Juxtaposition: A Tale of Two Bikes

There is a bridge called the George Washington Bridge that connects the island of Manhattan to the state of New Jersey. This is the main escape route for New York City's roadies, and I would estimate that it sees the highest volume of Fred traffic of any roadway in the entire world. In fact, if one were one to seal it off completely, the city would swell and swell and swell like pimple until it exploded in an atomic blast of Lycra, crabon, and pie plates.

This past weekend, I joined the legions of cyclists who use this bridge, and just a few of the things I observed while on my ride included:

--A gentleman wearing a Bert and Ernie jersey and riding a Colnago Ferrari;

--Another gentleman wearing a sleeveless base layer with no jersey at all, complete with teardrop aero helmet;

--Yet another gentleman who proved the old adage "the bike goes where you look" when he turned to admire the scenery and rode right into the guardrail.

I of course was astride my gleaming new Ritte Fred Chariot, which I've ironically parked in front of the words "No Parking:"

(I don't need "society", your yellow letters mean nothing to me.)

Having finally maneuvered through traffic and up and down moderate hills and around wayward triathletes I'm pleased to report that the bike rides beautifully, and while I have no intention of subjecting you to incessant "foffing off" over this thing I do realize that in last Friday's post I failed to include certain images that are mandated by the American Bike Dork Society of America. Therefore, I will dispense with these Obligatory Bicycle Shots (OBS) so that I can avoid being subject to further fines and we can then move onto more pressing matters.

Firstly, here's the Obligatory Derailleur Shot:



Notice that the bicycle makes use of something called a "derailleur hanger," which is "replaceable." This is so when you "crash" because "some guy with a TT helmet and no jersey on" runs into you, the bicycle will be easily repairable--provided all the damage is limited to the derailleur hanger.

Next, here's the Obligatory Non-Drive Side Dropout Shot:



Notice it's "cowled" to provide more surface area for the oversized blahblahblah. Alas, notice that the dropouts are vertical, which is the only reason I haven't yet converted this into a sweet, sweet fixie. The wheels use "Itchey" hubs, and Itchey apparently employ a marketing technique known as the "Trifecta System." Ordinarily I prefer handbuilt wheels, but when you have 17 children like I do it's very difficult to sit around building wheels because kids like to do stuff like eat nipples and put spokes up their nose. Therefore, in the interest of time I took a gamble on "instant" wheels, and I guess I'll just see what happens.

This, of course, is the obligatory Seat Tube Junction shot:



The tubings are being made from stainless steel because I tend to wet myself when I'm excited or tired (on a good road ride you'll be both excited and tired at various times), and they are joined by a revolutionary new process known as "welding." It'll have to do for now--at least until I get those fake stick-on lugs.

This is the Obligatory Head Tube shot:



Given the collapse of the world economy, I'm putting all my resources into Chris King headsets based on the relative strength of the Chris King Headset Composite Index (CKHCI). As you can see, the stem is not "slammed." I'm not sure why a "slammed" stem is a good thing anyway; it's the equivalent of having your saddle jammed all the way forward. I'd think you'd want a bit of adjustability in either direction. But what do I know?



Here's the Obigatory Head Tube Badge shot:



The head tube badge is essential because it tells you what kind of bicycle you have in case you forget. I think it's the first head tube badge I've ever had that wasn't plastic and mounted with foam tape. There's also a spare one on the seat tube:

And lastly, the most obligatory of obligatory photos, the Beefy Bottom Bracket Shot:

The plastic band is a chain catcher anti-drop thingy, because the bottom bracket is so incredibly beefy I'm afraid its gravitational pull will overcome the strength of the derailleur cage and draw the chain to it.

And that's my road bike, big freaking deal.

Moving on to the "more pressing matters" I alerted to earlier, these matters concern a bicycle that is not mine but that I am in fact "testing." The bicycle looks like this, and it is called a "Base Urban:"

(No, I don't have any idea why the top tube is shaped like that, and no, a U-lock does not fit through it.)

Now, few things are more subjective than aesthetics, and while aesthetic considerations can sometimes overlap with practical ones, other times form and function can be mutually exclusive. In other words, sometimes something that's really ugly can work great, and sometimes something that's really beautiful can work like crap. And what's ugly to one person can be beautiful to another, and so forth.

As it happens, I think this bicycle is wildly ugly. To me, it evokes throbbing dance music, and flat brim caps with the stickers still on them, and cars with neon underneath, and the smell of cologne, and all manner of other things I find aesthetically offensive. Nevertheless, I agreed to test it for a simple reason:

It has an 8 speed Alfine hub and a belt drive.

