It's Friday! Yay! No Quiz, Only Anger!

I can't help that some people are crazy, but I just wish they'd leave bikes out of it.  It's a machine with two wheels.  It's convenient, it's efficient, and it's relatively harmless.  So why do crazy people constantly have to incorporate it into their delusions?  Why the bike of all things?  Why not blenders, or barbecue grills, or irons?

Take Dorothy Rabinowitz, for example.  At this point I mostly just feel bad for her.  Citi Bike is pretty much polling through the roof, but this poor woman is still milking the bike crazy talk, and she doesn't even realize that the only reason people still pay attention is that they can't believe the stuff that comes out of her mouth:

Not only do I feel bad for her, but I'm legitimately worried about her, because this sounds like the behavior of a depressed person:

It was 1 p.m. on Sunday. The night before, she stayed up late watching The Sopranos, fell asleep at 4:30 a.m., tumbled out of bed at 10:30, made coffee, and played with her Tibetan terrier.

By the way, I've heard lots of slang terms for the vagina, but I've never heard it called a "Tibetan terrier."

Not only is she probably clinically depressed, but she's also deeply lonely--so lonely that she wishes the government would read her emails:

“Snooping into what? Most sane people would say, 'Go ahead, look at my e-mail correspondence, what do I care? As long you stop the bombers in Boston.' I mean, that is the normal, visceral American response.”

Apparently, in Dorothy Rabinowitz's universe, the government stopped the Boston Marathon bombings.

Anyway, I'm sure she's using the situation to her advantage:

She's also out of her fucking tree, and her addled brain is causing her to hallucinate:

“The pods have landed, only they've landed with the racks, and they're coming with allies called bicyclists. The activating force behind all of the fury was the racks, instruments of aesthetic torture.”

It's really awful when you think about it.  The poor woman is losing her mind and all we can do is interview her and laugh.  If only there was someone out there who loved her, like a family member or a close friend or even a friendly dry cleaner, they might keep the press away and get her the help she needs.  As it is, all she has is Simon Doonan:

I wonder if Simon Doonan's garden gnome visits her during those late night "Sopranos" jags and whispers into her ear about how bikes are ruining America before it starts playing with her "Tibetan terrier."

And no sooner do I finish reading that interview than I get an email that says this:

Here's a reasonable bit of opposition to the Citibike program; it might be a little harder to eviscerate than the WSJ's efforts.

And here's the article it links to:

Reasonable?!?  Holy shit!  This Daniel Greenfield guy must have been the biggest schmuck on the kibbutz.  He's like the offspring of Dorothy Rabinowitz and this guy.  Take this for example:

A city with streets full of cars is a working city. A city with streets full of bikes is a leisure city. 

Most of the people you see out there on bikes are riding them to work, dimwit.  And does this guy look like he's recreating?

Dumbass.

Then there's this:

The old loud New York City is being made smooth and quiet. Old noisy bars are making way for fake retro establishments that look like they date back a hundred years ago, but weren't even there last week. Car lanes are giving way to bike lanes. On one side overgrown children gleefully pedal their Citibank bikes, a habit they will abandon when winter sets in. On the other, the grandchildren of factory workers and the children of postal workers, watch them go by.

Clearly this putz moved to New York five years ago.  "Old noisy bars" are not "making way for fake retro establishments."  Rather, "fake retro establishments" are opening in neighborhoods that were previously quiet and residential, and in fact the most of the old quiet New York is being made loud.

By the way, every old-time Brooklynite likes to flaunt their authenticity by talking about how they grew up playing stickball in the street.  Well, you know why kids don't play stickball in the street anymore?  Because if they tried it they'd get run over by an SUV and die.

As for the ridiculous bit about the factory workers, I don't even know what that's supposed to mean, but I suspect he's trying to romanticize the sort of working class people he's never actually met in real life.  Mostly though he's just insulting them, since in his worldview they just stand there on the sidewalk being confused by bicycles.

And this is just fucking stupid:

There are rural parts of the country where walkers are suspect. A man who walks down the street, rather than drives, is suspected of being a bum or a criminal. Solid citizens own cars and drive them to work or to the mall. Indigents walk. The urban centers however are swinging the other way. It's the drivers who are suspect and the bike riders who are the solid citizens of the recyclable state.

So everybody, regardless of whether they're in the country or in the city, should suspect walkers of being bums or criminals.

Got it.

But wait!  It gets dumber!

Bikes, once associated with a wealthy leisure class who had the time to pursue their interest in nature and healthy activities, became universal when nearly every child could have one. Now bikes have been priced up into expensive adult toys. Cities are full of grown men and women who spend fortunes on expensive bikes that they hardly ever use except on the weekends, but hang prominently by their doors so that everyone can see.

