Travels Channelled: Emerging from the Fog

If you visited this blog last week, you may have noticed that there were no new posts. This is because I was not in New York and sitting in front of my typewriter like I usually am. (I have an analog-to-digital converter that lets me blog via typewriter for added pretension.) Instead, I was far away in an exotic Land of Smugness.

Before you leap to conclusions, I should point out that this Land of Smugness was not Portland, OR. No, the place I visited was so smug it made Portland seem like Bensonhurst. In fact, within 24 hours of arriving in this Land of Smugness, a complete stranger accused me of bad parenting. This has never even happened to me in Park Slope, which is to parenting as Portland is to cycling, and you'd think the people in this Land of Smugness had never seen a baby playing with a steak knife before. (I wouldn't normally let him play with the cutlery, but he's very edgy since he quit smoking.)

For all its smugness, though, I must say that the bicycle cycling was nothing short of spectacular. I very much enjoy the pastime of bicycle cycling, though I'd nearly forgotten that since I've spent the last few months looking over my shoulder waiting for the cops to bust me for hanging my pocketbook from my handlebars. (I paid over $2,000 for my Givenchy Medium Antigona and I'll hang it wherever I darn well please thankyouverymuch.) Here, however, it was just a few turns before I was bicycle cycling climbingward along exotic dirt trails that were enshrouded in mist:

I hadn't been in a low-visibility situation like this since that time I went to visit awesome Indonesian smoking baby.

Up, up, up went the trail as I continued to climb:
At one point I even saw strange creatures frolicking in the fog:

I couldn't identify them--I know nothing of wildlife and suspected they were either mountain lions or gila monsters--but whatever they were I was reasonably certain they wanted to kill me.

Finally, I reached the top of the climb, and after rummaging through my Givenchy Medium Antigona and reapplying my make-up (ha--"waterproof" mascara my "pants yabbies") I began a long and serpentine descent that finally ended on a mysterious shore:

I set about exploring it, and only then did I put two and two together and realize that the creatures I had seen earlier must have been futuristic ape-people:

"You maniacs!," I cried as I fell to my knees. "You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to Hell!"

But my despair was short-lived, for I suddenly remembered that I had a packet of Bugles in my handbag and their crunchy deliciousness was all I needed to regain my composure.

Finding my cycling bicycle, I returned to the dirt trail and began climbing again, but this time I didn't stop until I was well above the awesome Indonesian smoking baby's cloud:

At this point I felt like I was a million miles (or 1,609,344 kilometers, if you're Canadian or pretentious) away from civilization, and I actually worried that I might not be able to find my way back. But my fear was short-lived, because 15 minutes later I was standing in a driveway with both a Porsche Cayenne and a Prius in it, and 5 minutes after that I was paying way too much for an espresso.

I suppose I'd temporarily forgotten a fundamental rule of modern wilderness survival, which is this: If you're in an area where there are ocean views, it is physically impossible to be more than five miles away from a Whole Foods.

That's the sort of thing they teach you in the Long Island Boy Scouts.

Besides death-defying wilderness prime real estate exploration, I also undertook another expedition during which I "got rad" with none other than radness-monger Stevil Kinevil of All Hail The Black Market. Here is a picture I took of him "getting rad:"

It turns out that Stevil Kinevil is so evil that, when you obscure his eyes, light emanates from his nipples.

Also, speaking of being evil, even though we were in the woods we still managed to find a graffiti mural to stand in front of while we did some urban-style glowering:

I'm glad we found this, but even if we hadn't I always carry an emergency graffiti mural rolled up in my bag. So, had we been forced to, I would have unfurled it and nailed it to a couple of trees and we just would have stood around glowering in front of that one instead. By the way, here's my emergency graffiti mural:

Maybe I can get Mike Giant to make me an "AYHSMB" version, though I don't think he's able to write anything that's not his own last name.

Anyway, when we weren't "getting rad" or glowering we were mixing cheap beer with expensive energy foods:

I should add that it was like 10:30am.

As far as the rest of my travels, I won't trouble you with the details, though at various points I saw people training for bike polo:

This struck me as being sort of sad--training for bike polo seems like the equivalent of a frat boy practicing his shotgunning technique with cans of seltzer.

I also saw a cargo bike that makes my Surly Big Dummy look like a fixed-gear freestyle bike:

As you may know, the U.S. Department of Transportation recommends that any two-wheeled vehicle weighing more than 100lbs should be equipped with handlebar grip tassels, and I'm glad to see that, like most Harley riders, the owner of this bike takes that recommendation seriously.

I even saw a track bike and an ElliptiGO sharing the same rack:

I sincerely hope these two riders are friends, and if so I can't wait to see the inevitable hillbombing "edit."

Most significantly, though, at no point did I miss New York. However, thanks to my "smarting phone," I did receive buckshot blasts of information that assured me it was remaining completely idiotic in my absence. For example, as you probably heard, avid bicycle cyclist Robin Williams got a ticket for riding a track bike on the sidewalk--though the cops let him off when they realized he was the guy from "Cadillac Man." And if this wasn't stupid enough, the NYPD then redoubled their bicycle cyclist ticketing efforts, citing Mr. Williams as the cause:

Meanwhile, the DOT continues to pander to the public's bizarre misconception that bicycles are deadly by asking bicycle cyclists to take a "Bike Smart Pledge:"

I endorse and engage in all of these behaviors, but I will take a "Bike Smart Pledge" just as soon as the DOT asks motorists to take a "Drive Smart Pledge." In the meantime, they can take this pledge, a can of Pledge, and a DVD of "Mrs. Doubtfire" and stick it in John Cassidy's "walnut glove compartment."

Lastly, as you may have heard by now, bicycle cycling messenger show "Triple Rush" has already been removed from the Travel Channel's schedule:

As I mentioned on Friday, I actually enjoyed the show, though I'm sure the Travel Channel pulled it because someone pitched them a hot new show about someone who Rollerblades all over the world eating the anuses of endangered species. (It will be called "Rare-Ass Roller.") Sadly, I think the only hope for "Triple Rush" is if the producers can convince the Travel Channel that messengers themselves are endangered species--though that could be something of an "out of the frying pan, into the fire" scenario, since then the messengers would be fair game for the "Rare-Ass Roller."

Or, maybe they could get Robin Williams on the show, since he apparently has total cycling immunity.

Posted in: cycling in new york city