Happy Thanksgiving weekend!

Happy Thanksgiving to all the American readers! What are you up to today? We'll be heading to our friends' house in Brooklyn, where they have a fireplace, red wine and lots of stinky cheese. Have a wonderful day, and here are a few fun links from around the web...

The trailer for the next season of Girls. Will you be watching?

Mapping how Americans talk.

Curious to try this sleep app, which wakes you up when your body is ready.

How to sound like an art genius.

Such great Jackie Kennedy photos.

A babysitter's adorable photo series. (Thanks, Julia)

Zach Braff photobombed this wedding couple!

Because grammar.

And, finally, three Thanksgiving tips from this great book:
* "Start serving drinks the minutes your guests arrive, no matter the hour. Thanksgiving is not a time to judge."
* "A salad is a perfect accompaniment to many meals, a hit of astringency that can improve some dinners hugely. Not this one. You can have your salad tomorrow."
* "Thanksgiving is a holiday that anchors itself in tradition. Which means: You should make turkey. Turkey is why you are here."
Have a good one! xoxo

(Top photo by Vanessa Rees for Saveur)

Creamy Pasta with Roasted Vegetables

This month, we're asking food bloggers to share their go-to fall pastas, and here's a delicious and quick vegetable pasta from Melissa of The Fauxmartha. As the mother of a newborn, she says this dish has saved their dinner-eating life. It would make a great meal on those busy winter weekdays. Here goes...Read More >

Great idea for holiday cards

My friend Kendra, who is a prop stylist, had a fantastic idea for her family's holiday cards: They choose a holiday song lyric and take a photo inspired by it.
As part of a three-part series sponsored by Canon, we wanted to share a bunch of their past cards, as inspiration. Take a look, below...Read More >

Ballet is tough.

Have you guys heard of city.ballet? It's a twelve-part online documentary series about New York City Ballet, narrated by Sarah Jessica Parker. Each episode is about 6 minutes, and I watched them all in one blast last night. You hear from apprentices who are trying desperately to get into the company, corps de ballet members who are hoping to stand out, soloists who feel stuck in the ranks and principals feeling all eyes upon them. It's inspiring and fascinating, and another example of how it's hard to make something look easy.
(A bunch of little ones auditioning for the school! Those little bellies!)

P.S. Toby taking ballet.

(Photos of the School of American Ballet auditions by Greg Gilbert/Seattle Times and Jason DeCrow)

Motherhood Mondays: Life with two kids

Anton and Toby are interacting so much now! It's totally adorable. Toby has a trick where he says, "Shoulder ride!" really loudly and Anton will crack up with his husky throaty laugh. And they took their first bath together yesterday. Their growing relationship is so, so sweet to watch and makes my heart burst. So that is going well.

But although we're getting into a rhythm now that Anton is 4+ months, it's still pretty nuts. It ebbs and flows, right? Sometimes when we're hanging out with friends and Anton is happily wriggling around and Toby is cracking jokes, I'm like, we are total parenting geniuses! But then a few hours later, the little dudes are freaking out at home and I feel like a total mess.

Also, one of the less glamorous parts of having a baby: My hair is falling out, which, according to google, is because of dropping estrogen. Did you lose your hair four months after having a baby? In the picture above, my hair was still thick and glossy, but now I look like this:
Anyway, I'm curious to ask parents of two: When does it get easier with two kiddos? When did you generally get back on your feet? When I've casually asked friends with two kids, the most common answer has been "when the youngest child turns three." (WHAT!) Also, I'm curious: When did you think it got easier with one child? I remember feeling like myself again (thank goodness) once Toby turned one.

P.S. Always helpful to remember: Babies be babies.

Have a beautiful weekend.

What are you up to this weekend? We are going to a lasagna party in Brooklyn tomorrow evening. I'm also reading this book and LOVING it. And Anton has started laughing at Toby's antics! Like big adorable belly laughs. Warms my heart:) Hope you have a wonderful, relaxing weekend, and here are a few fun links from around the web...

Thanksgiving Dinner slot machine!

10 most bike-friendly cities in the U.S.

Strangers falling asleep on the subway.

Brussels sprouts toasts.

Great boots on sale.

How to stay happy this winter. Made me laugh.

What a sexy holiday dress.

Such a pretty apartment in Brooklyn.

These twins taking a bath don't realize they're out of the womb.

Rare photos of famous people.

Thanksgiving Mad-Libs are a great idea.

Designers touching their faces.

Toddler naps with his puppy. DYING OF CUTENESS!!!!

Bonus for all readers: If you're sending holiday cards this year, Pinhole Press has great designs, and you can get 33% off with the code CUPOFJOCARDS through December 2nd. Thanks!

(Photo of PNB Summer Intensive dancer by Angela Sterling, via this addictive tumblr)

BSNYC Friday No Quiz, Just Hair of the Dog

Next Thursday is Thanksgiving.  If you're unfamiliar with Thanksgiving, it's the day when Americans gorge themselves and give thanks for the bountiful fruit of centuries of cultural rape and environmental plunder.  Sure, many of us will be enjoying our Thanksgiving feasts in mobile homes parked outside of Walmart, but I think few of us would argue that there's never been a better time to be American, especially since we'll be so convenient to the turkeys we've purchased on layaway.

(These lazy Walmart associates must have only one full-time job.)

Given this, I'll be not posting all of next week, but will return to the helm of the SS Wildcat on Monday, December 2nd, at which point I will resume regular updates.

Hey, that tofurkey's not going to hunt down and kill itself, nor is it going to stuff itself into a pig, because that's what we eat in my house on Thanksgiving, turduckens be damned.

Meanwhile, yesterday I made some wisecracks about both "God" and dogs.  Well, while the Lard seems largely unconcerned with matters of child molestation, He or She would appear to move quite swiftly when a bike blogger is flippant on the subject of religion, for here's what happened:

Shortly after publishing yesterday's post, I took it into my mind to sneak in a little lunchtime bicycle cycling ride.  So I pulled on stretchy clothes, ratcheted on those shoes that click into your pedals, and headed to my bicycle with the curved handlebars like they use in the Tour de France.

Lo and behold, the rear tire of this bicycle was flaccid and devoid of air.  (This was not, it should be noted, the same bicycle that incurred a flatular tire earlier in the week.)  Therefore, I extracted the inner tube with designs to patch it, and the puncture was so tiny I actually had to find the hole with my lips.  (If you can't find a hole in a tube, inflate it to comical size, lick your lips, and run them around the tube.  Laugh if you will, but the Lard gave us sensory organs for a reason, and that reason is to repair inner tubes.  If all of this sounds incredibly phallic, that's only because it is.)

Once I'd found the puncture, I patched it, replaced the tube, inflated it, and was on my way.

Unfortunately either the patch was faulty or I was, because after a mile or so it became apparent the tube was losing air again.  At first I was in denial, but eventually rim started hitting pavement and it became clear I'd have to stop and replace the tube, which I did.  Then I scuttled up a hill and onto my favorite little unpaved trail, at which point I heard a sound like rushing air from my rear wheel.  "Curses!," I muttered under my breath, but it turned out to be just an autumn leaf trapped between brake bridge and tire, so I went to pull it out, only to find the leaf had been cemented in there with what appeared to be dog feces.

"Fie!," I exclaimed, but by wriggling the stem of the leaf I was able to convince the dog feces to fall out in a single clump.

So I continued on, and a few moments later encountered an actual dog.  It was small, black, and fuzzy, and it was attached to one of those retractable leashes.  Naturally, it was about 400 miles out in front of its owner, and it was jumping and yapping and zig-zagging like a fish at the end of a line struggling to remain in the briny deep.

I always slow down and give dogs a wide berth for obvious reasons, which was what I did here, and indeed this time I came to nearly a complete stop since the dog was so excitable, but given the narrowness of the trail and the extreme length of the retractable leash and the dog's addled state there was no way to give it a wide enough berth, nor was the owner making any attempt to control this animal whatsoever, so the next thing I knew the little piece of shit fucker had leaped at my leg and bitten me.

"Your dog just bit me, you fucking asshole!," I ejaculated, somehow refraining from punting the little shitbag canine into the Hudson, and the gray-haired man simply kept ambling along as though I were little more than the wind whispering in the trees.  Like, he didn't even turn around to look at me.

Figuring it was just a nip, I continued on, but after five or ten minutes I actually stopped to look at my leg, at which point I discovered holes in my leg warmers and actual bloody holes in my skin.  I'd never been bitten by a strange dog before and I had no idea what to do, so like any helpless individual I called my wife, and she said, "Go find the guy and see if the dog has been vaccinated."  So I back-tracked in search of them, but of course they'd vanished, and then I went to the doctor who gave me a tetanus shot and put me on antibiotics--because, as he explained it, "dogs lick their asses."

And that's why my lunch ride sucked, and yes, I encourage you to laugh at me and not with me.

Oh, I should also mention that all of this happened right by the spot a reader informed me was where David Berkowitz and pals used to sacrifice dogs:

So that's pretty fucking creepy.

And obviously I'd be remiss if I didn't include this:

This song was exactly the first thing to pop into my head after it happened.

Speaking of dogs, apparently it's a "thing" to take yours rat hunting:

“We don’t make a huge difference in the rat population, but the dogs have a lot of fun,” said Richard Reynolds, a main organizer of the group, which, in an effort to form the acronym RATS, he semiseriously calls the Ryders Alley Trencher-fed Society (Ryders Alley was once a rat-infested lane downtown, and trencher-fed refers to the keeping of hounds to hunt). The group, which includes some members who travel from the suburbs, has been meeting for 15 years, mostly in downtown Manhattan in areas where trash is abundant.

I don't have any problem with dogs killing rats (better a rat than my leg), but how are they not "violating any laws?"

In fact, it would appear that the rat hunters are not violating any laws or health codes, and the plight of rats, at least those living on and below New York’s streets, does not generate the same level of passion as the plight of, say, the city’s carriage horses.

Uh, what about leash laws?

I mean, I don't really care, but it seems worth mentioning.  If they were hunting rats with bikes they'd sure as hell find a way to lock somebody up.

Of course, the important question here is, "So, do the owners dress like they're out in the English countryside when they go rat hunting?," and the answer is, "Of course they do:"

“The city loves us,” claimed Mr. Reynolds, casting his group as a free extermination force. He was wearing a tweed cap and gripping a spike-tipped walking stick, for poking garbage bags and for protection from the rodents.

