatever the hell idiots bicker about on forums nowadays.  And then, after that, you have all the etiquette stuff, the main one being whether or not to wave to, or otherwise greet, other cyclists.

For some reason, many cyclists get really snitty if you don't wave to them or return their wave, and frankly I think this is completely ridiculous.  Sure, a friendly greeting is nice, and if you receive one you should return it, but at the same time there are a million legitimate reasons not to do either.  Here are just a few that I feel are perfectly acceptable:

--You didn't see the other rider and therefore were unable to offer a greeting;
--You didn't see the other rider greet you and were therefore unable to return the greeting;
--You were preoccupied with a shifting issue or other mechanical problem because you don't read enough Internet forums and you bought the wrong component group;
--You think the other rider looks like he's probably a dick;
--You know the other rider and he's definitely a total dick;
--You like the rider OK but you think the club they ride with is stupid;
--You've had a shitty morning, this is the only time you have to yourself before work, you've got some heavy emotional crap to deal with, and instead of leaving you alone with your thoughts complete doofuses are smiling and waving at you every thirty seconds;
--You DON'T FUCKING FEEL LIKE IT, OKAY!?!

Just to clarify, I do wave to other cyclists.  I just don't do it all the time.  Sure, it makes sense to wave to another cyclist on a country road in order to acknowledge your mutual humanity, but it would be ridiculous to wave to every commuter on the Manhattan Bridge in the same way you'd have to be a complete kook to greet every single person on the subway.  (Sure, I do it, but I'm a complete kook.)  And so what if I'm riding my Fred machine on a country road and I don't greet you because I'm deep, deep, deep in my Fredliness?  If you're old enough to ride by yourself on a country road do you really need complete strangers to coddle you and make you feel special and loved?  I'd argue that you don't.

I also maintain it's perfectly fine to scowl instead of wave in certain circumstances.  For example, I often ride the mountain bike trails in Cunningham Park, Queens. (Or at least I used to before I moved to wherever the hell it is I live now, which is thankfully not Queens.)  Now, I couldn't care less whether or not people wear helments.  However, in Cunningham Park the Parks Department wants you to wear a helment, and I think that's a pretty fair trade considering they let these people build mountain bike trails in the first place.  So when I'm riding in there and I see some goofball helmetless singletrack salmon in a velour tracksuit riding a dual-suspension bike the wrong way on a one-way trail you can be sure I flash him the sort of withering look I generally reserve for Bichon Frisés.  (I always scowl witheringly at Bichon Frisés on the street, it's delightful to watch them recoil.)

Anyway, all I'm saying is that waving is complicated, and that unless someone actually gives you the finger you really shouldn't worry about it.  If you can't handle someone not returning your wave or your smile then don't offer it in the first place, and that way we can finally evolve into the cold, introverted, smartphone-addled society we were meant to be.  Hey, it's 2012.  Maybe all those people James May thinks are snubbing him are just waiting to get home so they can "like" him on Facebook.

By the way, that's a lot of words without pictures, so here's some guy skitching with a pennyfarthing:

If the pennyfarthing were still the dominant form of bicycle then all the Lucas Brunelle wannabes would be wearing magnet shoes.

Speaking of outlaw behavior, I received a compelling email this morning, and I share it in the hopes of raising some intelligent discourse in the comments section.  (Just kidding, any comments not containing the word "scranus" will be deleted as per the BSNYC style manual.)  Here is that email, and as you read it keep in mind that "GC" refers to Grand Central Station, which is not only a very busy station but also a famous landmark, unlike that craphole Penn Station on the other side of town:

I am writing to you because I recently received a summons for "disorderly conduct" for parking my bike in GC station. Most people I have told this to are baffled. You probably have a different take. Please let me know what you think about all this, and feel free to share my story.

I was meeting my husband & son in GC station at the mezzanine bar the evening of Friday December 7. As you may or may not be aware, there is absolutely nowhere safe to lock your bike up within blocks of GC.

After making this determination, I locked my bike to the handrail below the balcony on the main floor. As we were imbibing, I glanced down a couple of times to check on my bike...