Uh-huh.  Also, cars, once associated with a wealthy leisure class, became universal when nearly every schmuck went into debt to own one. Cities are full of grown men and women who spend fortunes on expensive cars that they hardly ever use except on the weekends, and park prominently by the curb so that everyone can see.

Fucktard.

Look, if this guy wants to write fucked up articles about "Jewish matters" and fondle his schmeckle while he waits for the "Moshiach" that's fine with me.  Just leave the bikes out of it.  That's a subject for sane people to discuss.

Oh, also, the NYPD appears to be redoubling its efforts to harass cyclists out of existence, for I recently received an email from a reader who got thrown in jail for riding on the sidewalk.  Here are the highlights:

Since my husband Lin and I came home from the hospital with our twin boys, Otis and Max, I've tried to sneak out for 20 minutes daily for a bike ride in Prospect Park to get a little exercise and clear my sleep-deprived head. It's been easy to do, especially with Lin's parents visiting. 

The Prospect Park traffic circle is pretty much a clusterfuck, and evidently the reader did what many people do, which is roll on the sidewalk for a bit in order to get to the park loop.  Unfortunately, he also did something I did a zillion times when I lived near Prospect Park, which was duck in for a few laps without carrying ID.

Obviously you're not supposed to ride on the sidewalk, and while sometimes there's a good excuse, other times I think if you get ticketed for it then tough shit, them's the breaks.  This, however, is ridiculous:

Without delay, she told me to put my hands behind my back and *handcuffed* me - not the plastic, protest-y kind of handcuffs, but big metal numbers. And then she put me in the car. (Thankfully a local business owner, alarmed at what he'd seen, offered to store my bike until my return, saving me an extra hassle.) While the one who cuffed me was outside on the phone, undoubtedly deciding whether to screw with me or not, I mentioned to the partner that I had two newborns and home and maybe they could verify my identity through the computer, as was readily possible. 

No, instead they threw him in jail.

Yeah, so I don't know, I think we're probably fucked.  You know who's kicking ass in the mayoral polls?  This guy:

(He must have bought that helment for $3 at a Park Slope stoop sale.)

I've never seen a non-roadie look so unhappy on a bike.  He looks like Simon Doonan being forced to have sex with Dorothy Rabinowitz.  Clearly though, he has to pretend to like bikes until he actually gets into office, at which point he can finally "have a bunch of ribbon-cuttings tearing out your fucking bike lanes," as he once put it.

We are so screwed.

When Baguettes Are Outlawed Only Outlaws Will Carry Baguettes

Incredibly, the cycling world continues to gear up for the Tour de France with a straight face, and [honestly, who can keep track at this point]-time winner Alberto Contador says he's "at 90 percent:"

Wow, I wonder how he'll get to 100%:

Don't skimp on the "A.1.," Bertie.

As far as I'm concerned, the last honest rider was Jean Robic, shown here worshipping the Great Lobster On High, as forwarded by a reader:

Not that he didn't dope, because he totally did, but because he donated all the proceeds from his "Playgirl" shoot to charity:

By the way, I had no idea Robic had such a formidable list of nicknames until I looked him up on Wikipedia and learned that he answered (and by "answered" I mean "head-butted you in the teeth") to any one of the following:

The hobgoblin of the Brittany moor

(Le farfadet de la lande Bretonne)

Leather-head (tête de cuir)

Kid goat (Biquet)

Yeesh.  That reads like the filmography of an expressionist horror film director.  Really, only Bradley Wiggins's sobriquets can rival Robic's in sheer evocativeness:

The Mod-goblin of West London

Bowl-Cut Bradley

Cuntzalcuatl

Noel and Liam Gallagher's Chimeric Twin

Cock, Frock, and Two Hairy Sideburns

But of course Wiggins isn't defending his Tour de France title this year because like his knee hurts or something, and honestly I can't blame him.  It seems clear to me after all these doping scandals that the only sensible approach to being a Tour de France champion is the "one and done" approach.  Seriously, just take the money and run, because coming back to win it again is like returning to the scene of the crime.  The more times you win the more urine samples they have to pore over, and they're way into examining vintage urine these days.  I mean, this guy didn't even win the Tour and they're going through his pee-pee from 15 years ago:

But don't be too hard on him, because, as he puts it, “I can’t firmly say that I’ve never taken anything illegal."

Coincidentally, at this moment, I also can't firmly say that I'm wearing pants.

I also can't firmly say that I think riding your Citi Bike over the motor vehicle lanes of the Brooklyn Bridge is a great idea:

As I finally passed her (we were almost off the bridge) my daughter snapped those pics with my phone. I was in the left turn-only lane waiting for the arrow when she pulled up and got off the Citi Bike to walk it across the intersection. Curious to see if she was a bike activist, I called out, "Did you do that on purpose?" She looked at me abashed and said "No, that was a total accident. It's my first time across the bridge."

