Cirque du So Meh: Tripping the Light Flambullient

Last Friday, I mentioned the 2011 Pan-European Mr. Euro-Hair Pageant, otherwise known as the "Team Leopard-Trek Presentation." Well, as it happens, the hair was only the pointy and frosted tip of the faux-hawk, for I've since watched the video of the presentation and it also featured entertainment so spectacularly "flambullient" that it makes Cirque du Soleil look like a David Mamet play. At over 89 minutes the video is far too long for any human to sit through without aid of hallucinogens (which is how I assume the people who were actually in the audience managed to get through it) but here are the highlights:

At 21 minutes and 25 seconds, Thomas Gabriel Warrior from seminal Swiss metal band Celtic Frost comes out clad in a zebra-striped skinsuit and performs an evocative dance routine with a giant hula hoop:

Having been a Celtic Frost fan "back in the day" I was well acquainted with Mr. Warrior's crushing riffsmanship and punishing vocal stylings, but I had no idea he was also so lithe:


Next, at about 36 minutes and ten seconds, we are treated to an exhibition of artistic cycling performed by a gentleman wearing a greasepaint handlebar mustache like some Gallic interpretation of Groucho Marx:

Watching this, I thought the same thing I always do when I see videos of artistic cycling, which is that I can't believe people continue to engage in "fixed-gear freestyling" while knowing that this exists. Artistic cycling is so embarrassingly campy yet so technically impressive that it makes performing some kind of sloppy, half-assed version of it seem futile and pathetic--it's like being a hipster mime who can't even convincingly execute the fake trapped-in-an-invisible box thing. In fact, true artistic cyclists are operating on such a transcendently intellectual level that they even get psycho-sexual, and starting at about 38 minutes and 20 seconds Groucho starts making violent love to his bicycle:

After which he tears off his cricket sweater and reveals the iconic maillot à pois:

The entire sequence is highly symbolic, so the polka-dot jersey almost certainly represents a post-coital bicycle-transmitted STD.

By this point, whatever the audience is on has kicked in and they're clearly "tripping balls:"


So, as you can imagine, they really start "wigging out" at 57 minutes and 38 seconds when The Human Aerospoke rolls onto the stage:

However, for trademark reasons he isn't actually introduced as The Human Aerospoke, and they instead refer to him as "The World Champion of the German Wheel," which I gather is some lesser-known UCI-sanctioned discipline. Interestingly, it also turns out that, like artistic cycling, German Wheeling is also a major source of inspiration for hipster cyclists, for The Human Aerospoke appears to use Velcro foot straps:

This is clearly where Hold Fast and all the rest of them got their supposedly "innovate" idea.

Finally, at 75 minutes and 45 seconds, a bunch of shirtless men in green pants with velvet wedgies hang from stuff for awhile:

Though not, thankfully, with flesh hooks:

I'm sure this resulted in much jeering, heckling, and general derision from any audience members hailing from Portland, where flesh hooks are an integral part of bike racing.

Anyway, we'll have to wait awhile to see what any of this has to do with winning the Tour de France, a sporting event which, for most of us, it's too early to start thinking about anyway. As everybody knows, the next significant event on the Bike Dork calendar is February's North American Handmade Bicyle Show, usually referred to as the NAHBS, and generally pronounced "Nabs" because it's where the big bike companies go to nab all their ideas. Right about now, the cycling world waits with pleated breath (which is like bated breath, only with decorative folds) to find out what this year's "hot" artisanal bicycle type will be. Will it be the cyclocross bike? The porteur bike? The randonneuring bike? The exquisitely-lugged fixed-gear recumbent? Who knows, but whatever it is, people will talk about really wanting one for a few months after the show, and a few years after the show the few people who actually order them will finally take delivery, at which point they will wonder just why they wanted a $12,000 650b rear/29er front "monstercross" bike anyway.

Of course, one mainstay of shows like the NAHBS is the ostensibly practical yet fantastically expensive commuting bicycle, like these bikes from Beloved Cycles:

I appreciate a useful bike as much as anybody, but I also feel a bike's usefulness is undermined somewhat when its base price is well over $4,000:

The Beloved line consists of three city models: Morton, the porteur; a mixte dubbed Half Full, and a commuter model named Every Day (all starting at $4,195).

Instead, when I'm looking for a suitably foppish bicycle to do my artisanal cheese shopping, I prefer riding a Ticino (or similar mass-produced NAHBS-nabbed bike) with a few thousand dollars in cash stuffed into the seat tube. Not only is the ride similar, but I also get to enjoy the same thrillingly disproportionate risk-reward ratio when I lock it up outside.

This is not to say that I don't understand that some people do actually need custom-built bicycles for everyday errand-running. For example, as the photograph below which was forwarded to me by a reader shows, if you have unusual bodily proportions a stock bicyclemay not fit you and you might be a candidate for custom geometry:

I'm no frame builder, but I'd guess that a longer wheelbase would almost certainly remove her child's face from between her buttocks. (Of course, regardless of your size, when ordering a custom bicycle always opt for 650b wheels for minimum component compatibility.)

Still, it's anybody's guess as to what type of bicycle will be this year's NAHBS fodder. For all we know it could be steam-powered bikes, as in this video forwarded to me by another reader:

Given the popularity of the "Americana backwoods revival," I think this design has tremendous potential, if only because it will offer people the opportunity to stop by the side of the road and use their Best Made Axes to gather more fuel.

Or, this could be the year that America's top builders finally decide to tackle the "tall bike," which would mean jousting bikes would become the new utility bikes. This is more likely than you might think, since this article forwarded to me by yet another reader indicates that bike jousting is only growing in popularity:

In these sensitive times, there are certain things you're not allowed to say. For example, in the "bike culture," you're not allowed to say that a $4,000 errand-running bike is kind of ridiculous. (Instead, you're supposed to applaud it for somehow making everyday cycling seem more "appealing" to the "car culture.") Another thing you're not allowed to say is that people should at least make some attempt to act their ages. That doesn't mean old people shouldn't be allowed to act like children now and again (if it did then we wouldn't have masters racing), but it does mean that at a certain point you should outgrow mindless destruction. I expect teenagers to want to burn stuff and smash things, but half of these tall bike people are exhibiting classic male pattern baldness--just check out the pate on the David Cross look-a-like setting fire to the Christmas trees:

(Outlaw bicycle enthusiast admires his fire-building handiwork through a pair of bifocals.)

Everybody resents parental authority at some point in their lives, but that resentment generally fades by the time your parents are in nursing homes.

Frankly, some of these people might want to consider retiring from bicycle-themed mayhem and start sipping tea beneath handlebar sconces, like this one forwarded to me by still another reader:

The track bars are sure to appeal to the hipster set, though the first thing they'll do upon bringing them home is remove the bar tape and the lights.

Posted in: nahbs,road racing