Hooked on Cycling: The Dear Cost of Fred-dom

Awhile back, I posited that cyclocross may have officially overtaken both road and mountain cycling as the most expensive competitive discipline. (Yes, I realize people spend a lot of money on triathlon too, but it can be easily argued that it is not cycling, or disciplined, or even competitive for that matter--to wit, this video.) However, I'm now realizing that there may be a competitive cyclist willing to outspend all of these delusional would-be athletic heros. I am talking of course of the competitive commuter, or so-called "Cat 6 racer."

Indeed, commuting has become so fiercely competitive that accessory companies can barely keep up with the growing demand for cutting-edge equipment. For example, after extensive wind tunnel testing, competitive commuters have finally realized that the giant empty messenger bags they have traditionally worn (otherwise known as "hipster capes") put them at at an aerodynamic disadvantage--and, in extreme cases, even act as braking parachutes. In practice, though, for most riders a messenger bag serves only as a piece of fabric meant to display the rider's favorite accessory company logo. (It's the bike dork equivalent of a punk rock "butt-flap.") Consequently, the design has undergone considerable refinement, hence the "micro messenger bag:"

Of course, they can call it whatever they want, but when you're spending $85 on a bag intended to carry small personal items such as designer sunglasses, cellphones, and packs of cigarettes or gum, what you're buying is a purse:

Sure, it may be a stylized bicycle-themed collabo commuting purse resembling a messenger bag and sold by a downtown track bike boutique, but it's a purse nonetheless.

It should also not be confused with the nü-fanny pack, which is like sooo 2007 and thus the domain of commuter racer retro-grouches:

Obviously, in addition to a tiny accessory that suggests it's a bag without actually being one, you're going to need an expensive technical "hoodie:"

Over which you can wear your pea coat that's been "reengineered for a life of freedom," as opposed to the life of indentured servitude into which you were somehow forced by your previous, more affordable pea coat oppressor:

You may or may not want to complement your liberating pea coat with a £195 (or roughly US$3,000) helmet that looks like a bowler hat:

And which you should always use in conjunction with a protective facial apple and/or hands-free apple bong:

Anyway, together that's $800 of outerwear (not including the helmet hat or matching apple bong), which means you'd better have a corpulent billfold hiding away in that mini-messenger racing purse--and which, I might add, already cost you $85. In other words, you will have spent almost a thousand dollars and you'll still be pantsless and bikeless, which is no way to go through life. Expect to pay at least a couple hundred dollars for a "decent" pair of cycling-specific casual pants that look like $20 Dickies to remedy your sans-pants situation. As for the bike, judging from the exotic "whips" your competitors are already "pushing" I'd estimate that between clothing and equipment you're looking at least $15,000 if you want to throw elbows on your way to work with professionals like this:

(This guy will commute you to a pulp.)

Really, at this point you might as well admit defeat, tuck your tail between your legs, and take the subway.

Meanwhile, it would appear that the erstwhile most expensive discipline, cyclocross, is already experiencing a backlash to "Cyclocross 2.0," which has come to be characterized by people who throw Vanillas in fits of pique and who get into fistfights over low placings, as chronicled recently by the All Hail the Black Market blog. Consequently, in Portland (and the surrounding area), practitioners of cyclocross have vowed to eschew the anal-retentive behavior and gross financial expenditures that characterize "Cyclocross 2.0" and instead keep the true spirit of the discipline alive. And by "true spirit of the discipline" I don't mean "racing hard and having fun;" I mean the true spirit of the discipline as Portland sees it, which is making sure that cyclocross remains a rolling freak show:

A reader recently alerted me to these flesh hooks at the Cross Crusade race in Astoria, OR, and the only reasonable conclusion I can draw from this is that the Cross Crusade has finally instituted a separate skitching-off-flesh-hooks field:

I'm sure in Portland--where people race cyclocross on unicycles and cargo bikes as a matter of course, and where they already have a separate World Championship for dogs--there was a tremendous demand for a separate skitching-off-flesh-hooks field. I'm also sure that, instead of being pleased when one was finally instituted, the flesh hook enthusiasts immediately started bickering about whether the field should be further divided into a geared-skitching-off-flesh-hooks field and a singlespeed-skitching-off-flesh-hooks field. This in turn will inevitably lead to an ironic Singlespeed-Skitching-Off-Flesh-Hooks Cyclocross World Championship, which some guy on a Speedvagen will take way too seriously by keeping a spare fakir in the pit. I'm also expecting Sacha White to debut those handbuilt artisanal cyclocross-specific flesh hooks at the 2015 North American Handmade Bicycle Show, or else at its spin-off, the North American Handmade Cyclocross Flesh Hook Show. Unfortunately, by the time your number on the wait list comes up, skitching-off-flesh-hooks will be totally out of style, and Portlanders will have moved on to simply towing people around with their genital piercings.

So with cyclocross apparently resolved to commit "career suicide" at the height of popularity by turning itself into S&M on wheels, it seems that road racing (and triathlon, if you insist on counting it) has a chance to reclaim the mantle of most expensive discipline--that is, if all their equipment doesn't get stolen, as in this surveillance video depicting the brazen heist of an entire "stable" of high-end racing bikes, which I spotted on the "Trackosaurusrex" blog:



Unfortunately, there's no soundtrack, so I suggest you watch this version instead.

Anyway, judging from the description of the culprits, it would appear that the thieves were indeed cyclists:

As for whether they were roadies or triathletes, the trunk rack would suggest the latter, but the fact that they managed to get away without falling down for no reason points to the former.

Posted in: bicycle marketing