The first time, all was well.
The second time, another biker was about to leave her bike next to mine on the railing.
The third time, my bike was gone.

Having already finished our drinks & food, I immediately went down to the main floor (after seeing my bike was gone), and spotted a cop standing nearby. I asked him if he knew where my bike was. He told me it was at the police station downstairs and that I wasn't allowed to park it inside the station, that I should have instead locked it to a pole somewhere outside. He also said some people were concerned that there might be a bomb in the pannier, so a canine was deployed to sniff it. Wow, all this had happened in the course of the maybe 10 or 20 minutes between my bike checks!

So I went to retrieve the bike at the Police Station in the basement level of GC and was told to hand over my ID. After waiting for 15-20 minutes, my bike was delivered to me along with a summons and a broken lock. It wasn't until I was on the train heading back to Westchester that I noticed that my rack bag and pannier had been slit open. Like most everyday bike commuters I keep bike tools, a lock, and a spare inner tube in the rack bag along with emergency rain gear. Riding home from the station, I had to stop a few times to pick up gear that kept spilling out of the ravaged bags. These have now all been repaired and I am supposed to show up in court on February 21.

If you have any advice or interest in joining me in court, I could use the support.

Firstly, while I appreciate the invitation to a day in court, I must emphatically and enthusiastically decline.  Secondly, while I think the mandatory court appearance is a bit excessive, I'd also fully expect an unattended bicycle locked inside Grand Central Station to get the potential bomb treatment.  Thirdly, I agree bike parking sucks on the streets around Grand Central, but I've also visited that neighborhood many times to see the foot doctor (stubborn plantar wart, if you must know, which you didn't want to, and now you're not hungry anymore), and I did manage to lock my bike, so I know that it can be done.

I'll also add that this is why people get folding bikes, and the whole "looking like a trained circus bear" thing is just a bonus.

Anyway, if you have a different opinion about parking your bike in Grand Central please let it be known, and if you'd like to attend court with the accused I'd be happy to put you in touch.

Once again, I've been remiss with the pictures, so here's a minimalist unicycle:

Lastly, just moments ago, I received this video from Klaus at Cycling Inquisition:


Nice guitar playing, but a wave would have been nice.

Cunt.

Getting Around: As the Crowe Flies

(I guess I was a journalist for the two seconds it took me to snap this photo last night.)

Every now and then people send me messages electronically.  Sometimes these electronic messages contain a question.  Sometimes they even contain multiple questions.  Here's an excerpt from an electronic message containing multiple questions I recently received from a reader in Chicago:

In the wake of Sandy there's been a lot of coverage of the auto, subway and bus systems in New York. People are reported to be walking over bridges, sitting in traffic, and waiting for shuttle buses, among other things. I'm not surprised to find little coverage of people choosing to bike to work but that sure seems like a great alternative at the moment. Do you have any anecdotal information to share? Have you seen bike shops with lines out the door? Noticed a great deal more bikes on the streets?

These are all excellent questions--for a journalist.  Unfortunately, I'm a blogger and not a journalist.  Basically, the difference between a journalist and a blogger is that a journalist goes out into the world and investigates stuff, whereas a blogger merely reports from his own tiny bubble.  Yes, it's true that you can be a journalist who happens to report via blog, but I'm a pure blogger, which means the only place I really investigate is the recesses of my own posterior.  (Or, colloquially, I have my head up my ass at all times.)

Anyway, not only do I report exclusively from my own tiny bubble (or my own ass, now that I've mixed metaphors it's getting difficult to keep track), but in these post-Sandy days my bubble/ass has shrunk considerably.  This is because I'm really only making trips that are necessary, and any pressing business I had elsewhere in the city has been postponed for the time being.  Moreover, the woman I tricked into marrying me can't go to work because there's still no power in her office, and my two year old child doesn't even have a job at all, shiftless layabout that he is.  (Yes, I actually have 17 children, but the other 16 have grown up, had families of their own, retired, and moved to Phoenix.)  All of this means that, as a family, we've been sticking pretty close to home.