Belt drives have been debunked to a certain extent where hard recreational offroad use is concerned, but for commuting purposes this particular combination seemed intriguing, since arguably a drivetrain with no chain grime or derailleurs that still offers you the ability to shift and coast is the commuting ideal. And never having ridden a belt drive bicycle in any application before, I was eager to try one, and I figured if it worked well I could overlook the bike's questionable aesthetics in the same way I don't really care what my toilet looks like so long as it accepts waste and flushes reliably.

Anyway, I've only just taken delivery of the bike, so what follows are first impression.

Firstly, the hub shifts by means of this STI-type lever:

This may look familiar to you as shifters in this configuration are sold variously as Microshift (I think technically it's "microSHIFT," and you should always be sure to shout the second syllable), Nashbar, Samson, and so forth. The lever body feels pretty much exactly like the last generation Shimano levers did, and you shift by means of these nubbins:



It's all fairly intuitive and comfy, but the shifting isn't anywhere as quick as with a derailleur drivetrain--though it's perfectly adequate for riding around town. I'd argue that there's little point in a riding-around-town bike that looks like a race bike but doesn't shift like one and that also weighs many many pounds, but that's more of an aesthetic quibble, and the bike does have practical features such as fender eyelets on the fork:



And both fender and rack eyelets in the rear:

Though arguably the fender eyelets are of little use since the fork crown is not drilled:



And neither is the brake bridge for that matter:



And anyway even if they were it's tough to imagine a fender strut clearing the brake caliper:



Not that I tried it, mind you, but it's pretty clear to me that this bike does not want fenders since it's guarding the integrity of those holes like a [insert bad prison joke here].

Speaking of the disc brakes, they're Avid BB7s, a brake with which I have considerable experience and which I generally find to be excellent:



On this bike, however, they feel almost disconcertingly spongy. It could be that they need to wear in a bit, or it could be a cable routing issue, but I've never experienced this with new BB7s in the past, and even my Big Dummy with it's roughly 900 foot long rear brake cable housing has never felt this vague. Though ostensibly a bad thing, the brake's sponginess was in keeping with the overall feel of the bike, which basically rides like the eponymous airplane in the movie "Airplane!":

("Sluggish...like a wet sponge.")

I suppose this is what happens when you take not particularly supple tires and very heavy wheels and spongy disc brakes and not-crisp shifting and assemble them in the shape of a road bike when they really want to be one of those department store chopper bikes. As for the belt itself, I thought the idea was that they were quiet, but as I rode it made a rhythmic creaking noise, which made me feel like I was in a cheap hotel room with thin walls and my neighbors were having a "collabo:"

Granted, I've only just taken delivery of the bike and have not had time to try to adjust it out, but from what I can see while riding, the chainring (or belt ring, or belt wheel, or whatever you would call it) has a wobble in it and as such is moving laterally in relation to the belt. It's very slight--about as much as a typical chainring wobble--but evidently with the high tension the belt requires it's enough to make a racket.

Again, this is just a first impression, but overall so far I'm pretty impressed by how poorly thought through this bicycle is, right down to the fact that the bars were wrapped backwards from the factory so the tape kept peeling under my hand:

All of this for the low price of $1,750:

Though you do get one (1) set of bottle bosses and a bottle cage.

In the coming days I will invent paces for this bike and then put it through them, but given that you could buy a pretty decent road bike and an inexpensive singlespeed commuter for this price (my Scattante rides quite nicely and is still serving me well as a commuter two and a half years later) instead of merging the two concepts into one bike, I'm sort of struggling to see the point of this.

But in the interest of science, I'll keep trying.

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The Age of the Epic Commuter: Raising the Bar, then Flattening It

Last week, I mentioned that article in The New Yorker about cycling in Rwanda. Since finishing it, I have moved onto other portions of the magazine, and this morning I found myself reading about a bunch of bands giving a concert on Rikers Island. In case you don't know, Rikers Island is jail, and evidently the people who live there are somewhat resistant to gentrification. This is a band called Zongo Junction:

And here's what happened during their set:

The band's inspiration is the Nigerian activist Fela Kuti, but in presentation--beards, plaid shirts, a trucker hat--its influences smelled a little of Bushwick. This, coupled with the general monotony of incarceration, seemed to leave them vulnerable to heckling from above: "Get the fuck out!," for instance, followed by "Play Bob Marley." The band launched into "Stir It Up," which only emboldened some of the distant voices: "More Bob Marley, or Ima fucking kill you!"

