Well, here's a new hat that may just save your life:
(Get it here.)
That's right, the chapeaumeisters at Walz have engineered a special black-on-black (or "murdered out" if you're a douchebag) BSNYC edition of their Urban Wool cap. It's subtle--as subtle as the "b" in "subtle." It's comfortable. It's stylish on the bike, off the bike, and even during that awkward in-between moment when you're half-on and half-off the bike. And it tells the world you read the greatest cycling blog ever written, but that you flip over to this blog when the greatest cycling blog ever written is having server troubles.
Buying this hat will solve every problem you have in your life, plus it will make me a rich woman (I'm already a rich man, but I'd like to try being a rich woman for awhile), so buy 500, or just one if you're a cheapskate.
[By the way, now that Walz are offering two BSNYC caps, that means we've technically got a "collection," which means I'm going to have to hit the tanning beds and shoot a "lookbook."]
Of course, I know what you're really wondering, and it's this:
"Will Walz sell me a Bike Snob Daily News cap?"
Remember Bike Snob Daily News? The one who hated riding a Citi Bike because it didn't offer her the magic carpet ride of her exquisite SE Draft? No? Well, I wrote all about her last May, and earlier this week I was feeling nostalgic and read her "review" again. It's especially funny nearly a year later, since Citi Bike turned out to be a success. This has required writers like Bike Snob Daily News to find new angles from which to undermine the program, and she's done just that:
This is a very cunning article because it:
1) Oxymoronically criticizes bike share because it's been too popular;
2) Associates bike share with the transplanted caricatures who are gentrifying the city into complete and total unaffordability, to wit:
“We need an affordable way to get to work,” said Benjamin Stelly, 24, Buckley’s live-in boyfriend, a studio director who hails from Texas.
Alas, they've played right into Bike Snob Daily News's hands, having evidently rolled up their pants in order to place their feet right in their mouths. An affordable way to get to work from Harlem? Absurd! It will never happen:
Well-played again, Bike Snob Daily News. I think Spike Lee just read that article and plotzed. An anti-Citi Bike rant should be forthcoming. I doff my Walz cap to you.
In other cycling news, Lance Armstrong may have to return that SCA Promotions bonus, but at least FRS drinkers can't sue him because they didn't win the Tour de France:
While the SCA ruling is a further blow to Armstrong as he faces several lawsuits, a Los Angeles judge dismissed a fraud lawsuit, ruling that he engaged in mere "puffery" and not illegal false advertising when claiming that FRS energy products were his secret weapon for success.
In 2013, Armstrong was sued by a group of FRS consumers who sought more than $5 million from FRS and Armstrong for misleading them into buying their products, which include energy drinks.
Armstrong claimed the products were his "secret weapon" behind his seven consecutive Tour wins when in fact doping was his real secret weapon, according to their suit. The plaintiffs argued that if they had known the truth about his doping, they would not have bought FRS products.
I was shocked to learn that people actually purchased and drank FRS, and I was also amused to note that apparently "puffery" is actually thing:
Puffery is a legal concept that relates to advertising, a notion that companies can make exaggerated or boastful subjective claims about their products and not be held liable for literal definitions about them.
I'm just glad to finally have a word for pretty much every aspect of bicycle marketing, as well as a title for the new magazine I'll be launching:
Actually, depending on production costs, I may go with "Puffery and Fluffery" and include a gratuitous nude centerfold in every issue.
Speaking of puffery, no city likes to puff itself up more than Portland, and a reader recently reminded me of this touching story:
This story hits on every essential Portland smugness story plot point, among those being:
--Person who does not own a car;
--Person who bought bike at co-op;
--Person who completely failed to lock bike and was subsequently crushed;
--Interaction with scary homeless person;
--Touching glimpse into scary homeless person's humanity and subsequent realization that they are people too;
--Renewed faith in a city where, apparently, you can be completely out to lunch and everything will just fall into place anyway.
Of course, it's not all benevolent homeless bike fairies in Portland, and sometimes they have to deal with...Bicycle Road Rage!
It's adorable that The Oregonian thinks any of this qualifies as "road rage," and only in Portland could somebody be threatened by a passive-aggressive thumbs-up:
("His ironic thumbs-up terrified me," said the driver.)
I think Bike Snob Daily News should move to Portland. She'd be a great fit for The Oregonian.