Nevertheless, judging from the accounts of actual journalists (not to mention my own past experiences with blackouts and transit strikes), I'd venture so far as to say that, while more people than usual will certainly take to their bicycles, Sandy is not going to suddenly transform the largest city in Canada's cargo pants into Amsterdam or Copenhagen.  Sure, part of this is because of our deeply-ingrained transit habits, but it's also because lots of people in New York have pretty long commutes, and the simple fact is that someone who hasn't been on a bike in 20 or 30 years is not going to suddenly ride 27 or 17 or even seven miles to Manhattan.  And all of this results in what city planners call "a gigantic clusterfuck."

But again, please keep in mind that I am a bubble/ass-dwelling blogger who is extremely lucky to live in a part of the city that has fared pretty well in the storm, so any words I write about it aren't worth the ass from which I pulled them.  Plus, in portions of the city where there is still no power it seems people are making industrious use of bicycles:

I say the city should attach the entire CRCA to the power grid and make them pedal around the clock until this whole thing is over.   It's time for the Freds to finally start giving something back.

Also, while there's no better vehicle than a bicycle in times like these, it's still important to keep in mind that post-disaster New York City is probably not the ideal environment for the novice cyclist.  No, you need to be a seasoned urban rider, like Russell Crowe:

Who, as a Tweeterer informs me, was making Australian meat pies of the paparazzi in New York in the days before the storm:

(Pap?  Smeared!)

11.6 of his communist miles is 7.2 Jesus miles, and if he did 7.2 Jesus miles in 30 minutes then he was traveling at the blistering speed of 14.4 miles per hour.  Of course, as we all know, 46 miles per hour is the speed at which a Fred goes "Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo," and now we also know that 14.4 miles per hour is the speed at which Russell Crowe gets all self-congratulatory--though it's not surprising he's so fast given how hard he trains:

At least he has the good sense to dismount while smoking.

Speaking of America and the USA and Jesus and how awesome we are in comparison to the rest of the world, a Velonews editorial makes the case that it's now up to us to lead the "global fight against doping:"

Right, because all our other global fights have been turning out so well.  Honestly, it's pretty difficult to have faith in this great nation of ours when our college students can't even keep their heads out of their u-locks (via another Tweeterer, and turn the volume down because the music will make you want to kick your cat):

 

I sincerely hope he was expelled immediately for being a complete idiot.

You know who would never be dumb enough to put a u-lock around his neck?  Mario Cipollini.  (Though if he did do it he'd probably be able to slip it right off again thanks to all the grease.)  However, he does like to put cycling socks on his "downstairs parts," and here he is being fitted for a pair (as forwarded by another reader):

("I think you're going to need an extra extra large.")

So why cycling socks?  Well, because he wears them during coitus because the wicking properties make him even more fertile, and his goal is to populate the entire world with little Cipos and Cipettes.

There will never be enough sawdust for a future that unctuous.

And The Wind Whispers "Wednesday"

Ostensibly this is a humorous blog.  However, there are times when even the most fatuous blogger must put on his reporter's fedora and play the journalist.  So with Sandy bearing down on New York City like an EPO-addled peloton on a doomed breakaway, I set out on my bicycle to document the storm and its aftermath, and you can view all my photographs here.

Yeah, right.  If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you should know perfectly well by now that I'm the sort of person who spent the duration of the storm sobbing under a table and then only ventured outside about forty minutes ago when my cravings for fresh bagels finally became too strong to resist.  Even then, while walking, I made sure to stay as close to devoutly religious people as possible, figuring that just in case "God" exists He'd be less likely to smite the devout with falling tree branches.  (By the way, despite their many differences, one similarity between Orthodox Jews and Muslims is that they both object very strongly to being shadowed by cowardly bloggers.)