Oopsie!  Having ridden over the Brooklyn Bridge many, many times myself, this seems to me like a really, really difficult mistake to make:

Then again, tourist traffic on the bridge has reached the point that maybe someone who's confused and high on the undeniable excitement of riding a Citi Bike might just assume the bike path is for pedestrians only.

As for whether it was appropriate for some guy to take her picture and send it into a website, that's a matter of debate.  One thing's for sure though, which is that the guy missed a lucrative opportunity to sell her the Brooklyn Bridge, because I don't doubt for a minute that she'd have bought it on the spot had he offered.

Then again, riding over the car lane on the Brooklyn Bridge is arguably safer than following the letter of the law, because Gothamist also reports that a cyclist was rear-ended while waiting at a red light:

This a$$hole was texting as he rolled threw a red light intersection and ran over a guy just sitting on his bike waiting for the light. PLEASE HELP US CATCH THIS GUY...

I tried to block his car with my bike, but he came out and almost accosted both of us. he was too big for us to handle...He sped off with his half way pregnant partner.

You can be halfway pregnant?

Anyway, just for fun, I looked up the driver's license plate on the NYC website (someone posted the plate number in the comments) and the driver has a shitload of unpaid parking tickets:

Interestingly, the make of car on the tickets doesn't match the make of car in the photo, which could mean any number of things, from the witnesses getting the number wrong to the driver engaging in some sort of "switcheroo."  Either way, if only the police were able to somehow use a license plate number to look up someone's address and then bring a driver to justice for running into somebody and then driving away, then maybe then the streets would be a safer place.

Oh well, too bad that's never gonna happen.

By the way, I've often looked up license plates after negative encounters with drivers, and usually the driver has a shitload of parking tickets.  Consequently, I've come up with a crazy theory, which is that people who park illegally all the time and then don't pay their tickets aren't responsible enough to drive cars, but of course you'll never see the police cracking down on that.  Instead, they crack down on cyclists who avoid riding on cobblestones:

Clarkson Street is a major exit off of the West Side Greenway for cyclists heading to points east. It’s also a place where one will find a lot of cyclists riding on the sidewalk, for reasons I’ll outline below. The question I have is this: is conducting a ticket sting at this location an effective use of limited NYPD resources? As is evident in the picture above, there are no businesses that face the street. Pedestrian traffic is very light to the point of not even existing at some hours. Does ticketing cyclists in this location do anything to enhance public safety?

Having often exited the Greenway here I can't blame people for riding on the sidewalk.  I mean, I always ride on the cobblestones, but that's only because I'm really a Fred at heart and get a big Fred boner whenever I see cobbles.  However, a normal, sensible person would clearly avoid this section of street for all the reasons listed in the post, because it is a fucking mess.

In "fairness" to the NYPD though, they actually ticket motorists exactly the same way.  Basically, what they do is find some spot where drivers are breaking the law because they really can't help it (some fucked-up turn lane or merge where traffic gets so backed up it's nearly impossible to be in the correct lane) and they just walk on down the line ticketing drivers like they're making their way through a buffet.

Otherwise, if you're in a car, you can pretty much whip around town doing whatever the fuck you want.

Meanwhile, I've just this very moment learned from Twitter that riding a bicycle in New York City is officially illegal:

Yes, you've long suspected it, but now they're coming right out and saying it:

Incidentally, that's the same street in the above-mentioned "crackdown" post, so it looks like it won't be long before the city has this "riding bicycle" problem licked once and for all.

Lastly, speaking of Fred boners, why not portage yours in a "Baguette Bag," as forwarded by another reader?

About Baguette Bag:

There’s something special about purchasing a fresh baguette while it’s still crispy and warm. The CYAN's Baguette Bag guarantees your trip home from the bakery will never be the same. Made especially for the baguette fans, the Baguette Bag protects the fluffy loaf while keeping your hands free. Place your just purchased bread into this stylish accessory and sling it over your shoulder – now you can bike or walk and carry other groceries in your hands without damaging the baguette. And if you're empty-handed, you can always keep your hands free while walking instead of worrying about protecting the loaf.

All You Haters Protect My Fluffy Loaf.

Ready, Set, Wednesday!

Hey.

So remember I was going to go on a "family adventure" to Grise Fiord, Canadia, but I couldn't find the directions on the G--gle Maps?  (If you don't, just to bring you up to date, I was going to go on a "family adventure" to Grise Fiord, Canadia, but I couldn't find the directions on the G--gle Maps.)  Well, I kept dragging the pin around, and the northernmost location to which I seem to be able to get bike directions is some place called "Chemin Laforge 1:"

If my high school French is still serving me well (and I believe that it is), "Chemin Laforge 1" means "Oven Shirt 1," and since it's only 1,434 miles from my manse I've decided that's where we're going to go:

Here's the cue sheet, which is pretty long:

Though it's still shorter than the one from the Rapha Gentlemen's Race.

Anyway, here's the expedition vehicle we'll be using, and I figure we'll head out tomorrow at about one-ish:

I'm packing a bag of pretzels, some juice boxes, a bottle of vodka, and an iPad.

Oh, and my axe, in case I have a hard time getting the pretzels open.

I also plan to get some health care while I'm up that way, since I've had a nagging bullet wound for awhile now but the treatment is prohibitively expensive.

One last question, though--do you actually need a passport at the Canadian border, or will they still accept a library card?

Unfortunately, my trip will force me to miss the Bicycle Film Festival--and by "unfortunately" I mean "fortunately" because I wasn't planning on going anyway.  There are two reasons you won't find me at the Bicycle Film Festival, and they are as follows:

1) There will be lots of cyclists there.  

Cyclists are like martinis: one is fine, two or three can make for a good time, but much more than that is going to make you puke;

2) There will be movies about cycling there.

Most fun things make good film subjects.  Take sex, for example.  People like to have sex, and people like to watch movies of other people having sex. For some reason though, cycling doesn't follow this rule, even when you combine it with sex--or, more accurately, especially when you combine it with sex.  To wit:


Yes, only someone from Portland could make both cycling and sex totally unappealing.

Anyway the trailers for this year's Bicycle Film Festival only prove yet again that cycling has no place in film.  Take romance, for example:



I mean, don't get me wrong, Keanu Reeves looks fantastic for a guy approaching fifty, but I'm still not going to see it--though a bicycle romance still seems more promising than a bicycle revenge fantasy:



I'd hate to break it to the filmmakers, but hit-and-run drivers are not tortured by guilt after they run down cyclists.  Instead, they just say to themselves, "Fuck it, he'll be fine," and then crank up the '80s Pop Hits on Sirius.

Of course, it is possible I'm too old to appreciate this sort of independent cinema, and fortunately the Festival also has films for the older demographic:

Apparently pennyfarthing owners are "caretakers of these bicycles" who must "pass them on to the next generation in equal or better condition then we received them:"



So basically, it's sort of an intergenerational bike share program.  Still, next year the Festival might want to consider addressing the vast demographic that exists between 20-somethings and Civil War veterans.

Oh, there's also going to be a movie about riding when it's cold:



See?  It's cold and they're riding bikes.

I'm looking forward to the sequel about riding bikes when it's hot.

Most exciting of all though is the long-awaited debut of the film "Murder of Couriers," which has been in the offing for years now.  It's the "Titanic" of messenger documentaries.  We've examined this before, but here's the latest trailer:



I actually transcribed all the text in this video and ran it through an online Canadian-to-English translator, which yielded the following:

It's all kind of like, you have to ride a bike? With stuff? And you have to bring the stuff to the people who are waiting for it, eh?  And then they have to sign a piece of paper for it?

And like, it's a totally hard job? But only because somehow we manage to totally overcomplicated this? Mostly because we're stoned out of our fucking minds? But also, like, sometimes the weather's shitty or whatever? But like we live in Canada so it's not like we have any actual problems that aren't weather-related?

I do acknowledge that there was a time when the world of the messenger was worth exploring, but that was last century, and since then about a thousand urban jobs for young people have supplanted it in terms of sheer hustle and badassitude.  For chrissake, times are hard and there are young people actually working their asses off out there!  Even the most "mundane" job is harder than being a bike messenger.  For example, have you ever been to a Chipotle in Midtown Manhattan?  I have, and what those guys can do behind the counter will blow your fucking mind.  Seriously, they are fucking drilled.  They must have made burritos for 50 people inside of five minutes--and with deadly accuracy, no putting on the wrong salsa or anything!  I was paid up and out the door before I even finished ordering, that's how fast they were.  So spare me the "'Whoah,' you know, 'I almost got hit by four different buses and I punched a jaywalker and almost shit my pants'" crap.  You don't sound like someone who gets to ride around Vancouver on a bike all day.  You sound like Mr. Magoo.

Only marginally less self-imporant are the bike messengers' distant cousins, the Tour de France cyclists.  Yes, apparently they're actually going to bother putting on another Tour this year, and Andy Schleck thinks he will be the "surprise of July:"

Nobody makes threats quite as ineffectually as Andy Schleck.  Remember when his tummy hurt that time?  That was nothing!  This time he's going to be the "surprise of July," which basically just sounds like a delicious dessert.

Speaking of the Tour de France, I've received exciting email from over-punctuated saddle manufacturer "fi’zi:k" that they're going to put animals on their riders' asses:

Each Team Cannondale rider will feature on the rear panel of their team shorts in place of the standard fi’zi:k logo their specific Spine Concept Animal, which best reflects their high performance on-bike fit. The Tourminator, Peter Sagan for example, will ride as a Bull as that’s the Spine Concept Animal which best fits Peter’s on-bike physique. 

If you're unfamiliar with their "spine concept," it's one of the most absurd marketing gimmicks in cycling, and what it essentially boils down to is that they help you find sort of a spirit animal for your scranus and then sell you a saddle accordingly.  If you're not grossed out yet just check out this video:



I mean, come on.  Are you fucking kidding me?  What kind of "Spine Concept Animal" is that?

They're going to have to blur that on the TV coverage.

Losing Your Way: Smart Phones, Dumb Riders

Further to yesterday's post about dragging kids around, a reader had this to say:

Dennis said...

Kids that big being carried around like dead weight in a trailer? What's to be smug about? Kids age 12 and 6!? They make really nice 7 speed bikes that can fit a five year old.

If your kid is four and not riding his own bike? Well. I'm not comparing your kid to my kid. I'm not saying your kid is retarded because retarded is such an unacceptable word and that's why I'm not using it. Every kid develops at their own rate. Maybe your kid will get her training wheels off when she's 6. Like how it was in the 70s. How retro! It's fine. No pressure. Don't pressure your kid to ride by 4, please. Carry them around and let them play first person shooters and watch Pixar sequels nowhere in your sight while you pedal. You do that. Tens of millions of American kids spend their days exactly the same way. 

Some kids will cross the Rockies in the back seat of an SUV glued their screens, and others will do so in a bike trailer. Same experience, for them. I guess it's an epic trip for the SUV's engine, or the guy pulling the bike trailer.

All I'm saying is, I'm not seeing nothing in your kids to be smug about.

June 24, 2013 at 5:16 PM

Oh, save it, Dennis.

It's one thing when "grown-ups" go around trying to out-smug each other (this is the basis of Portland's entire "bike culture"), but it's quite another to start dragging the children into it.  "My four year-old's a bigger Fred than your four year-old."  Gimme a break.  Plus, what happens when your kid gets a little older and decides he hates bikes?  Hey, it can happen.  I hope my kid still likes to ride as he gets older, but if he doesn't then so what?  As long as he doesn't dabble in anything truly stupid and dangerous, like God or religion, then I'm happy.

In the meantime, I've decided to launch a Kickstarter for my own "family adventure," and I've chosen as my destination the North Pole--though unfortunately I couldn't find it on G--gle Maps:

Granted, I did major in English at a state university so my knowledge of pretty much everything is hazy at best, but I'm pretty sure the North Pole's not in Flushing.

Therefore, I set my sights a little lower (latitudinally speaking), and instead zeroed in on a northern location G--gle could actually find:

Though when I clicked the button that gives you bicycling directions I got this message:

We could not calculate directions between [my address, redacted because I don't want your hate mail] and Grise Fiord, NU X0A 0J0, Canada.

Whatever, no big deal.  It seems pretty straightforward anyway until you get to about here, at which point I assume you just ask a helpful Mountie or flag down a water taxi:

Oh, sure, I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking, "Not only is it horribly irresponsible to take an American child to Canada, but it's doubly irresponsible to bring him to that part of Canada, where the average yearly temperature is 2.3 °F or [mumblemumblemumble]°C and there are only three (3) Tim Hortons per dozen residents."

Well you can relax about that too, because I'm not bringing my kid, I'm just bringing a loaner kid.  Plus, I've got toasty warm outfits for us to wear:

(Me)

(The kid.)

I don't see what could possibly go wrong.

Speaking of directions, some company asked me if I wanted to try this:

Like any good 21st century douchebag, I have a smartphone.  I also use it for directions, even when I'm on a bicycle.  Even so, the last thing I want is my phone staring me in the fucking face while I'm riding my bicycle.  There you are, settling into a nice rhythm on the climb, when in comes the "Can you pick up some toilet paper on the way home?" text.  Look, I'm always happy to pick up toilet paper, but it really takes you out of the moment.  At least if it's in my pocket I can wait until I stop to urinate before reading it.

Plus, all this smartphone technology is making cyclists incredibly soft, and we were already pretty much the wimpiest leisure athletes out there anyway.  The whole "cyclists know how to suffer" thing is a total myth.  Think your "century" is an accomplishment?  Go out and run for 45 minutes and report back--unless of course you're a triathlete, in which case you're not a cyclist anyway so your opinion doesn't count.  So get the damn phone off your bars already.  You know what the best motivation for "training" is?  The fear of getting lost.  When getting dropped from the group means being left in the middle of nowhere 50 miles from home then you find the energy to hold onto that wheel no matter what.

Then again, I might be willing to make an exception for this smartphone mount:

(Via them.)

That would look great on your Rivendell.

