Pedal Stroke of Genius: Nonplussed 2.0

Sometimes, life can be complicated, and even a lifetime of reflection can be insufficient to solve some of its mysteries. Other times, it is extremely simple, and its questions can be answered quickly and in few words. In fact, some questions can be so simple that the answer is actually inherent in the question itself. Such is usually the case with the questions posed to VeloNews. Here is an example:

I find myself traveling for work and unable to bring my bike along for the trip. I am currently in the base-mile period for training, is there some other exercise that I can do in place of riding?

The answer of course is that if you're traveling for work and your work does not actually require you to bring a bike along then you are not a professional cyclist. Therefore you do not need to train at all (much less in December) and certainly not while you're working. Does the blacksmith emulate the glassblower? Does the aardvark wonder how he can be more like the honeybee? Of course not. So why then does the accountant or the designer or the corporate consultant seek to ply the trade of another whilst he plies his own?

Of course, the correct answer to the VeloNews question is: "Don't train." Unfortunately, people are often unwilling to accept simple answers because they mistakenly believe that a short answer is an easy one, and that easy things have no value. (This urge to complicate simple things and make easy things hard is why people train in the first place.) Instead, they prefer an answer that involves equipment and formulae, and they want to hear that if they expend a lot of time and effort that would be better used either working or resting from work, six months from now they will have the fitness they need in order to be competitive at the amateur level.

Certainly, we should all aspire to be healthy. After all, our bodies are temples (or, in some cases, shopping malls). However, chasing the elusive state that cyclists refer to as "fitness" is as dangerous as chasing the exudate of the poppy or the creamy filling of the Oreo. Fitness is akin to intoxication, and when you're under its influence what was arduous seems easy and what was painful seems effortless. But like intoxication, it is also fleeting, and attempts to prolong it can ruin your life. One day, you're climbing at the front of the group ride, and the next you're in an Embassy Suites in Cleveland on a business trip, running up and down the stairwell at 4:30am. Indeed, cyclists find the state of fitness so seductive that when they're not actually pursuing it they're watching videos like this:

PUSH PULL from Landis Fields on Vimeo.

I know a cycling video is going to be unusually profound when it opens with a thought-provoking quote:

Einstein said this concerning the theory of relativity, and people cite it in order to evoke the inspirational and meditative nature of cycling. I don't take it that way, though. Albert Einstein was a really smart guy--so smart that his name is both a sincere synonym for "genius" (as in "Harvard at 14? Wow, that kid's a regular Einstein!") as well as a sarcastic one (as in "How the hell did you manage to u-lock your bike to your pants, Einstein?"). So while Einstein may have thought of the theory of relativity on his bike, I'm sure he had brilliant ideas all the time, and he could just as easily have thought of it while showering, sweeping, cleaning his ears, juggling, or using a Cuisinart. Anyway, here's a picture of Einstein doing his own timid version of the Jobst Brandt lean and no doubt about to fire off yet another brilliant idea:

And here's the subject of the video, deep in thought astride his own bicycle and trying to force his helmet straps under his glasses with the sheer power of his mind:


Having summoned all of his strength, the cyclist then pounces from a footstool onto a drafting table like a housecat leaps from the floor onto the counter when he hears the can opener:

Next comes the obligatory worshipful shot of the leg muscles:


Followed by a pensive look, as though he's trying to figure out how many "S"s there are in the word "nonplussed:"

Then, even though he's already on the bike, we see him fastening his shoes:


Meanwhile, he's still trying to figure out how to spell "nonplussed," and he's thinking so hard he's actually broken a sweat:


Finally he just says "Screw it!" and begins pedaling frantically:


The tire is smoking with the friction of a man thrusting himself against the very limits of his spelling ability:


In the end, he is spent and slack-jawed from the effort, and just decides to go with "WTF?" instead:

While some art is based on the presentation, exploration, and subsequent resolution of a theme, this film depicts a gradual building of tension followed by an explosive release. This is an arc very similar to that of going to the bathroom or masturbating, and in the latter sense the film conveys the essence of amateur competitive cycling better than perhaps any other film I've ever seen. Also, the cyclist looks like Bjarne Riis:

(Riis, in the bathroom, pre-explosive release.)

Speaking of bicycle fetishes and Danes, Mikael Colville-Andersen of Copenhagen Cycle Chic is once again the subject of a short film, this one by Streetfilms (the DreamWorks of smugness):

The film is worth watching if only because it depicts a city so insanely bike-friendly that it makes Portland look like a monster truck rally. Here's Colville-Andersen gloating over their pink car-shaped cargo bike parking:

At one point in the video, he also calls what they're doing in Copenhagen "bicycle culture 2.0," and it's worth noting that calling things "[blank] 2.0" is calling things "the new [blank]" 2.0. (For example, white used to be the new black; it's now "black 2.0.") In addition to "bicycle culture," other things currently enjoying their 2.0 phase are of course Lance Armstrong, as well as "biking:"

However, aerodynamic expert Steve Hed--who is so aero that his dimples are teardrop-shaped and his tears have dimples--is nonplused nonpulssed like "WTF!?!"

The irony of someone who makes very expensive carbon fiber racing wheels for people concerned with things like "yaw angle" saying that "Just the basic bike is so hard to beat" aside, I certainly agree with him. In Copenhagen they make cycling easier for people through city planning, but here we prefer to make cycling easier by quite literally trying to take the effort out of cycling. However, it doesn't take an Einstein to figure out that crappy streets are still crappy streets regardless of how much electrical assistance you have, and even someone who can't spell "nonplussed" surely realizes that getting hit by an SUV will suck just as badly on a 2.0 bike as it does on the current 1.0 iterations. But why address the actual problems of cycling when you can address the excuses for not cycling instead?

Speaking of which, another popular excuse for not cycling is bike theft, but one person may have that one licked and is proposing that thieves only steal "from rich people or from assholes:"



this was my bike, it was stolen (lorimer & metropolitan)
Date: 2009-12-14, 11:38PM EST
Reply to: [deleted]

this was my bike.
i rode over the bridge every morning to work.
i owned it for 3 months, and paid 70$ for it.
someone stole it last week, and i can't afford a new one.
now i have to ride the subway and i don't get the exercise and fresh air i need to live.
bike thieves are scum.
bike thieves ruined my day, my week, my month.
i want my bike back.
thieves should steal from rich people or from assholes.
not poor people who need their bikes to get around.
screw you bike thieves, i hate you.
i want my bike back.
if you have a bike you don't need, email me, cos i need one.
god bless eveyone who is not a bike thief.

But what happens when the Einsteins at M.I.T. release "Asshole 2.0?"

Posted in: cycling in new york city,road racing