Fortunately though there was a real bike blogger imported from Portland in the form of Jonathan Maus of BikePortland to take up the slack, and while I was simpering and whimpering he was out investigating:

In fact, even before the storm he managed to take the sorts of photographs that have eluded me throughout my entire blogular career.  For example, here's a shot of Bradley Wiggins in 20 years:

And here's some guy on a total freakbike:

A picture like this would be the culmination of my entire blogging career.  Meanwhile, this guy hops off a plane and bags it as easily as a slice of pizza.  I mean, I knew I sucked, but it's still humbling to realize exactly how deeply I suck:

Still, at least I'm enough of a journalist to visit the HarderBikes website, where I learned that this is a "prone" bike:

Here's the backstory, which reads more like a cautionary tale:


The beginning was a single-speed mountain bike geared up for a rapid commute with a little suspension, front and back. As time went on, the gearing rose, pedals clipped and softtail gave way to hardtail with a suspension seatpost. Once speeds grew to a point where the bikepath was no longer a welcome home, the bike had to be made more demanding. Thoughts wandered to charging full time and how to make a ride for that purpose. No matter how far the bars and stem were lengthened and dropped, very little weight could be shifted to the upper body with tradition frame geometry.
Hence, the project. Since the saddle wasn't necessary, the prototype frame was simple once the angles were chosen. A steeper head angle and short rear "triangle" helped balance out the lengthed wheelbase created by the elongated cockpit. The downtube was stretched 12 inches longer than that of a 21" mountain bike frame. a short headtube and mild bottom bracket drop kept the posture as aggressive as possible.

First you're "slamming that stem," next you're getting an even longer one, and before you know it you're ridin' doggy style.  Still, I'd like to congratulate the designer for inventing the exact opposite of a practical bicycle--though it's still no H-Zontal:


The H-Zontal is the "Dark Side Of The Moon" of prone bicycles.

Speaking of the storm, by about 4:00pm on Monday it was rapidly approaching full strength.  Outside the window the trees were thrashing about like mullets at a Slayer concert, and with each flicker of the lights I waited for the power outage that, amazingly, never came.  I also checked Twitter for news updates, and at exactly 4:26pm I saw this:

Good for you.

By the way, Armstrong continues to be stripped of accolades like a Bikesdirect fixie gets stripped of parts, and the latest to go are his keys to the city of Adelaide:

Which, judging from the accompanying photograph, were presented to him inside of a shoe.  However, the Adelaide City Council won't actually come here to collect the key because they can't afford it:

The website reports that rather footing the expense of travelling to the US to retrieve the key, Armstrong's name would be removed from the honour board where the recipients are listed. 

Presumably because they've been spending too much money giving celebrities keys:

Others to have received the honour include Cher, who sold her key on eBay for close to $93,000 earlier this year, the Dalai Lama and comedian Barry Humpries who is perhaps best known as Dame Edna Everage.

And because last year they went all the way to Austin to give Armstrong his key, only to find him not at home:

In 2011, Yarwood travelled to the US to hand-deliver the key to Armstrong, with Adelaide rate-payers covering the partial cost of the trip however, the American was not in residence in Texas. The key was later posted to him.

If I were an Adelaidean taxpayer I'd be really, really fucking irritated by now, since apparently this key racket is costing the city a fortune and the only person actually benefitting financially from it is Cher.

By the way, I'm also fairly sure that the Dalai Lama's key was accepted by Barry Humphries, who looks exactly like His Holiness when he's not in drag:

(Humpries as Dame Edna (L) and out of costume (R).)

Or maybe it was the other way around and they actually gave Dame Edna's key to the Dalai Lama in drag.  When you give away so many sets of spare keys it gets very difficult to keep track.

Meanwhile, the Tour de France-winningest American cyclist is once again Greg LeMond, and by now you've no doubt read his impassioned (but apparently not proofread) plea to impeach Pat McQuaid:

Can anyone help me out? I know this sounds kind of lame but I am not well versed in social marketing. I would like to send a message to everyone that really loves cycling. I do not use twitter and do not have an organized way of getting some of my own "rage" out.

LeMond is certainly entitled to bask in his moment of glory, but has anyone reminded him that he does use Twitter?

I mean, he's got the blue check mark and everything. 

Of course, one professional cyclist who is well-versed in social networking is Jens Voigt, who recently wrote a blog post assuring his many fans that he never doped:

So, to summarize, over the years Jens Voigt:

--Came up in the East German sports program alongside men who ate Volgas and women with beards;

--Turned pro the year before the Festina affair;

--Rode for Bjarne Riis;

--Rode for Johan Bruyneel.