I'll also readily acknowledge that putting a smartphone on your handlebars is not nearly as bad as wearing a navigational helment:

Interestingly, the utility of this helment goes way beyond bike share, since by pegging it to the Citi Biek system they've essentially created a helment that will guide the wayward gentrifier to the nearest white neighborhood no matter what they're riding:

Feeling uneasy?  Haven't seen a Brooklyn Industries or a Connecticut Muffin for a few blocks?  Just follow the pulsing light and you'll be out of that "sketchy" neighborhood and enjoying a craft beer in no time.

Lastly, I've received an email that the Bicycle Film Festival is coming to New York:

BFF NY is coming quickly!
— BicycleFilmFestival (@bffworld) June 25, 2013

Coming quickly, eh?  Maybe it should think about baseball.

The email also contained a few previews (or what we in the industry call "trailers") including this one:

 

Yikes.

Someone needs a solid meal, a beer, and a hug.

Adventure This: The Call of the Mild

[Begin with idle weather chat.]

Whew, it's a hot one today!

[End idle weather chat.]

Well, enough about the weather.  So, bikes!  Between bike corrals and all those bike share stations, local curmudgeons love to complain about how bike parking is taking away car parking from the honest, hardworking drivers whose registration fees and fuel taxes are paying for all this wonderful infrastructure.  Meanwhile, bike advocates counter by pointing out that a bike rack provides parking for dozens of self-entitled gentrifiers, while a car parking space serves only one morbidly obese family who break into a sweat during the twelve-foot waddle from the SUV to the pizzeria.

Well, it turns out that the bike advocates are actually wrong, and this photo from Leroy proves that SUV parking can benefit cyclists too:

Something tells me a shitload of old crappy ten-speeds are going to hit the local Craigslist tonight.

Meanwhile, further to yesterday's post, a commenter is fine with my calling Americans stupid but draws the line at being mean to Dorothy Rabid-O'Witch:

Stuart said...

Congratulations, Bike Snob! I have often watched the transition of Americans from America-love-it-or-leave-it patriots to head shaking I-can't-believe-its. The crucial factor is leaving America and living overseas where you can get a better perspective on how stupid Americans are. You have managed the transition without living overseas.

I do think the Rabinowitz jibes are getting a bit too cruel, however, verging on ageist. They're not funny.

June 22, 2013 at 7:46 PM

I disagree that I'm being too cruel to Dorothy Rabinowitz, for I believe that when a public figure crosses a certain threshold of stupidity they forfeit the right to be treated with respect.  Plus, it's not like Rabinowitz is being stupid about something harmless.  We're not talking about movie or restaurant reviews here.  We're talking about matters of actual life and death.  Every year a subway carload of people is run down and killed in this city and she wants to make it seem like bikes are the problem?  What kind of scaly reptilian creature thinks this way?

[Hint: this kind of scaly reptilian creature.]

Furthermore, I especially disagree about the "ageist" thing, since I've reviewed my comments from Friday and they're not ageist at all.  My first assertion was as follows:

She has a urinary tract infection that keeps her up at night.

So is a urinary tract infection a condition reserved only for the elderly?  Hardly.  Here's what causes UTIs:

Usually, germs get into your system through your urethra, the tube that carries urine from your bladder to the outside of your body. The germs that usually cause these infections live in your large intestine and are found in your stool. If these germs get inside your urethra, they can travel up into your bladder and kidneys and cause an infection.

Women tend to get more bladder infections than men. This is probably because women have shorter urethras, so it is easier for the germs to move up to their bladders. Having sex can make it easier for germs to get into your urethra.

I think we can rule out the "having sex" thing, so basically what this means is that Rabinowitz is wiping back-to-front.  If anything, a woman of her age should know by now how to keep from "begriming" her pee-pee hole:

(I should also add that, as of now, there is no proof whatsoever that you can contract a urinary tract infection from a Citi Bike.)

I also accused her of the following:

She has a Brillo Pad for a "muff."

Again, this has nothing to do with her age, and I'm sure she's had an abrasive Brillo Pad muff from the moment she hit puberty back in 1926.  I also suspect that, in addition to being scratchy, her Brillo Pad muff also goes all pink and foamy when you wet it, which could be contributing to those urinary tract infections.

Anyway, the "all-powerful bike lobby" is certainly no match for the AARP, so you can be sure I wouldn't say anything to get on their bad side.  The last thing I want is for them to mobilize their anti-cycling strike force.  One moment you're just riding along in the bike lane on your Citi Bike, and the next one of these bad boys is bearing down on you:

As you turn around and disappear beneath the bumper, the last thing you see is a wool flat cap barely visible just above the dashboard, and a pair of hands with giant swollen knuckles gripping the steering wheel.

Speaking of getting run over, could it be that the NYPD is actually stepping up their investigation of deadly crashes?

