This Just In: Off To Cleveland Then I'm Just Off!

What's this?

It's a great big pile of Cleveland, that's what it is.

As I mentioned yesterday, that's where I'll be this coming Saturday, April 27th, in order to promote my new book, "The Bike Snob That Is A Broad."  Buy it.  Read it.  Shelve it.  Buy it again.  So what does this mean to you?  Well, if you're in Cleveland, it means come to Market Garden Brewery from 1:00-3:00pm to be on the receiving end of my relentlessly shameless self-promotion.  Also, whether you're in Cleveland or not, it means I won't be posting tomorrow.  Actually, I won't be posting again until Monday, May 6th, at which point I will resume regular updates.

So why the long break?  Well, I figure it will take at least that long to wash the Cleveland out of my clothes.

Speaking of Cleveland, I haven't even been there yet, but even so I'd much rather live there than in what Brooklyn has become:


Basically, these douchebags are taking a question absolutely nobody asks, namely:

You know what "Brooklyn" means?  It means exactly fucking Brooklyn.  It's the name of a place with clearly delineated boundaries.  As far as I know, there are no border skirmishes with Queens.  Nevertheless, these horrible, awful people want thirty thousand of our green American fun tickets to make "Brooklyn the first community in the United States with a shared graphic identity."

All right, I'll play along.  You want a "shared graphic identity" for the 'roided out version of Portland that Brooklyn has become?  How about a woman holding a shitting baby over a toilet in a $3 million brownstone?

Done, and done.

But yeah, no community in the United States has a shared graphic identity, least of all Brooklyn.  Because nobody knows what this is:

Actually, that's what these design douches are doing.  It's the Internet 2.0 equivalent of trying to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge.  I suppose in that sense it's subtly brilliant and authentically Brooklyn.  But that doesn't make the smug smile this guy flashes at the moment the narrator says "collaboration" any less sickening:

("Oh yeah, I've got such a raging collaboner right now.")

Someone needs to launch a Kickstarter to raise the funds necessary to throw a $20 cocktail in this guy's face and then kick him in the "pants yabbies."

And I shouldn't even have to mention that, among the quintessentially Brooklyn images they throw at you in the video, they include this piece of shit right after a shot of the Nathan's sign:

That's just depressing--as is this:


Why Brooklyn? Why Now? 

With its soaring popularity, it´s no secret that everyone wants a part of Brooklyn. We can contribute to this phenomenon by highlighting the icons that make up that coveted “Brooklynness” and by facilitating a global conversation about these symbols.


I can assure them that this isn't true.  In fact, nearly all the iconic Brooklynites they include in their video left a very long time ago.  As for the people converging on the place now, I'm extremely glad they are because it's keeping them away from the rest of the city.  Really, the only "global conversation" any of this warrants is a UN summit meeting in which we discuss the imminent collapse of civilization due to this epidemic of vapid, twee douchedom.

Please take the money you've made so far, design yourselves a dirigible, and float away forever.

While I'm on the subject of designing vehicles, people are apparently serious about this whole self-driving car thing, which is horrifying:

Google and other innovators are working on vehicles that someday might drive themselves with little or no attention from human passengers. 

"Little or no attention?"  How is this any different from the way people are driving now?  Well, the main difference seems to be that the few remaining segments of the population from whom we're still safe will finally get to operate motor vehicles too:

Driverless vehicles are expected to help children, the blind, the elderly and others who currently cannot safely drive themselves.

Wait, this is a problem holding us back as a society, that children can't drive?  Are you telling me that we're on the cusp of a future in which 5th graders get around in self-driving cars?  What's wrong with the fucking schoolbus?

Well, it's not just about children finally being able to abandon their bikes for Hyundais.  It's also about productivity:


A driverless car should also cause people to use their vehicles for more miles, because they could use their time in the car to sleep, work, watch television, read a book and do other things they might normally do at home.

Households and business may also begin to use vehicles with no human passengers or drivers in order to move goods from one place to another and, by economizing on the human driver costs, they may want to move more goods than they do today.

As people take on additional activities in their personal vehicles, they may also demand larger vehicles that necessarily require more fuel per mile.