Yet during that time he "never saw anything firsthand," which means he's somehow missed out on the biggest moments in modern sports doping history despite being right in the middle of pretty much all of them.  In other words, he's basically the anti-Forrest Gump.  

As for me, I've become jaded, which is why I now only follow bike racing for the costumes--like this one:

Now that's cycling I can believe in.

The Clam Before the Storm

Good morning!  As you may know, here in New York City we're being menaced by Hurricane Sandy, which is supposed to wreak all manner of devastation and inconvenience around these parts sometime this afternoon-ish.  I wasn't especially worried when they closed the subways, since they closed the subways during last year's Irene-branded storm too.  I also wasn't worried when they closed the schools, since they close the schools for pretty much anything nowadays, including obscure Jewish holidays which frankly sound made up.  However, when I got an email from my bank saying they were going to be waiving fees for the next few days I panicked, since if a financial institution is actually foregoing an opportunity to charge a fee then it's a clear sign that the end is nigh.  My bank actually charges you a fee for paying a fee, so this makes me feel like a Make-A-Wish Foundation child.

Nevertheless, pending the apocalypse I'm staying at home because I'm not in an evacuation zone:

Fortunately, I live in Zone D:

All city services and FEMA are under strict orders to neglect us until every resident of Park Slope is safe and accounted for and their frozen yogurt vending services are completely restored.

Pray for us.

By the way, just to give you a sense of how difficult life is here in a neighborhood that is only marginally gentrified, consider this doorway:

In particular, look at this sticker:

In Park Slope I'd know this was placed there by an actual math tutor attempting to solicit business from helicopter parents who hyper-educate their children.  In Williamsburg I'd know "Math Tutor" was some intentionally dorky "indie band" who websites like BrooklynVegan say are from Brooklyn even though they moved here from Indiana only seven months ago and will be living in Portland by January.  (Math Tutor would consist of six members, all of whom play vintage 1980s Casio keyboards.)  Here though I have absolutely no idea.  Really, it could go either way.

But the worst part about being under threat of a hurricane is that you have to rely on The Media, which we all know can't be trusted.  Anyone who's read enough George Orwell, smoked enough marijuana, or smoked marijuana while reading George Orwell knows that The Media is simply in the service of Big Brother, or The Man, or The Big Brother Man.  The Media isn't in the business of truth, it's in the business of manipulation.  That's why I only believe what I can see--and what I see when I look out the window is this guy:

I've mentioned before that I gauge the weather conditions by the state of undress of the guy who smokes on his fire escape, and you can see him above wearing only underpants, which is typical attire for him.  However, when I looked out the window this morning what I saw was far more alarming--even more so than an ample-breasted man in his underpants:

Yes, he was wearing an actual tracksuit with the hood pulled over his head:

(If you're smoking on a fire escape during a hurricane maybe you should consider quitting.)

For this guy merely to put on pants is a sign of a severe weather event, so if he's actually wearing a shirt and covering his head too it means we're all going to die.

In fact, I was so alarmed that despite my mistrust of the media I turned on the TV and tuned into PBS (I figure I should watch as much PBS as possible until Mitt Romney gets elected and they replace it with infomercials) only to hear a report from someone named Lauren Wanko:

Who actually said that people in Cape May were going to "have to hold onto something hard and steady" without a hint of irony.

Wanko?  Hold onto something hard and steady?  No wonder Mormons find public television so upsetting.

Anyway, in all seriousness I hope everybody's staying safe, unless you're not in the path of the storm in which case go do whatever the hell you want.  It's also a good day to simply stay home and enjoy the company of loved ones, or if you live alone to just sit back on the couch and, uh, take Ms. Wanko's advice and hold onto something hard and steady.

Moving on, given the impending storm I made sure to cram in plenty of activity this past weekend.  In particular, on Saturday I got into a four-wheeled gasoline-powered recumbent and rode it to Philadelphia, where I spoke at the Philly Bike Expo.  Then, after I spoke, I hung out at the merchandise table where I watched people pick up my books and look at them:

In any relationship there's generally an impulsive party and a sensible party.  The impulsive party is the one who does things like pick up books written by idiots and consider purchasing them, and the sensible party is the one with the wherewithal to say, "Put that stupid thing down:"

Even though my livelihood depends on the impulsive parties I have the utmost respect and admiration for the sensible parties.