Bike lanes and bike share is nice and all, but if they can change "No criminality suspected" to "No, criminality suspected" then we'll finally be getting somewhere.

In the meantime, things are so desperately bad for cyclists in most of America that we're now resorting to simply begging our neighbors not to kill us:

Here's more about the project and how it harnesses the awesome power of pathos:

I was so moved that I actually made a contribution.  However, my contribution wasn't a monetary one.  Instead, I contributed another "Please don't kill me" trading card:

I'm now typing this sentence with one hand because I'm using the other one to pat myself on the back for saving a life.

Elsewhere on Kickstarter, a cunning man has styled himself as a "family adventurer" in order to fund his latest summer vacation:



So you live in Portland and you schlep your kids around in a "bake-feets?"  Fie!  This guy rode a Family Criterium of Smugness around Iceland:

The trip, he reports, was not easy:

Though as it turns out the hardship had nothing to do with the punishing headwinds and forbidding terrain. Rather, it was the constant cries of, "Hey Dad, why the fuck couldn't we have gone to Disney World?!?" from the trailer that made the trip so brutal.

Nevertheless, this tireless family adventurer simply turned up the Björk on his iPod and pressed bravely onward.

Yes, he's Sir Edmund Hillary meets Clark W. Griswold, and this time they're going to retrace the steps of Lewis and Clark:

Now, I know a thing or two about cycling with kids.  (Or one kid, anyway.  I mean, I have 17 kids, but I only like one of them enough to take him out on the bike.)  I also know something about taking kids on adventures.  Just yesterday, I exposed my own kid to wild animals--though to be honest those animals were in a zoo, and also we took the train instead of the bike because, uh, air conditioning.  (I did take my axe though, just in case.)  Still, he might want to rethink that book title:

Again, I'm not saying change the trip.  I'm all in favor of dragging children over mountain chains, as long as I'm not the one who has to do it, because it sounds kinda hard, and also air conditioning.  All I'm saying is change the title.  You know, maybe just replace the word "Perils" with "Joys."  As it is, it's a little bit Michael-Jackson-dangling-his-kid-over-the-balcony.

Either way, it sounds like a great trip, and years from now the kids will argue about what they enjoyed more: Collecting roadkill data:

Or grappling with Sumo wrestlers:

Fuck it, I'm renting a Hyundai and going to Six Flags.

BSNYC Friday Fun Quiz!

In the latest twist in bicycle hysteria, the New York Times is now reporting that the unfortunate people of Amsterdam are drowning in bikes:

This clogged stream of cyclists is just one of many in a city as renowned for bikes as Los Angeles is for automobiles or Venice for gondolas. Cyclists young and old pedal through narrow lanes and along canals. Mothers and fathers balance toddlers in spacious wooden boxes affixed to their bikes, ferrying them to school or day care. Carpenters carry tools and supplies in similar contraptions and electricians their cables. Few wear helmets. Increasingly, some are saying what was simply unthinkable just a few years ago: There are too many bikes.

Wow, sounds horrible.  The problem?  Some people have more than one bike!

Part of the problem is that many Amsterdamers are not satisfied with just one bike, and often do not care where they leave those they have. “I have three,” said Timo Klein, 23, an economics student, picking one of his out from a scattering of dozens of bikes on the central Dam Square, some still usable, others clearly wrecks. “If one breaks down, I don’t have to use public transportation,” like buses or trams, which in the city’s narrow, clogged roadways are slower than bikes.

Three bikes?!?  How selfish!  Think of all the resources he's squandering--not to mention all those cubic centimeters of space he's taking up!

Worst of all, in Amsterdam they actually do have the sort of all-powerful bike lobby that keeps Dorothy Rabinowitz tossing and turning all night (well, that and her chronic bladder infection):

With so many bikes around, one of the more powerful lobbies in town is the Fietsersbond, or Cyclists’ Union, with its 4,000 local members. Musing over why Amsterdamers are so keen on bikes, Michèl Post, a union official, attributed it to the country’s density.

Ah, "Dutch people problems."  Sure, I guess there is a genuine bike-parking crunch in Amsterdam, but I'm sure they'll figure it out--you know, because they're Dutch and not Americans.  Yes, they'll be totally fine just as long as they don't listen to anybody from the United States, and the comments on this article reveal the profound depths of American retardation.  Consider, for example, this idiot:

Albert Z. K. Sanders East Hampton NY

Mayor Bloomberg here in NYC is putting more bikes out. What can he be thinking of? The present bikes are a menace. There have never been any bike regulations enforced here. I have almost been injured repeatedly by bikes surprising me by going the wrong way on one-way streets, by riding on the sidewalk at high speed. Have you ever seen a policeman even reprimand a bicyclist doing something dangerous? I never have.

Wow.  The guy in East Fucking Hampton is seriously complaining about bikes in the city?  Maybe he's never seen a policeman reprimanding a bicyclist while he's "in town" at his Park Avenue place because he's got his head buried in Dorothy Rabinowitz's Brillo pad muff the whole time.

Here's another American with a brilliant fucking idea that could only come from our nation's capital:

Lynn in DC Um, DC

There may be 900,000 bikes but that in no way translates into 900,000 cars if say, bikes were outlawed. Bikes are relatively cheap so anyone who wants one can obtain one and pretty much everyone can ride a bike. Cars are not cheap, one must learn to drive, there are limits to who can drive plus there are items such as registration, tags, etc so there are significant roadblocks to car ownership. I point this out to explain why there would be far fewer cars if Amsterdam developed a car culture. Not to mention that cars cannot be parked in a random fashion as bikes are; garages (surface and underground) and street parking are required.

Yep, you got it--Amsterdam needs to outlaw bikes and develop a "car culture" and that will solve all their problems.  Clearly Americans are too stupid to live--which I guess explains why we're running each other over and shooting each other all the time, or simply dying because we're too fucking fat.  Just imagine how exquisitely we could fuck up Amsterdam if only they'd let us.  I'd give it two years before we'd institute mandatory bicycle licensing and registration and pave over the canals to create a series of expressways.  And obviously it goes without saying that we'd crack down on all the prostitution and marijuana, forcing the drugging and whoring inside of giant SUVs with tinted windows where it belongs.

Also, naturally it should be difficult to own bikes:

Trixie NYC

That's a poor argument; the proliferation of bikes exists in part because they're bikes. People can have three, as the man in this article does, because they're relatively cheap and disposable. The city should just better tax bike registration, with exploding fees for multiple bikes kept downtown in public spaces.

Actually, Trixie, that's a poor argument; the proliferation of cars in America exists in part because they're cars.  People can have three, as most people in America do, because they're relatively cheap and disposable and we have some of the cheapest gas in the world.  The city should just better tax car registration, with exploding fees for any cars kept parked for free in public spaces.

Fucking dimwits.

This is how stupid Americans are: we actually have "self-hating pedestrians."  Have you ever encountered one?  I recently did.  There I was on my bike, waiting for a pedestrian in the crosswalk, when a turning SUV started bearing down on him and honking.  So what does the pedestrian do?  He turns to me--the guy who's actually yielding to him--and starts telling me off.  I guess it's just a victim mentality: sublimate your helplessness by directing your outrage at anyone but your oppressor.

This is why, as lovely as bike share and all the rest of it is, I'm not all that optimistic for the future of cycling in this city or this country.  Basically, the entire culture needs to think differently, and before that happens there needs to be a total generational turnover--in other words, all these stupid idiots have to grow old and die.  Though by then they've taught the next generation of idiots to be equally stupid, so really what's the point?

Fuck it, I'm leasing a Hyundai.

Lastly, speaking of Amsterdam, remember this trailer?



Well, the people who made it are working on a documentary, and they've launched a Kickstarter to get it done:



If the coal companies really want to maximize profits, they should forget schlepping the stuff through Montana and Wyoming and all the rest of it.  Instead, they should just harness the awesome power of Dorothy Rabinowitz's sphincter to turn it all into diamonds.  Just stick a lump of coal up there, show her a picture of a Citi Bike, and she'll be shitting out "bling" in a matter of minutes.

And now, I'm pleased to present you with a quiz.  As always, study the item, think, and click on your answer.  If you're right get excited, and if you're wrong you'll see still more evidence that abandoned bicycles are the biggest problem facing humanity today.

Thanks for reading, ride safe, and pray that the unfortunate people of Amsterdam find a solution to their horrible bike problem.


--Wildcat Rock Machine

1) Wow, we sure do look like a bunch of idiots.

--True
--False

(Hushovd about to reveal his inner pussy.)

2) Thor Hushovd is a pussy.

--True
--False

3) This bicycle has:

--Tubes of steel

--Hubs of white

--Lugs of spoodge

--All of the above

4) In the time it takes to watch his Citi Bike video, Casey Neistat could just walk his ass to work.

--True

--False

5) Watch out, "Bicycling!"  It's 2013, and Lennard Zinn has just discovered the exciting new world of:

--Chain catchers

--Saddle bags

--Blinky lights

--Clip-on fenders

6) Finally! Now you can:

--Go from Fred to Tridork in a matter of seconds!

--Maximize your power transfer with a clipless saddle!

--Integrate Strava into you helment!

--Support and protect your scranus with an orthopedic crabon chamois!

7) Finally!  A:

--Flying bicycle

--Recumbent fanboat

--Folding bike hovercraft

--Beige hat

***Special "Cycling In America: Why Even Bother?"-Themed Bonus Video***