If your next tweed ride doesn't end in a full-on rat hunt then you're doing it wrong, though they'd never go for that in Portland, since I'm sure it would make too many vegans cry.

Here in New York City though the flattened rat pancake in the middle of the street is a staple on garbage pick-up day so we're made of stronger stuff.

There is the small matter of dogs chomping on poisonous rats, though:

Still, not everyone supports the rat hunts. Brian Shapiro, the New York State director for the Humane Society of the United States, said there were numerous cases of dogs biting rats and ingesting poison consumed by the rat.

This type of activity exposes dogs to the “likelihood of eventual toxic exposure,” he said, adding, “The more times the owners send them out, they are repeatedly exposing them to that risk — it’s not good guardianship for a dog.”

Actually, it's a bigger problem for the local hawk population, which is depressing.  In any case, this is why you should limit your rat hunts to the vicinity of the Park Slope Food Co-Op, where the rats mostly just consume locally-grown organic produce and quinoa.

Lastly, as I tend to my dog bite I can at least console myself with the fact that I've made the Restoration Hardware Stocking Stuffers collection, "Tools for the Athlete" category, to which I was alerted by a Tweeterer:

Wow, right above the "golf ball personalizer:"

Oh Lard, let the rabies take me, because I can die happy now.

And with that, I wish you a very happy Thanksgiving, unless you don't celebrate it, in which case I hope you feel very happy next Thursday for no apparent reason, and I look forward to seeing you again on Monday, December 2nd.

Longingly,


--Wildcat Rock Machine

Awesome shades

One final post about our place before you're totally sick of it! :) A few people asked about the window treatments, and they're really really awesome. The apartment had old blinds when we moved in, and we were nervous about the cords with the boys. So we got shades from Decorview, which Emily knew about–they basically come to your place, measure everything, help you pick out colors and textures, and then come back and install it all. It's so easy. And the coolest part is that they're motorized!!! You just press a button on the wall—or a remote!

Here's a video we took with the boys in the morning, where Toby is basically speaking a different language the entire time. Haha, three year olds:)

P.S. Toby talking about Indian food, and becoming a New Yorker.

Your Life Is A Meaningless Digital Illusion, No Big Deal.

Data.

We can collect and process data in ways we never could before.  In the grand scheme of life on this planet, it wasn't that long ago that the abacus was a really big deal.  Now, the computer currently resting on my groin is more powerful than the one that sent Apollo 11 to the Moon.  (At least I'm assuming that's the case.  At the very least my computer is vastly more capable of accessing porn.)

For the most part, this whole data processing thing is good.  Data analysis helps us conserve, learn, and heal.  A doctor can count your blood cells now, whereas a couple centuries ago he would have just cut you open and bled you.

Sometimes though all this data processing isn't so good.  Consider cycling.  In the last few years we've come up with innumerable ways to quantify just how much we suck at riding bikes.  Here's one example, which I came across via the Twitter:


Pedaling: what could be simpler?  It's turning your feet around in circles.  Yet, incredibly, it's enough to power this incredibly efficient machine for miles and miles.  You'd think this would be enough for people, but for some reason they need to know which leg is better at it:

And where in the circle it's better:

And the various mathematical equations involved:

Here's an equation: your bike plus all this expensive crap equals you still suck.

"But it's a tool!," cry the Freds.  "Analyzing this data will make me a better cyclist!  And look, there are graphs!"

Yeah, it's a tool and so are you.  Sure, there are graphs.  This one is very informative.  See that drop in pedaling efficiency?  It coincides with that moment I eased up in order to reach into my bib shorts and shift my balls.  Therefore, if I want to be the best Cat 3 I can be, I'd better work on more efficient ball-shifting--or else buy a $500 pair of shorts with a KuKu Penthouse.

Hey, look, I'm not a communalist.  This is America, baby!  Canada's seal blood sluice!  We're free to buy what we want when we want, and to shoot anybody who tries to take it from us.  At the same time, though, it's hard not to find this preponderance of costly power measuring equipment slightly offensive.  I mean, come on, a "pedal monitoring system?"  Do you really need to spend $2,500 for something that tells you whether or not you're pedaling? They use less shit in the hospital when you're giving birth to tell you if your baby's still alive.  It's like "the machine that goes 'Bing!,'" only for Freds.

Oddly though, I watched the same video in Japanese, and it didn't bother me at all:



Go figure.

Anyway, I watched this video yesterday evening, and so I was already thinking about cycling and data obsession, and wouldn't you know I awoke this morning to find Jason Gay had written a column about amateur athletes and their compulsion to chronicle their "achievements:"

I enjoyed this column, but he and I are clearly constructed with a different crabon fiber lay-up:

But I am OK with this. Let's be clear about what we're saying when we ask people to curb their enthusiasm for their athletic achievements. We are saying that it bothers us. But what about it is irritating? Public displays of enthusiasm are everywhere. There is a guy in my neighborhood who wears a Star Wars hat all the time. This does not trouble me. I do not ask him to stop wearing the Star Wars hat (though I wonder if he has other hats.) Same goes for pets: I don't see the "I Love My Corgi" sticker on the back of a car and think, Wow, the Corgi people are really getting to be annoying. Whatever happened to someone just owning a Corgi and shutting up about it? I just think that someone in that car loves Corgis. And that the interior of that car probably smells like Corgis.

See, this is where he's far more vertically compliant than I am.  Jason Gay sees a bumper sticker and finds it charming and whimsical.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not judging him.  In fact, I wish I could get a prescription for whatever he's on, because when I see a bumper sticker I get angry.  Really angry.  I don't want to know what other people are thinking because what they're thinking is probably stupid.  When I see a Corgi bumper sticker, not only do I want the driver to shut up about the goddamn Corgi, but I also judge them harshly for taking a dog that has been specially bred over generations to work on Welsh farms and subjecting them to a mundane life in a crappy suburban home so everyone who comes over can secretly giggle at those ridiculous stubby legs until the thing slowly develops cataracts and those pathetic cloudy dog eyes and ultimately gets put to sleep.  Meanwhile, people are abandoning pit bulls in the park by tying them to trees, and they're incinerated by the thousands because nobody wants to adopt them, but good for you for buying a Corgi.

And it doesn't stop there.  I don't think I've ever seen a bumper sticker that didn't make me angry. When I see a religious bumper sticker I think, "Screw you, your make-believe god, and the combination tax shelter/child molestation factory you've built around it."  When I see a bumper sticker about some kid who's an honor student I think about how that kid probably sucks at other things.  When I see an environmental bumper sticker on a Subaru I think, "Fuck you, you're driving a car around Park Slope!  You're basically waving a 'Safe Sex' banner while fucking Mother Nature bareback!"

Really, the only thing worse than bumper stickers are vanity plates, and the most idiotic vanity plates of all are the ones that simply state the make or model of the car, like when you see a Honda and the license plate says "HONDA."  How stupid do you have to be to pay the state extra to reinforce the advertising your car's manufacturer has already plastered all over the thing?  Then you roll up next to the car and it's blasting some insipid "music" consisting of little more than someone reciting the brand names of the products he likes to buy, and you realize most people are little more than vapid and unwitting pixels in the flashing banner ad that has become our culture.

I mean, obviously that doesn't stop me from blogging about my rides and going on (and on, and on, and onandonandon) about my own stupid opinions, but if I wasn't a total fucking hypocrite then I wouldn't be human, now would I?  Really, the point here is that it's all about me, and this new age of self-promotion isn't good for my already addled mental state.  So forgive me if I don't want to hear about your workout, OK?

So between the "pedal monitoring system" and the WSJ column I'd already churned myself into butter, and then a reader forwards me this app which endeavors to turn Strava into even more of an auto-fellating experience:


Cliiiimb: A Real-Time Strava Experience from 4iiii Innovations on Vimeo.

"If it's not on the leader board, it didn't happen," the video begins.

Just as I suspected: my entire life is a mirage.

Do you ever use your phone to take a picture or a movie and stop to think that as we digitize everything around us that maybe we're already living in an entirely digitized universe we've already created?  And as you think about that, do you also think that maybe that digitized universe was digitized by people in a different universe, who themselves have been digitized, and so on and so forth to infinity, and then you just fall down twitching and foaming at the mouth?

Because I do.

Well, I don't actually fall down twitching and foaming at the mouth, but I do need to sit down for a minute or two with a slice of pizza.

Anyway, all of this crap only confirms my deepest quantum-physical fears, because this thing allows you to have a "phantom ghost rider" or something and compete against the you that exists in some other digital dimension:

"Go, go, go," it tells you in a nonplussed robotic voice as you cross the imaginary line in your imaginary race against an imaginary person how lonely and alienated we have become technology is turning us inward to oblivion oh my god kill me now:

Wait, I didn't say that last part out loud, did I?

I hope not.

Then it tells you your ride's over, just in case you're too stupid to figure out that you're home.

As it happens, the "Cliiimb" hardware is relatively cheap as these things go, but in terms of the cost to your dignity is putting a bunch of plastic sensors on yourself just to go for a ride really "cheap?"

I mean, look at all this crap!  Which one goes up your ass?

Anyway, next come a bunch of hard-hitting Fred interviews in the Bay Area:

"It's a much more interactive way of riding, it kinda takes the guessing out of...going out for a 'Strava Ride' if you will..."

Seriously, a 'Strava Ride' is a thing?  That's like having a 'Masturbation Date.'  Wanking is one thing, but it's quite another when you calendar your wank in your iPhone, send yourself flowers that afternoon, and then take yourself out for a $100 dinner before rubbing one out on your silk sheets.

And look at the glasses!

I dunno, all this seems like a highly concerted attempt to remove contemplation from cycling.  There's nothing like a ride to help you reflect and work through your problems, but the fact is that as you do this you don't always like what you find.  I suppose that's why people would prefer to chase a dot in their glasses to actually thinking about stuff as they grind their way up that climb.  I'm not that way, though.  Some days you're dancing up that climb because things are going your way, and other days you're trudging up it because you're dragging a metaphorical trailer full of hardship, and I'm of the belief that you should embrace all of it..  That's why I'm coming out with my own training app, which will include a $1,500 "head unit" (or optional $2,000 interactive glasses) that will stream the following information as you ride:

--Your bank account balances;
--Recent professional and personal successes and failures;
--What your spouse or life partner and other family members are currently doing and how much emotional currency you're spending by fucking off for a ride while they do it;
--How much money you've spent to date on cycling equipment;
--Mike Sinyard's real-time net worth;
--Using statistics, blood samples, and medical records, the time remaining until you'll most likely be dead.

That ought to help put that ride in perspective.

But not only is this data stuff an attempt to dodge dealing with life; it's also a full-fledged conspiracy.  See, using technology, they'll soon take cycling completely indoors, freeing up our country's road for all those self-driving cars:

The king is dead, long live the KOM.

Home makeover: Master bedroom

Thanks for your comments on our apartment makeover this week! It has been really fun to share photos with you. Emily also helped us style the master bedroom, and here are the before and after pictures...
Read More >

This Wednesday, Treat Yourself To Something Nice.

Yesterday I wrote all about clothes, and then I got this email from Outlier:

Hey Bike Snob,

We used to think we wanted perfection, but what we really want is the transcendent. We want to make clothing that transcends the bullshit of the market. Clothing that transcends the disposability of fast fashion and the exclusivity of luxury. Transcends the unnecessary divisions between functional and social, between urban and outdoor, nature and technology, work and play.

Sorry, what?

Let's read that again:

We used to think we wanted perfection, but what we really want is the transcendent. We want to make clothing that transcends the bullshit of the market. Clothing that transcends the disposability of fast fashion and the exclusivity of luxury. Transcends the unnecessary divisions between functional and social, between urban and outdoor, nature and technology, work and play.

Yeah, no, I still don't get it.

Apparently they don't either, but they've made a t-shirt in the meantime, and it costs about $100:

We're still a long way from home on this journey but if we have anything to show for it, it's the Ultrafine Merino T-Shirt (and V-Neck). A simple t-shirt made from 17.5 micron merino, nature's finest performance fabric.

There was a time not so long ago when I thought the cotton t-shirt was just about the most basic and versatile garment ever invented, but evidently I was wrong by a dozen or so microns and about $80 or $90.

"But merino doesn't get stinky!," someone will no doubt point out.

What?  Who cares?  What the hell ever happened to doing your goddamn laundry once in awhile?!?

By the way, I don't mean to pick on Outlier, who are a local concern and do very good work.  (Three years ago they gave me some pants and they're still going strong, though I have no idea how the pair they gave to my erstwhile intern are doing, since after scoring free pants and a free bike he pretty much disappeared.)  It's just that I am who I am, I smell how I smell, and that's that.

Hey, for me, splurging on a t-shirt means buying one that doesn't come in a three-pack, but I seem to be part of an increasingly small minority.

Speaking of yesterday's post, I also mentioned my massive urban cycling "street cred," and yesterday I cycled urbanely all the way to Brooklyn, a borough whose "street cred" is rapidly going the way of the t-shirt three-pack.

It was blustery, like an aging blogger complaining about artisanal t-shirts (only with cold air instead of hot), and so I elected to ride my Fred Sled since I wanted as little bicycle as possible to slow me down.  This is a pretty accurate representation of how I was riding:



Except that suddenly, in the middle of Manhattan, my tire exploded with a mighty BLAM!, and when I stopped to examine the damage I found a gash like a bass mouth (or at least what I imagine a bass mouth to look like, because it probably won't surprise you to learn that I don't fish):

(To spare you the sight of my disgusting fingernails I've used Technology to give myself a French manicure.)

Anyway, I'm generally pretty good about scanning the pavement ahead of me and avoiding anything big enough to do that to a tire, but not this time.  You might think I'd be annoyed, but a flat like this is oddly satisfying.  No searching for some tiny bit of metal lodged in the rubber, no inflating the tube until it is comically oversized and trying to hear the soft hissing of the puncture over the sound of traffic, no irritating pneumatic ambiguity.  Instead, the tire's fucked, and that's that.

So what did I do?  Well, needless to say, given my massive "street cred" I simply sewed the casing back together with dental floss, booted it with a MetroCard for good measure, put a new tube in there and was on my way.

Just kidding!

No, fuck that.  It happened about a block and a half from a bike shop so I bought a new tire.  Not only that, but the guy in the shop offered to actually put it on the bike, and as an "urban cyclist" with massive amounts of "street cred" I was horrified at the idea of having a bike shop install a tire for me, but the guy was so goddamn fast that the "No, thank you" was hardly even out of my mouth before the tire was on--label perfectly aligned with valve stem no less--and he was kicking my ass out the front door.

The rest of the day passed without incident, apart from the legions upon legions of fuck-tarted motorists doing stuff like running lights, preening and de-lousing their pubic thatches while idling in bike lanes, and drifting across multiple lanes of traffic while communicating in a series of grunts with their fellow fucktards on their mobile phones.

By the way, I think the cabbies have been emboldened by the fact that they let that leg-severing driver off, because I watched one of them attempt to run a red light at a major intersection and he only stopped after being shouted at by the all the pedestrians already in the crosswalk.  So I figure it's only a matter of time before they start driving around with leg talismans on the hood, like Vyvyan in "The Young Ones:"

But make sure you don't ride your bike while playing music, because they'll put you in jail:

 

Silly cyclist!  You're only allowed to play deafeningly loud music from a three-ton SUV with tinted windows, everyone knows that!