Sometimes people would pick up other stuff too, like Knog lights:

I'd tout their convenient rechargeability and retina-scorching brightness, because I figured if I was just sitting there anyway that I might as well, and they'd back away slowly with polite smiles on their faces, at which point I'd realize I was drooling or had a substantial booger hanging out of my nose.

I was not cut out for retail.

After I finished repulsing people I high-tailed it back home, where the woman I tricked into marrying me and I got on our bicycle cycles and rode into the city in order to watch a professional funny person be professionally funny.  On the way we stopped to eat, only to find some hipster's moped parked at a bike rack:

I'd have surreptitiously removed the spark plug and dropped it down a storm drain if I thought it was possible to get that close to a moped motor without laughing hard enough to give me away.

Boared to Death: And The Cockie Goes To...

During the work week, commuting by bicycle in Manhattan is fraught with frustrations and obstacles.  Gridlock, dead bodies, and people from New Jersey are just a few of the maddening things that will impede your progress.  Also, thanks to a collaboration between the DOT and the DEP, every third Thursday we now have something called "Puma Streets," in which thousands of live pumas are released into the urban environment.  Once freed, they tend to pounce from lampposts onto the heads of the unsuspecting.  There you are, emerging from a deli with a cup of hot coffee, and the next thing you know you've got a large cat of prey clinging tenaciously to your scalp.

Of course, by late Friday afternoon they've usually got most of the pumas rounded up and gassed, but that doesn't mean weekends don't bring their own problems for the bicycle commuter.  For example, large portions of the avenues are often closed for street fairs:

New York City is one of the greatest cities in the world, and apart from a soda larger than 16 ounces or a decent burrito you can purchase anything you could possibly imagine here at pretty much any time of the day or night.  Pick any city our country in the world, and if you can't actually visit it there's probably a neighborhood in New York City that's the next-best thing and only a bike or subway ride away.  Nevertheless, the city persists in closing random streets at random times and snarling traffic so that people can sell you gyros and bootleg Yankees caps.  I'm not sure why this is, since it seems like closing a three-star restaurant so you can host a pop-up McDonald's in it, but I just assume it has something to do with the mafia.

Then, once you've circumvented the street fairs, you're bound to get trapped in some kind of charity activity, which is what happened to me when the breast cancer walk took over my bike lane:

Moments after I took this photo the straggler was pounced upon my an errant puma, but I successfully scared it off of her by applying shorts blasts of air to its face with my mini pump.

Yesterday also saw the running of the Bike MS ride, and while I certainly respect the cause I also knew the area roadie corridors would be even more congested than usual, so once again I sought refuge in the wilderness.  It's now been over a year since I've taken delivery of my Engin all-terrain style bicycle, and every ride on it makes me happy that I did:

In fact, the bike makes me so ridiculously happy that it's the only all-terrain style bicycle I've been riding since I got it, and so yesterday I decided to ride my other bike with the clicky gears and the bouncy fork instead:

It's a lot of fun getting on a shifty bouncy bike after spending a lot of time on a non-shifty bumpy bike.  Then again, it's also a lot of fun to ride a non-shifty bumpy bike after spending a lot of time on a shifty bouncy bike.  It's like when you eat some salty delicious chips, and that makes you want some ice cream, and then the ice cream makes you want the chips again, so you go back and forth and back and forth and get stuck in a salty/sweet feedback loop.  Then, you wake up four hours later, shirtless and with your face stuck to the sofa cushions.

Don't act like it hasn't happened to you too.

Speaking of feedback, on Friday I posted this cockpit contest submission:

Which I like very much because: 1) it's refreshingly simple; and A) it reminds me of a wild boar:

Before the whole "Puma Streets" thing they used to release wild boars into the subway stations.  The trick was to get them to charge at you and then step away at the last second so they'd either get run over by an approaching train or else get electrocuted on the third rail.  I can still remember that burnt-hair-and-bacon smell when someone managed to pull off the latter scenario.  Mmm, delicious.

Anyway, in addition to posting the picture I included a poll:

Apparently, 1,035 people think the wild boarpit shouldn't win.  However, one person does think I should "just pick a fucking winner already:"

At first I was insulted, but then I realized that "sh3rp4" was absolutely correct, and that I could conceivably wind up sitting on this contest for months or even years.  Therefore, I am picking a winner, and here it is:

I sincerely apologize to the 78% of people who disagree with my choice, but I secretly enjoy being contrary, and also this is what happens in an electoral college system.  Congratulations to the winner, and I will be in touch sometime in the coming months or years to arrange delivery of your Knog prizeways.  (You will be getting Knog Blinder USB-rechargeable lights, which I love, but which are bright enough to blow your face off, so always wear sunglasses while handling.)

Moving on, UCI president Pat McQuaid says "Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling:"

However he was careful to emphasize that this shouldn't deter future cyclists from giving the UCI huge amounts of money:

McQuaid was defiant over questions regarding assertions by Floyd Landis and others that the UCI had accepted a $100,000 donation from Armstrong in 2002 in exchange for concealing a positive drugs test at the 2001 Tour de Suisse.

“There is no connection between the donation to the UCI and a test covered up, because there was no test to cover up,” said McQuaid, who added that the federation would accept donations from athletes in the future. “We would accept it differently and announce it differently than we did before.” 

In other words, the UCI doesn't shit where it eats.  Rather, it finishes eating, lets someone else pick up the check, and then leaves a great big steamer for a tip.

And with that, the sport of cycling is now totally clean.  Nicely done, everybody.

Also, you know what has absolutely nothing to do with doping and professional cycling?  Cyclists who are injured or killed by motorists.  Nevertheless, for some reason the New Yorker decided this was a suitable illustration for an ostensibly humorous piece about the whole Armstrong debacle:

See that?  The guy on the bike's getting mauled by a car!  Hilarious.  Ah, cyclists.  So vulnerable.  So hapless.  I love urbane humor.

Meanwhile, you may recall that some time ago I mentioned Stradalli, the bicycle company with the most cumbersome URL in the industry:

And the company who uses models like this:

To sell crabon bikes to people like this:

Well, a reader informs me that they've offered Lance Armstrong a job:

Armstrong has been influential in the adoption and development of carbon race frames, as well as other components and accessories. He has changed modern cycling and today many of his design contributions are part of the racing norm. Stradalli Cycle has made an official job offer to Lance Armstrong for an undisclosed amount. His response is not yet known.

Of all that's happened over the past few weeks somehow this is the one that really drives things home.  Getting a job offer from Stradalli after you've lost all your sponsors and wins is like getting a $50 gift certificate to Bed Bath & Beyond after the bank has foreclosed on your house.

Lastly, moving on to the happier world of romantic comedy, Hugh Grant has apparently moved to Portland:

Ballet, bell helmets, bicycles, bridges - m4w - 34 (SE Hawthorne - Bagdad Theater)
Date: 2012-10-16, 9:29PM PDT

You: beautiful blonde bicyclist outside the Bagdad theater. Great smile and sense of humor, with a keen sense of direction. Me: brown hair, black bike, befuddled. I (sincerely) asked you for directions to a good bike route heading west from the Bagdad Theater after OMSI Science Pub: The Physics of Ballet. You may have thought it was the lamest pick-up attempt ever, which it was, because I didn't realize I was picking up on you at the time. During our chat you noticed we had the same Bell helmet. "Twins!" I said, because I'm selectively clever. When I proceeded to follow your directions, you soon caught up with me, and I jokingly called you a stalker. You pointed out that I'm the one that started the conversation with you. Then you had to go south while I continued west. Well, I'd like to continue our conversation, even though I'm clearly a bit daft and need directions on how to flirt and be flirted with, as well as to the nearest bike route. I can always use another reason to peddle across the Hawthorne bridge. Let's add some trips to that bike counter that was recently installed. 

I'm pretty sure that in Portland misspelling "pedal" as "peddle" can get you banished to Washington state.