Hmmm, this is intriguing.  Let's see, a car in which you can eat, sleep, work, or read. A car you don't have to drive yourself.  A big car, one that can also carry lots of stuff.  Well, here's an idea.  What if we built a dedicated series of interconnecting roadways on which these big, self-driving cars could travel?  They could connect cities to their suburbs.  They could also connect cities to other cities.  They'd even be efficient, because they could run on diesel fuel--or, if we electrified the roadways, they wouldn't have to use gasoline at all.  Some of them could even carry freight exclusively.  Now imagine dozens of these big, energy efficient cars running in tandem, their passengers happily working and eating and napping away.  We could call it...the fucking train!

(I mean we could call it "the train."  I included the "fucking" for emphasis.  Sure, there's no reason we couldn't also have a "fucking train," or at least a designated fucking car on the train, but that wasn't really my point.)

I guess the problem with the whole "train" thing is that nobody gets to feel like they're inventing something since we've only had them for like 200 years.  Maybe we need to get the Brooklyn Kickstarter douches to rebrand the train concept with a "shared graphic identity" that would make it seem new and exciting to people.  They seem pretty good at branding stuff that doesn't need to be branded because it's been around for centuries.  The train rebranding doesn't even have to be a word, it could just be a symbol.  Something with tracks and moustaches and glasses and shitting babies and fixies with crooked saddles.

Lastly, I'm pleased to announce that there's a new member of the Pantheon of Mayoral Idiots, as I've been informed by a reader.  He's the mayor of Bulverde, Texas, and his views on cycling are as vexing as his hair:

("I'm gonna clean up this town...with my hair!")

Traffic was quite heavy at the time. School had just let out, there was a scramble to get income tax checks mailed and the evening rush was beginning. My patience was already worn thin and being stuck behind a couple of slow-moving cyclists riding side-by-side did not help.

So I gave a brief tap on the horn. The cyclists changed formation to single file. Then a break in traffic gave me the opportunity to accelerate and pass on a stretch of road that has a double-yellow center stripe which you can't cross.

I had to pass them quickly, but nobody was hurt and there were no close calls.
When someone is dressed in their work clothing and using a bicycle to get to work, that's one thing.
However, it's another matter when someone is joyriding on an expensive bicycle all decked out in riding attire on probably the most dangerous roadway in the city.

Wait, what?  I'm sorry, I didn't hear any of that.  I was too busy looking at your astounding hair.

And now, I'm going to excuse myself until Monday, May 6th, at which point, as I said, I'll resume regular updates.

Until then, I remain, humbly, yours truley, etc. and so forth,


--Wildcat Rock Machine

PS: Come to the Cleveland thing.

PPS: Cleveland.

Put On Your Wednesday Pants And Start Pumping.

Cleveland.

Popular collaboratively edited online encyclopedia Wikipedia defines Cleveland thusly:

Whereas Merriam-Webster provides an alternate definition:

But no matter which way you slice it, I'll be in "The Cleve" this coming Saturday, April 27th, Two Thousand And Mother Fucking Thirteen.

Sorry for the cursing.  I just got a little excited, that's all.  I mean, it's not very day you get to go to Cleveland.

Also, Cleveland is in Ohio.

So what's that?  You're the one (1) person who lives in Cleveland and actually wants to come see me promote my new book, "Bike Snob Abraod," the book the New York Times declared to be "a book?"  Well, here are the "deets."  (How badly do you want to shoot me right now for saying "deets?"  I actually want to shoot myself it's so annoying.  Too bad about those pesky gun laws.)  From 1:00-3:00pm we'll be at the Market Garden Brewery:

Here, I will spew incoherent blather, after which you are welcome to shout at me and call me a "douchebag" in a public forum and fling your local cuisine at me.  Will you be able to buy a copy of my book there?  Yes, thanks to Visible Voice books.  There will also be "Cycle Sodas," which I guess is lager and lemonade, because why not?  (I had no idea that was called a "Cycle Soda," I always just called it "breakfast.")

Then at 3:00pm the Cleveland Tweed Ride rolls out, which is my cue to run crying back to New York with a snot bubble in my nose.

I think that about covers it, and I hope to see you there.  In Cleveland.  Cleveland, Ohio.

Wow.

Moving on, yesterday I had the misfortune to find myself in Brooklyn (if you've never been to Brooklyn, just picture a more expensive Portland where they hate bikes), and while there I saw numerous bike share stations.  Here's one:

(Invisible bikes.)

