In The Zeitgeist Tonight: Don't Be a Pie Biter

As you may know, not too long ago I wrote a book. Naturally, like any author, I hoped it would be well received. At the same time, though, I of course realized that as a first-time author I should temper my expectations. So you can imagine my surprise when that book, "The Da Vinci Code," became a worldwide bestseller and went on to sell over 80 million copies and was adapted into a movie starring Tom Hanks.

Sadly, my follow-up book, the self-titled "Bike Snob," did not sell quite as well, and Tom Hanks also declined to star in the film version, citing a prior commitment to do "Turner and Hooch II." ("Bike Snob" the movie will instead star lesser known Baldwin brother Chico--at least he says he's a Baldwin brother.) However, "Bike Snob" has been something of a success in its own right, having appeared under a dead turtle in the West Elm furniture catalog, and now, as a number of people inform me, being barely visible inside a bag sold by the Timbuk2 bagular conglomerate:

The bag is called the Zeitgeist, which means "the spirit of the times," and if there are two things that are emblematic of our age they are certainly books and croquet. As far as I knew, croquet breathed its last gasp in 1989 with the movie "Heathers:"

And as for books, the only thing keeping them around is that people need decorative pedestals for their dead turtles. In fact, even bags themselves are totally out of style, having given way once and for all to the "fanny pack," as the Wall Street Gerbil reports:

Unfortunately, the article omits the driving force behind the fanny pack resurgence, which as everybody knows is the urban "fixie" scene. Hipster cyclists love all those "waist bags" and "utility belts" and "u-lock holsters," and it is this irresistible compulsion to transform themselves into elaborately tattooed marsupials that has catapulted the "fanny pack" out of the faux dive bars of Brooklyn and the Mission District and onto the runways. The article did have one bit of useful information though, which is that not everybody calls them fanny packs because in some countries the word "fanny" is really dirty:

Some international designers have a cultural reason to back away from the word "fanny." Innocuous slang for the gluteus maximus in the U.S., the word is an obscenity in the U.K. and Australia, where it refers to female genitalia. In those countries, fanny packs are typically known as a "bum bags." The French call the style "le sac banane," a mocking reference to the banana shape of the pouch.

In other words, fanny means this--though that's not stopping at least one company from embracing the gynecologic connotations of the accessory:

Yes, it's called the "Cling," and nothing clings to your waist like a capacious Vag-X--though given the fact it employs a zipper I might have gone with the name "Vag-X Dentata" instead. Incidentally, the article also points out that the French call the fanny pack "le sac banane," which seems like it would mean "banana bag," and which in turn sounds suspiciously similar to what many English speakers call a "banana hammock:"

I wonder how many bananas you can "portage" in a Vag-X, and the 'Hof looks like he can't wait to find out.

Speaking of idiotic things to put on your waist, if you still have room next to your Vag-X and your u-lock holster and your fanny pack and your utility pouch and you don't mind the fact that you're unable to go to the bathroom without sending 60lbs of loose change, combination 15mm wrench-and-bottle-openers, and "Wednesday weed"-smoking paraphernalia crashing to the sticky restroom floor, you might want to wedge one of these things in there too:

"Turn any ride into Critical Mass," suggests the copy, and I'm sure the police will be delighted by the strains of the neutered warbling "indie" rock leitmotif that follows you everywhere as they impound your bicycle and pack you off to jail.

Of course, if you're only a waist and legs then a fanny pack may be your only choice, and that's certainly the case with the model in this eBay auction that was forwarded to me by a reader:

Featuring two disembodied hands as well as a disembodied pelvis, this photograph sets the new standard by which all future eBay photographs will be measured:

If only there were some clue as to what sort of magic the seller employed to achieve this effect, for the way in which the upper body seamlessly disappears into that sponge-painted wall is nothing short of beguiling. In fact, it was so amazing that I almost considered placing a bid, except I've now decided to hold off on any road bike purchases until the new BERU f1sytems Factor001 SuperDouche 9000 Ubercycle is available at my LBS:

Yes, this stunning engineering marvel costs £25,000 (or something like US$9 billion in my country's pretend money) and it can tell the moneyed Fred how just how badly he sucks at riding a bike in something like 17 different ways:

BERU f1systems have brought together virtually every available measurement of rider performance to create a professional training tool leaps ahead of anything the cycling world has even envisaged.

