I found my sunglasses:
They'd been sitting in there since Monday night.
I live on a quiet street.
Then, after dropping my 17 kids off at child labor summer day camp (their adorable little hands are ideal for making Specialized clothing and accessories), I took a little detour to do some backroads Big Dummy hill climbs while the temperature was still under 90 degrees:
(Crotch cam!)
I don't understand the logic of Freds who "train" on crabon bikes with crabon wheels, because where do you go from there? On the other hand, when you spend 90% of your time riding a Big Dummy in flip-flops (fuck yeah, I ride my Big Dummy in flip-flops, it's hot as balls out and I gave up on life years ago), the next time you get on a Fred bike you'll feel faster than an olive oil-drenched Cipo on his way to an orgy.
Yesterday I didn't have my sunglasses and my eyes were burning out of my skull as I attempted to dock a Citi Bike in Brooklyn in the thick of a heatwave. Every week I do the same Citi Bike schlep from Brooklyn Heights to DUMBO (Douches Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass), but for the first time my usual dock was full. So was the next closest dock. And so was the next-next closest dock. So now I was stuck with a Citi Bike and nowhere to put it. The Citi Bike app? No help:
(The Citi Bike app is useless as a bra on a cow. Or a nosering on a pig. Look, I don't know, I didn't grow up on a fucking farm, OK?)
By this point I was ready to sell the Citi Bike to a passer-by for $50 and then report my credit card stolen. Suddenly though, I had a stroke of genius: I'll dock the bike at the nearest housing project! The sorts of people who ride Citi Bikes are scared shitless of public housing! Sure enough, there were plenty of docks at that station, though unfortunately I was now nearly as far from my destination as I had been when I checked the Citi Bike out in the first place. Also, I nearly passed out from heat stroke, since immediately after docking the Citi Bike I ran as fast as I could until I saw my first artisanal food truck. Boy, I sure wish they'd finish gentrifying Brooklyn already, because some of these places are scary!
Then, on my way home, I was crossing a one-way street at an intersection with a stop sign when a salmon on a Craigslist Peugeot blasted through it and buzzed me so closely that I could practically feel the frills of his disgusting ass-worn jeanshorts:
(But, you know, at least he's wearing a helmenent, right?)
He stopped afterwards, which was when I took the above photo. I thought briefly about telling him what he'd just done, but it was just too goddamn hot to get into it and even thinking about it made me tired. So instead I figured I'd just take his picture and make fun of him on the Internet.
Afterwards, I checked out another Citi Bike, and as I rode it I reveled in the fact that I looked nothing like a typical Brooklyn cyclist. No jean shorts, not helmenenent, no messenger bag worn ridiculously high and tight or else ridicuously Sid-Vicious's-bass low like The Green Tank Top Salmon, no brand-new Surly Crosscheck with the reflectors still on it and the handlebars at a weird angle... Just an anonymous schmuck with some corporate advertising between his legs, squinting in the blazing sun because he's lost his sunglasses.
I guess what I'm saying is that I love cycling and I love the cyclists of New York, but they're also huge doofuses, so I want to do everything in my power to disassociate myself from them short of not actually riding a bicycle--just as the NYPD will do everything in its power to stomp out cycling, as Leroy inorms me:
(Wow, they really do hate bikes. Have you ever seen a UPS truck get towed?)
Actually, if I want to disassociate myself from the typical Brooklyn cyclist when I'm in Brooklyn maybe I should just dress like Bret--who, a reader informs me, has made the pages of L'Équipe (or at least a website associated with it):
By the way, if you're one of the people who have commented or emailed to let me know that Bret (and Bret, Jr.) are featured in the WorkCycles ad over in the right-hand margin, I can assure you I'm aware of it and am in on the joke:
I may have my head up my ass, but I'm not that out of it.
Speaking of the Tour de France, which I'm not following, Klaus of CyclingInquisition is and he tells me that the captain of the FDJ team actually suffers from going-fast-on-his-bike-phobia:
"Some people are afraid of spiders or snakes. I'm afraid of speed. It's a phobia," he confessed.
Wow. In professional cycling, being afraid of going fast on your bike is almost as crippling as being afraid of needles.
In any case, if you're wondering why there hasn't been a French Tour de France winner since Bernard Hinault, this sort of hiring practice could help explain why.
Meanwhile, race leader Chris Froome is carrying a rare African parasite:
Really, it's pretty clever of him to spin this as a handicap when every parasitologist worth his stool collection kit knows the bilharzia parasite is a formidable cyclist and imparts the gift of superhuman speed upon its host:
Expect to find more members of the peloton administering papercuts to themselves and wading through African swamps during the off-season in the coming years.
Lastly, remember the bike-hating Scion commercial that reduces cyclists to "obstacles?"
Well, they've pulled the ad and apologized:
Scion sincerely apologizes to members of the bicycling community that might have been offended by a recent advertisement. It was certainly not our intention to do so as Scion has great respect for bicyclists. Scion is sensitive to your opinion and in response, has made the decision to remove the advertisement.
In other words, they pay an ad agency a fuckload of money to make commercials for them. At no point in the process does it occur to anybody at the ad agency or Scion that maybe calling cyclists "obstacles" is really fucking stupid. Instead, they just put it out there, and then they make it sound like they're doing the consumer a favor by letting them consult on their ad campaigns for free.
Fuck them.
As far as I'm concerned, there's only one car ad in the history of car ads that I can actually get behind:
Maybe Scion's ad can say "For man-boys who like to pleasure themselves while watching 'The Fast and the Furious.'"
They can have that for free.