In other news, ever since the first caveman installed a primitive hinge in a coconut shell, humankind has dreamed of perfecting the foldable helment--and now one man in a city with a big Ferris wheel believes he has finally done it:



Here it is folded and looking like a plastic fish:

Though I notice there are very few pictures of it actually unfurled and atop someone's head, possibly because it will make you look like your head is being humped by a plastic armadillo:

Given the London bike share system is sponsored by Barclays, I'm surprised they didn't just attach a helment to every bike with a ball chain, like they do with the pens at a bank.

Speaking of London, the city is reeling from a recent series of cyclist deaths, and mayor Boris Johnson is on the defensive:



Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, says cycling in the capital is 'getting safer' despite a spate of fatalities. Johnson insists that London has seen an overall decline in the number of cyclist deaths since he took office. The mayor says he will consider banning lorries from driving in the capital during peak hours

I'm sure many Londoners are angry with him, but if it's any consolation, most American mayors would rather be caught smoking crack than considering putting any additional restrictions on truck traffic.

Same goes for Canadian mayors, but that's obvious.

Home makeover: The nursery

Thanks for your comments about the living room makeover yesterday! We were also really grateful to work with Emily on the boys' bedroom. Here are the before-and-after photos, if you'd like to see...
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Rotini with Blue Cheese & Spinach

This month, we're asking food bloggers to share their go-to fall pastas, and today's recipe is this rich and creamy rotini (with just a handful of ingredients) from Cara of Big Girls, Small Kitchen. Here goes...Read More >

Home makeover: Our living and dining room

Thank you so much for all your sweet notes about our home makeover! I'm really excited to share the final photos. As I've mentioned before, we were lucky enough to work with the fantastic Emily Henderson. Here are the before and afters of our living room, if you'd like to see...
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Let's Dork Out Over Bike Clothes Today Because This Is A Blog About Bicycle Cycling.

Allow me to shelve my modesty for a moment if I may and to speak frankly:

I have massive "street cred" as an "urban cyclist."

Sorry, but it's true.  I've been riding in this town for a pretty long time--sure, not as long as David Byrne, but certainly before David Byrne started talking about cycling, because riding a bike was nothing special then and nobody would have given a shit.  I rode over the bridges when they still had holes in them.  In fact, I even worked as a bike messenger for awhile--in the winter no less!  It was also before cellphones (or at least before it was normal to have a cellphone), and since they didn't give the newbies radios (or at least they didn't give me one) I had to ride around town with about 400lbs of quarters in my cargo pants so I could call into my dispatcher from a pay phone.

Pay phone for chrissakes!  You could catch ear herpes!

Anyway, I was thinking about all this because I'm getting old now so I spend more time remembering stuff and less time actually doing stuff.  Yet, paradoxically, as a bike blogger I now have more bike-related stuff than I ever thought possible.  On top of that, everything has become highly refined.  Consider lights, for example.  I don't think I even used a light on my bike when I was a messenger.  At most, maybe I'd have one pathetic little red blinky, and once the battery died I couldn't be bothered to replace it.  Then Knog revolutionized the blinky light industry with the "hipster cyst," and lights got better and better, and then you could recharge them with your computer, and now I have enough Knog Blinders to illuminate [insert your favorite baseball stadium here, I can't be bothered because I fucking hate baseball] stadium.

Clothing is another item that has become highly refined.  When I was a messenger I just wore a bunch of cheap crap from the army navy store.  (In fact, I still wear a bunch of cheap crap from the army navy store.)  Now everybody from Levi's on down wants to sell you some variation on the high-performance on-the-bike, off-the-bike wardrobe for your "urban cycling" adventures, most of it very expensive.

As an old person, I appreciate some of these refinements and I look askance at others.  The light thing is amazing--visibility is a big deal, and rechargeable lights that fasten easily to pretty much any part of any bicycle makes being visible way, way easier than it used to be.  The clothes thing on the other hand...I don't get it.

There are certain bits of "wisdom" in the cycling world that have become gospel over the years, and one of them is that you shouldn't wear cotton.  It gets wet, it doesn't dry quickly, you'll catch a chill and die, blah blah blah.

Bullshit.

Okay, sure, if you do a 100 mile ride in a cotton sweatsuit you're going to be really fucking miserable.  But as far as this vigorous on-the-bike, off-the-bike stuff all the boutique clothing is designed for, cotton is just fine.  I've tried a fair amount of this stuff by now, and most of it isn't much of an improvement over a pair of work pants, a thermal, and a sweatshirt.  "But ooh, it's cotton, you'll sweat, freeze, and die!"  No you won't.  When you're out there on a road bike riding steadily for hours at a time a Lycra stretchy suit will certainly help you regulate your body temperature and sweat and frumunda production and so forth, but when you're starting and stopping and going inside and going outside and wearing a bag on your back it's another story.  Wearing your merino blahbidyblah under your tailored outer shell made from the revolutionary new HipsterTec fabric doesn't really make much of a difference.