I'm not sure if this bicycle will end amateur road racing once and for all by finally providing participants with incontrovertible evidence of how pathetic they are, or if it will cause it to grow tenfold by amplifying the Quixotic nature of "training" scientifically for your local club race or group ride. It could go either way, but I suspect it will be the latter. Unfortunately, the makers of this ridiculous machine couldn't manage to incorporate the "breath gas analysis," but they did equip it with "core-temperature sensing:"

Was there a technology that you weren’t able to incorporate into the 001?

We looked long and hard at physiological metrics and the only useful one we wanted that wasn’t possible to provide was breath gas analysis. We were told people wanted to see real-time oxygen consumption figures but that was a step too far even for us. We're proud to offer riders core-temperature sensing from an encapsulated sensor which is swallowed by the rider and then transmits data to the head unit. Performance in the heat has received a lot of attention from pro teams so we think that's a great addition.

This will be a very welcome feature for the Fred who's so captivated by his meager wattage output that he doesn't realize it's time to take off his neon green windbreaker. I'm also sure this bicycle will appeal to Charles Manantan of PezCycling News (author of the ultimate dentist bike review), who a commenter recently mentioned actually wrote the following:

A bike part’s relative importance is, as ever, directly related to the proximity and effect on genitalia (as is literally everything else in life).

Given this, he should really enjoy the core temperature sensor on that BERU bike, since it's probably a repurposed rectal thermometer that nestles itself delightfully close to the prostate.

Meanwhile, while Manantan is enthralled by anything that comes into contact with his taint, the mainstream media remains fascinated by people who ride bicycles, and a reader has forwarded me a (non-embeddable, so click the link) Weather.com report about some guy who rides a snow bike to work:

One of my favorite aspects of any bicycling-themed news report is always the reporter's total incredulity that someone actually rides a bicycle. Note her inflection when she says the following at 44 seconds:

His bikes have more miles than his car!

I love how she says it as though that's the epitome of insanity, in exactly the same way she'd say something like: "He keeps an incredibly rare Fahaka puffer fish in his toilet!"

Now, sure, those are some pretty nasty conditions, and even a rider as hardy as Charles Manantan would probably leave the bike at home on a day like that, but is riding your bike in the winter really that crazy? I don't ski, but as far as I know people ski in the winter pretty much exclusively, but I never see stories about those quirky people who slide down snowy mountains in February. "His skis have more miles than his Rollerblades!"

Similarly, a number of people have alerted me to a student who's delivering pies by bicycle in Seattle, and the local news seems to find this concept similarly unfathomable:

Here he is at work:

Don't get me wrong--I admire "Piecycle" guy's entrepreneurship and can-do sub-Canadian spirit, but why is everybody in the story so amazed? Maybe it's because I live in New York, where I can't even walk outside without getting mowed down by some food delivery guy riding an electric bike at 30mph on the sidewalk, but is bringing pie from one place to another on a bicycle really that big a deal? Apparently it is--so much so that he even has "groupies:"

"When I heard that he was delivering pie by bicycle, it was a short stop to me falling in love."

This satisfied customer was similarly blown away by the unthinkable notion that someone could actually bake a pie, put it in a bicycle basket, and miraculously transport that very same pie to him for consumption:

"We were like, 'Hey, guy's delivering pie on a bicycle so we had to do it.'"

Of course, this is exactly the sort of thing that boggles the mind of the marijuana enthusiast, so I guess their amazement makes sense. "Dude, how awesome would it be if some guy showed up on a bike with a big fucking pie right now?" So I'm sure when it actually happens it seems like magic.

Needless to say, pie porteur bikes are almost certainly to be all the rage at this year's NAHBS, which means that whittled stick cockpits like this one spotted in Portland by a reader will soon be totally out of style:

Though I suppose the rider could use them to roast marshmallows and become a cycling roasted marshmallow vendor. "We were like, 'Hey, guy's roasting marshmallows on his own handlebars and delivering them, so we had to do it.'" Just wait until those S'mores "drop"--the pie will go the way of the designer cupcake.

Posted in: bicycle marketing,commuting by bicycle,road riding