And?  And what?  That's the whole story, I saw bike share stations, and I took a picture of one.  That's called "journalism," and it's why I make the big bucks.  By the way, my commute yesterday took me through four out of five boroughs--the Bronx:

(My house where I live.)

Manhattan:

(Gentrification.)

Queens:



And finally Brooklyn:

The only borough I didn't pass through was Staten Island, because you can't ride your bike there without going on a boat, and Jonathan Vaughters wasn't around to give me a lift on his.

Anyway, as I rode, I marveled at how far the bike infrastructure has come in this town, since for a good portion of the ride I was on bike lanes or greenways.  It's a shame that whoever becomes mayor next will probably ruin it all, but I'm doing my best to enjoy it white it lasts--even if half the time someone's using the bike lane to walk their dog, or even if fully 100% of the bike traffic on the 1st avenue bike lane consists of salmon.



I love British nature porn.

[Editor's note: after typing that last sentence I fell asleep and had a nightmare that I had to visit Cleveland.  Then I woke up and was momentarily relieved until I remembered that I really did have to visit Cleveland.  Then I watched the salmon video again and was oddly comforted by it.  Sometimes you just have to yield to the natural order of things.]

Lastly, if you have $50,000 to spare, this guy needs some help:


Wait, he's putting up with bad weather?  Why doesn't he just put on some pants?!?

Anyway, in addition to being unable to dress properly for the weather, Inventor Steve also suffers from "biker walk," an affliction that closely resembles imminent diarrhea:

Sure, he tried "padded shorts," but he didn't like them, because they made him feel like he was "wearing a diaper:"

Though he admits he was happy to be wearing them when what he thought was another bout of "biker walk" turned out to be explosive diarrhea.

Of course, the reasonable question at this point is, "What the hell kind of shorts did Steve buy?"  But Steve is not reasonable.  He's the opposite of reasonable--a Kickstarter inventor--so instead of buying different shorts he builds himself an inflatable bike seat:

Using cutting-edge 1980s sneaker technology:



Naturally his friends love it, probably because they also bought the same brand of diaper shorts:

I hate to say it, but Steve may need a recumbent:

For additional comfort, simply leave supplied naked rider in situ before mounting.

Landmark This: Bikes Not Diapers

(Stupid dumb idiots.)

Like many bike dorks, I have too many bikes.  Nevertheless, I can think of about a gazillion situations in which I'd find myself in Manhattan (or, Lob forbid, Brooklyn) without a bike and be grateful to be able to access one with the swipe of a card.  That's why I like this whole bike share thing.  Plus, I've used it in both Washington, DC and London and found that it works well, so I'm very pleased that we're getting it.

Unfortunately, people who don't know anything about how bike share works are leaving incredibly stupid comments on bike share articles all over the Internet.  Basically, it's the same few objections raised over and over, none of which have any basis in reality.  Just read the comments on this article--half of the commenters are too dumb to live.  Sure, there's an FAQ on the Citi Bike website, but nobody's going to read that.  Plus, FAQs are too polite for today's brand of Internet idiots.  What we really need is an FMC (or "Frequent Moronic Comment") page that lists them all and knocks them down one by one.  Here is an FMC for the bike share system:


This is New York City, the bikes will get stolen right away.

No they won't.  Why would anybody steal a klunky, ugly, worthless bike share bike with nonstandard parts when it's laughably easy to separate hipsters from their stupid $3,000 Chinelly X MUSH collabo bikes and then part them out on eBay?

Criminals are stupid, but they're not that stupid.  Stealing a bike share bike instead of a real bike would be like stealing a payphone instead of an iPhone.

To put it another way, I can go outside right now and steal a $500 wheel or a $200 saddle and seatpost from a locked bike in about 30 seconds, and all I need is a multitool.  Meanwhile, it takes about twice the upper body strength possessed by a typical cyclist to remove a bike share bike from a kiosk, even after you've legitimately paid for it.


People who want to ride bikes should just buy their own.

Yeah, OK.  And people who want to ride buses should also just buy their own.  And what the fuck is up with Netflix?  Anyway, it's useful even if you still own a bike.  I already own a toilet too, but it's still more convenient for me to use a different one when I'm not at home.  Plus, I don't even have to clean it!


Won't people ride around without helmets?

Yes.  Stop being such a fucking wussbag.


They only give you a half hour with the bike before hitting you with overcharges, that's stupid.

No, you're stupid.  That's the whole point, short trips for people who have jobs and lives.  You're supposed to ride the bike from one station and the other, not futz around on it all day.

You must be one of those people who spends 45 minutes in the Starbucks bathroom.


The tourists will run rampant all over the city.

Firstly, tourists already run rampant all over the city.  Secondly, the bikes are for people who live here.  The system is designed for short trips made by people who know where they are going.  Did you read the last part, idiot?  Tourists will still rent the goofy "Bike And Roll" bikes.


Noisy bike share stations with their corporate advertising will ruin the character of my landmarked neighborhood.

No, you're ruining the character of your landmarked neighborhood by being a douchebag.  Your landmarked neighborhood had character exactly until you moved there.  London and Paris both have bike share and they fart more beauty and history in their sleep than any Brooklyn neighborhood.  The average Tesco is more interesting than your stupid brownstone.

And yeah, bike share stations are so noisy, what with their loud motors and slamming doors and alarms going off all night long.


I think that about covers it.

By the way, as a reader points out, people in Brooklyn don't want Citibank logos on their precious streets, but they are fine with babies "making" all over the place:

Ms. Shapiro, who is a doula, a birth and child-rearing coach, says it is practically now a job qualification to at least be able to offer diaper-free training as an option to clients. Caribou Baby, an “eco-friendly maternity, baby and lifestyle store” on the border of artsy Greenpoint and Williamsburg, has been drawing capacity crowds to its diaper-free “Meetups,” where parents exchange tips like how to get a baby to urinate on the street between parked cars.

Expect to find a Brooklyn parent holding a baby with a last name for a first name over your Rivendell and leaving a nice big surprise on your Brooks sometime this summer.

Meanwhile, we're all supposed to be really impressed that someone won a race without taking drugs:

Also, something about a boat:

“He started out with us. I remember being out fishing in 2006 and I got his phone number and I was out on this boat, and I’d been chasing him around. I actually tried to convince him to turn pro in 2007 but he said no and wanted to stay amateur for another year,” Vaughters told Cyclingnews.

Wait, what?  Vaughters was chasing Martin around in a boat?  Or was the whole point of the story that he got a phone call on a boat?  This sounds like a story Grandpa Simpson would tell.

In any case, everyone in cycling is giving each other handjobs because somehow this is supposed to mean that the system is suddenly and miraculously working--except for Greg LeMond, who continues to receive handjobs for complaining about how the system isn't working:

"I want to see cycling get to where I can say I can see a real winner."

Do you mean "winning" in the crossing-the-line-first sense, or in the Charlie Sheen sense?  Because I can show you the latter:

Incredibly, he's actually worn that shirt more than once:

I bet he makes that "douche smirk" every time he pulls it out of the drawer, too:

(To make a douche smirk, just act like you're trying to smell your upper lip.)

He also makes that face every time "The Boys Are Back In Town" comes on the radio.

Anyway, Lance Armstrong didn't come to the anti-doping party, even though it was in Austin:

Armstrong was invited to attend the discussion in his home town but declined the offer.

Evidently he was too busy hastening the transition from "icon" to "novelty" by playing drums at a reggae festival:


 Which LeMond also attended by way of showing that there were no hard feelings:

 

Jonathan Vaughters would have come too, but you see, he was out on this boat.

Lastly, as you may also have read on BikePortland, a reader tells me a driver in the vicinity of Portland pulled off an "epic" drive in a bike lane:

Police walked with the car as it slowly made its way the other side of the bridge. Police said the driver was not impaired. She was not cited.

Isn't stupidity a form of impairment?

BSNYC Field Trip: My Blogger Went To Washington, DC and All I Got Was This Stupid Government!

So the New York City bike share system hasn't even launched yet and already the stations are being vandalized--not by aspiring young gangsters, but by yuppie gentrifiers:

Their objection is that the Citibank advertisement on the kiosk is not in keeping with their historic landmarked streets, an objection they raised last year despite the fact that they're more than happy to park their anachronistic Subarus and Volvos all over the fucking place.  Well, not having gotten their way, they've simply resorted to vandalism like the petulant children they are.  This is a shrewd move, because now instead of looking anachronistic the stations look just plain shitty.

This sort of behavior is typical of the New Brooklyn Douchery.  If they're so hell-bent on maintaining the illusion that they live in an earlier, quainter century then they should move to an actual small town and join the Amish.  Or, if they really don't want to leave their beloved Brooklyn, they can join their neighbors the Hasidim.  Now they know how to keep bikes out of their neighborhoods, along with pretty much everything else.