Take a look at people doing real outdoor work in the city, like the people who are building all these luxury condos.  They're not wearing merino hoodies and $250 jeans.  (Though the people designing the luxury condos probably are, because you somehow need a technical wardrobe to ride your fixie for 40 minutes from your loft to your design studio, yet all you need is some work clothes to hang from a scaffolding in gale force winds all day.)

Given all this, I've been trying to make sense of this Giro stuff I recently received.  Granted, this is more "performance-oriented" and less "urban" than stuff like cycling jeans, but it still occupies that strange and expensive no-man's-land between Lycra and street clothes that I don't quite understand.  Nevertheless, I've been experimenting with it, and here's where I am so far:

I still don't understand these things and I don't think I ever will, nor have I ever had much trouble doing the "Killroy" with any of my current bib shorts.  In fact, the only time I could ever envision using the fly in my underpants would be if I was in black tie and didn't want to remove my cummerbund, so I suppose these will be my go-to undershorts if I ever ride to the Academy Awards to accept an Oscar.

I have yet to actually wear this shirt out of doors because it hurts my brain.  You put it on and it's long, but the sleeves hover somewhere between your arm and your wrist, which seems like exactly the opposite if what you want when you're riding a bike.  Either you want short sleeves, or you want sleeves long enough to cover your whole arm, even when you're reaching forward over your handlebars.  I mean, right?  Or are people having issues with overheated wrists now?

I'd be legitimately interested to see if anybody sees a point to this.

I wore this over the summer sometimes.  It's scratchy.  I preferred a cotton t-shirt while riding, even though everyone knows cotton doesn't wick properly and that you'll get sweaty and then you'll catch pneumonia and die.  For running though this is good, since I run for a very short time but sweat a fuckload more than I do while riding, so I'm willing to trade comfort for something that doesn't become quite as waterlogged, mostly because I'm less likely to horrify my neighbors in the elevator.

This vest is extremely comfortable and pleasantly light weight, though that same light weight makes it sort of useless for those windy autumn months on the East Coast which is when you actually want to wear a vest.  Maybe my vest was a little too big, but the wind found its way in through the arm holes and up the bottom and I froze my ass off last time I wore it, whereas my roadie Fred stretchy suit vests are indispensable and awesome.

I suspect maybe the issue is simply that this stuff comes from California and isn't as well-suited to the Northeast.  I can certainly see how a lot of this stuff would be a lot better for those misty Northern California bike-and-burrito dudefests.  Here in New York though we're too busy being cold.

This is merino and polypropylsomething-or-other.  It's very nice, but I prefer a "normal" Fred jersey with a base layer.  This gets kind of saggy when you put stuff in the back pockets.  Also a "normal" Fred jersey dries faster.

I rarely wear regular shorts over bib shorts.  If I do I like cut-off work pants since you still have "normal" pockets for your wallet and keys and phone so you don't have to fish around for your crap or take off your backpack, and if you're wearing bib shorts underneath it really doesn't matter what the overshorts are made of anyway.  These have the kinds of tiny pockets they like to put on "technical" clothing so you're basically limited to a key ring and some LSD tabs.  So for $120 I'm not sure I see the point.

This is really nice.  Is it $250 nice?  I don't know, but it is definitely nice.

So basically, that's over $1,000 of stuff, and six out of seven of the items I don't get.  Either I don't know what the hell I'm talking about or this industry is downright kooky, though I suspect it's probably a combination of the two.  Still, this "collection" seems like the clothing equivalent of a really expensive flat-bar road bike.

In any case, if you want my advice (which you don't), buy some nice "traditional" stretchy Lycra stuff for your Fredly exploits and recreational bicycle cycling endeavors, and then buy "regular" clothes for the rest.  (And if you want to recreate what Giro's attempting here you can always combine the two.  Your regular bib shorts plus some cut-off Dickies or camo fatigues equals the "bib undershort" and the "tech overshort.")

I now encourage readers to avail themselves of the comment section to share their own tips and experience with regard to cycling and apparel, because this is a blog about bicycle cycling.

Then end.

Love,

Wildcat Rock Machine

Mindblowing Volvo commercial

We'll be posting photos of our house makeover today, but meanwhile, I wanted to share this ridiculously awesome Volvo commercial. It was filmed in Spain at sunrise in one take. Have you seen it? Insane.

Gift idea: Photo books for kids

This past Father's Day, we made Toby a board book about his adventures with Daddy. He LOVED the book and still reads it all the time.
So, for Christmas this year, we're planning to surprise him with a stack of five new photo books...Read More >

And Thus Endeth The Great New York City Cycling Experiment

Here's a story that reaffirms my faith in New York City cycling.

A few weeks back, there was a series of violent bike thefts on the Willis Avenue Bridge between Manhattan and the Bronx:

The latest incident occurred on Nov. 1, when a 34-year-old man rode his bike over the Willis Avenue Bridge at 6:15 a.m. Police say two men grabbed the rider off his bike and began to hit him in the face with a metal pipe.  Emergency medics on the scene suspected that his nose was broken and took him to the hospital. 

So what did the police do?  They set up a sting operation in which undercover officers dressed as cyclists, and then they arrested all the assailants involved.  Furthermore, there's now a patrol stationed there to make sure cyclists can pass over the bridge safely.

