I should warn you, though, that the "Twitteroni" have already deemed me smug, "adenoidal," and irritating:

Anyway, if you too find my speech irritating, you can always pick up the May issue of "Outside" magazine:


(Bear Grylls has not heard of a loofah.)
In it, there is a story I wrote about my trip to Portland (that's a city in Oregon where they like bikes), as well as something about "Rapha's natty, convertible wool blazer," which I did not write and have not seen yet but which also promises to be entertaining in the way that only cycling-themed blazers can be:

Moving on, in cycling in particular and popular culture in general, there are some things that are "cool," and other things that are "uncool." It can be difficult to quantify coolness and uncoolnes, (both of them having to do with timing, serendipity, and context as much as anything else), but like pornography and vomit you just know it when you see it. In the world of bikes, for example, fixed-gears and "vintage" road bikes are "cool," while recumbents and flat-bar road bikes are "uncool." And beyond bikes, there are even some ethnic groups that are "cool" and "uncool" among the "hipsterati." For example, Jews are totally uncool:
Whereas Arabs are cool:
This is because Hasidic Jews (with their minivans and children and lame outfits) remind "hipsters" of their parents who keep threatening to stop helping them with their rent, whereas Arabs evoke insurrection and resisting America and other things that make their parents uncomfortable. This is why "hipsters" still wear "keffiyeh" scarves:




(In the "hipster" universe "Getting Fucked Up" and "Tonguing Each-Other" are Pillars of Islam.)
While the tallis has yet to (and will almost certainly never) catch on:


("I can't believe my father is making me do this. I am so going to start wearing a keffiyeh when I move to Williamsburg.")
It would stand to reason, then, that one day the Arab world would come to serve as a backdrop to what promises to be the most "epic" fixed-gear video the "bike culture" has ever seen:

The above is a short description of an upcoming film called "Where are the Pyramids?," which I saw mentioned on "Bike Blog NYC" (which is "curated" by that guy who famously fell for the classic "Let me see your bike real quick" flim-flam awhile back). Where are the pyramids indeed? Well, it took me about four seconds to find out, thanks to the potent combination of a popular search engine and a popular user-edited online encyclopedia:
However, sometimes it's not enough to simply read about something online. Sometimes you've got to find out for yourself. Furthermore, in the "hipster" universe, you've also got to find out for yourself in a totally impractical way that allows you to showcase yourself and your lifestyle on camera. We've seen this before. For example, in "London To Paris," some "hipsters" ride their track bikes from London to Paris:
The mustache, incidentally, is the "hipster" equivalent of a power meter, and as you can see the fact that his is nearly horizontal indicates that he is moving at quite a clip.:








Also, I don't want to spoil anything, but the "Five Fearless Fixed-Gear Pilots" pick up a time-traveling American Civil War soldier along the way:

They even tempt the ire of serial retrogrouch and uber-curmudgeon Jobst Brandt by flipping their bicycles upside down in order to work on them:

Don't worry, though, the FFFGPs are not culturally insensitive; they at least have the good sense to trackstand in the middle of the street for awhile so that the locals have time to get used to them:


Still, there is no greater rush than knowing that you are the only fixed-gear riders in a city of millions of people, making you the most "street credulous" riders in it by default:

It's also vital to keep telling yourself this in order to sustain your morale, since the fact that you need a $200 bag and a $2,000 bicycle to deliver envelopes is in stark contrast to the fact that a typical cyclist in Cairo can easily carry an 80lb basketful of bread on his head without any special equipment:

Anyway, I haven't seen the whole film, but I'm imagining the final scene in which the FFFGPs crest a desert hill with their laughably impractical bicycles and catch their first glimpse of the pyramids is an inspiring one:
