[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.