But no, the real problem here is that when these people go out for an expensive dinner at a quasi-rustic restaurant that opened six months ago and then walk back to their $3 million brownstones they don't want anything interfering with their charming gas-lamps-and-wainscoting fantasy--apart from the brand-new Outback parked out front, and the soft glow of real estate porn from their iPads.  I mean, come on, everybody knows they didn't have banks in the 19th century.

Maybe the DOT should accomodate them by giving them their own period-correct bike share system, complete with pennyfarthings and advertisements for snake oils and brain tonics.  They could be staffed by an old-timey barker who keeps them awake long into the night.  "Velocipede share!  Get your velocipede share, here!  Step right up, folks!"  Finally, the DOT would complete the illusion by sending a horse manure spreader down the street every couple of days.

Maybe that would shut them up.

Anyway, moving on, they may call Florida "America's Wang," but as far as I'm concerned Washington, DC's got our wang right here:

(The flags are the pubes.)

Note the scaffolding, which gives it kind of a "doggie boner" vibe.

Yes, the reason I was able to take a crooked picture of the Warshington Monument is that I was in Warshington, DC this past weekend flogging my new book, "Bike Snob Arboad."  I rode all the way there, too.  All the way from Maryland, that is:

Well, all the way from a part of Maryland that was about four feet from Washington, DC.  

Once in DC, I followed my number one rule of riding in city traffic, which is "Never get in an argument with anyone who's a jiu-jitsu instructor:"

One minute you're shouting, "Get outta the bike lane!," and the next minute, "estrangulamiento:"

Is it me, or does this form of fighting seem oddly consensual?  

Anyway, the driver of the jiu-jitsu mobile was driving perfectly responsibly, but I was careful to keep away nevertheless.

[By the way, just in case you are ever attacked by a jiu-jitsu instructor, the best defense is to slip away while he's slowly disrobing and coating himself with body oil.]

Speaking of molestation, next I saw a couple of Mormon thugs trying to convert a neighborhood youth:

I suspect that either the victim incapacitated them with some jiu-jitsu moves, or else the missionaries went back to their room and simply did some jiu-jitsu with each other.

Then, I was brutally "shoaled:"

"If only a comic book superhero would come to my rescue!," I cried--and then, incredibly, my wish was granted:

"I'll be right with you as soon as I'm finished urinating," said the Silver Surfer, after which he, the Incredible Hulk, and the Intergalactic Sex Nurse incapacitated the shoalers with some jiu-jitsu "estrangulamiento."

Leaving everybody to groan and writhe the night away in the street, I finally arrived at BicycleSPACE, in front of which was parked this old-timey truck, which I like to think belonged to the evening's musical entertainment, the Sligo Creep Stompers:

In today's Brooklyn people will pay you good money just to park a vehicle like that in front of their brownstones.

Inside, BicycleSPACE was full to bursting with finery from Brooks:

As well as this BikeSnobNYC merchandising Diorama of Douche:

Though the rabble were still waiting outside:

Occasionally, I'd poke my head outside and mock them:

By the way, I actually own this jacket, and I'm extremely fond of it:

Though it wasn't until I saw it on a dress form that I realized it must make me look like a Popinjay Paratrooper being air-dropped into the Republic of Fopistan.

Turning to the wall, I stood mesmerized by the British leather goods:

And then, fortifying myself with free Hedrick's gin punch, turned again to mingle with the Washington, DC power brokers:

Yes, every single person in this picture is a lobbyist for the gun industry:

After high-fiving the lobbyists for their successful congressional cockblocking I excused myself:

And then adjourned to the theater area:

Where I prepared to bore the tweed pants off a group of people drunk on gin and "roots music" with my multimedia presentation:

Sure, it's no IMAX movie, but I think I did pretty well with a production budget of only $35,000:

One day I'd like to do it in 3D, because some of the images would really "pop" that way:

(Pop!)

Soon, I Unleashed the Boredom:

After which people looked at me disgustedly:

In fact, they told me exactly where I could stick my presentation, and so the next day I took them literally by going on a voyage to Uranus:

Nevertheless, many thanks to all who attended, and to BicycleSPACE and Brooks for letting me be part of it.