Just kidding!

No, actually what they're doing is ticketing cyclists for riding on the bike path:

Rienti says the officer told him that the precinct had received complaints about cyclists using the path. Rienti told the officer that it’s a shared-use path where cyclists are allowed. ”He sort of just shrugged his shoulders and wrote the ticket,” Rienti said. ”I thought he was going to give me some sort of warning.”

And not only did they ding this guy for riding legally on a bike path, but then they dinged the poor guy again on the way home:

Update: Rienti says in a followup e-mail that he received another ticket on his commute home tonight on the Willis Avenue Bridge after an officer brushed away the DOT bike route information Rienti showed him. “He told me that you can only bike where there is a sign telling you it’s okay,” Rienti said, adding that he also plans to fight the second ticket in court.

You've got to admire the efficiency here.  A few years back, the NYPD came up with the bright idea of parking in the bike lane, forcing cyclists to ride around them, and then ticketing the cyclists for leaving the bike lane.  Of course, it's perfectly legal to leave the bike lane if you need to do so.  Therefore, they've clearly realized that if they're going to give you a ticket for something that's perfectly legal, they might as well dispense with the trouble of setting up a blockade and instead just make up some shit about how "you can only bike where there is a sign telling you it's okay."  And since, to my knowledge, there are very, very few signs that explicitly tell you "it's okay to bike here," that pretty much allows them to give you a ticket for simply being on a bike anywhere at any time.

Meanwhile, you already know this, but it bears mentioning that it's still totally acceptable to attempt to run down a cyclist with your taxicab and then sever a woman's leg in the process as she enjoys a frankfurter on the sidewalk:

Of course, nobody wants this to happen, and fortunately the president of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers has come up with an innovative solution:

Mr. Himon could not be reached for comment. But Fernando Mateo, president of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers, issued a statement calling the crash a “tragic accident” and suggesting that the appropriate response would be stricter regulation of cyclists.

This is such a staggeringly huge "Fuck You" to pretty much everybody in New York City that I'm surprised the New York Times isn't making a bigger deal of it.

Just kidding!

No, the Grey Lady's cataracts have left her pretty much blind to the fact that pedestrians are getting picked off by cars on a daily basis and that virtually all of the drivers receive the full protection of the city and state.

I went trough a period of being moronically optimistic with regard to the future of cycling in New York City when we started getting all this fancy infrastructure, but I have to admit I'm now thoroughly embarrassed and am reverting to the traditional "Every man, woman, and child for him-or-herself" mode.  It's pretty sad how they rolled out those bike lanes, lured a bunch of people onto their bikes, and then systematically kicked them all in the groin one by one, but in retrospect it's not surprising.  It's hard not to want to make a point of violating as many traffic laws as possible while cycling, because at least that way when you get a ticket for some bullshit offense like "operating a bicycle with an even number of wheels on a numbered street" you'll at least have amortized the cost of the fine.  You have to figure if you run 200 lights in a week and then get a $200 ticket for "cycling in a northerly direction while breathing" at least you've paid only a buck a light.

Meanwhile, these two are still at it:

USA Today reports that Landis’ lawyers will argue that the Wartime Suspension of Limitations act applies to the qui tam suit as the alleged federal fraud – the doping programme at US Postal – occurred in part while the United States was at war with Afghanistan.

The newspaper quotes Tony Anikeeff, an attorney with the Williams Mullen, who explained the background of the Wartime Suspension of Limitations Act. “It is a highly controversial provision of the False Claims Act. It is used by the Justice Department mostly in dealing with fraud in Afghanistan because we were at war,” Anikeef said.

I admit I don't fully grasp the ethical implications of the Wartime Suspension of Limitations Act, but whatever they are they certainly pale in comparison to the importance of settling a stupid doped-up Lycra-clad cat fight.  Maybe I can invoke the some kind of wartime defense the next time I get a ticket for riding a bicycle within 200 feet of a sidewalk--because this is America, and when the fuck isn't it wartime?

Anyway, it's remarkable that so many people and media outlets expend so much energy on a scandal within a sport that is marginally less exciting than curling.  Really, the only way you could make stage racing more tedious would be to put it into board game form--which, incredibly, someone is now trying to do:

And, for which, even more incredibly, he wants $25,000:

Though when you look at those exquisite game pieces you begin to understand why:

Yeah, those wads of used chewing gum aren't going to paint themselves.

Oh, you're also allowed to "cut off a rider:"

You can cut off a rider if you want to slow him down but remember that he can do the same to you next time so be careful with whom you mess.

Which is how you know it was designed by a Cat 4.  That's also how you know, despite the placeholder text, that there will ultimately be a card for "Sprints on the hoods, crashes self and half the field:"

It's hard to imagine a circumstance in which I'd play this game.  I suppose I might consider it if I were snowed in for a period of weeks and there was no electricity, but then again I'd probably eat it to stay alive before I'd ever resort to actually playing it.

Lastly via CommieCanuck, if you're looking for a succinct overview of the Rob Ford scandal, here you go:


If nothing else, it makes me oddly proud that, in many ways, his profound hate for cyclists is what got him to where he is today.