Well, at least the inmates didn't use the "h" word. I do kind of want a t-shirt that says "More Bob Marley, or Ima fucking kill you" though--even if it is a little hilpstery.

Actually, I wonder if high-end cycling clothier Rapha would consider making such a shirt, since the slogan is easily as catchy as anything Jens Voigt has ever said. They could use marino, incorporate shoulder pads for easy "portaging," and charge $175 for it.

Speaking of Rapha, you may recall my mentioning I had taken part in the Rapha 2011 Northeast Gentlemen's Race. Or you may not recall. Or you may recall and not care. Regardless, I did, and I'm pleased to announce that the Raphafied "edit" of this race has finally "dropped." Please note that it's shot in Raph-O-Vision, and that you'll need to wear your 3-E (that's Triple-"Epic") glasses in order to see it properly:

2011 Rapha NE Gentlemen's race from RAPHA on Vimeo.

I learned a lot from this video. In particular, I learned why they call it an "edit," and that's because my team was edited out of it. Yes, there's not a single millisecond of footage of us, even though we were one of only nine teams that managed to finish:

Now, I wouldn't ordinarily brag, but in this case I'm making an exception since the race was like 482 miles long with like 275,000 feet of climbing, so I was very proud of my team. Sure, I know that barely qualifies as brevet in rando-nerd circles, but for a bunch of roadie wussbags it's a lot. Anyway, I'm not even bragging for myself. Rather, I'm bragging for the rest of my team, since they were amazing and I just sat behind them the whole time, like this:

(They totally would have won if it wasn't for me.)

By the way, my team was called "BSNYC," but it's pronounced "LAY-oh-pard Trek." I'd thank them each member here by name, but frankly I think they're all embarrassed to be associated with me, so I'll just thank them in the aggregate to spare them the ignominy. I'd also like to thank Team C3, who we joined for the latter part of the race.

As for why we got snubbed for the video, the best we could come up with were: 1) Our kits didn't match; and 2) We actually smiled occasionally. I'm guessing that second one was the killer, since smiling in a Rapha video is like whipping out your "pants yabbies" on "Sesame Street."

And of course I couldn't have done any of it without BicycleBungee™:

BicycleBungee™ Promotional Video Pronunciation Guide:

"Air"="EEE-yah"

"Effort"="EEE-faht"

"Companion"="LAY-oh-pard Trek"

Speaking of "epics," a reader has forwarded me this article from the New York Times about a reporter who will cycle across Canada's dental dam:

I enjoyed the article and I wish him the best. However, I also couldn't help noticing his flat bar bicycle. As he explains it:

It has a titanium frame (that is, it’s very light); handlebars that go straight across, rather than drop, to keep me more upright (I’ve got a neck problem); especially durable wheels and tires.

I certainly wouldn't argue against his comfort, and I'm assuming that as a cycle touring veteran he knows what works best for him. Nevertheless, we seem to be in a new Age of the Flat Bar, and I must admit I'm still traumatized by that designer hybrid "commuter" from a few weeks back:

Not only that, but I just saw on Prolly's blog that the same company, Firefly, has designed another so-called "commuter" that makes the one above seem eminently logical:

(Commuter?!?)

Now, I should point out that I have nothing whatsoever against Firefly, and that they're obviously extremely talented builders. Their customers, on the other hand, are clearly the kind of crazy that only comes with having way too much money, or syphilis, or maybe both. Honestly, who pays that much money to commute on a mountain bike? Does he not know that if you work at Ikea they give you a bike like that for free?

The only way I can make sense of this bike is that maybe he just wanted a really nice mountain bike, but he felt guilty about buying himself one for some reason, so he called it a "commuter" instead to justify the price. Smug people think that commuting by bicycle equals "saving the world," so by calling any bicycle a "commuter" it automatically allows you to spend as much on it as you would a car.

Or, maybe he really does need a crazy offroad commuter like this. Because, you know, he lives on the surface of the Moon.

Anyway, once upon a time, if you wanted to ride around the city on a mountain bike with your bars way higher than your saddle, you went to Walmart and you bought yourself a Mongoose. Now, people are actually buying custom bikes to replicate this riding experience. So what are people actually buying at Walmart now?

Well, you'd be surprised. It turns out they've come a long way since that first Mongoose Cachet, and their offerings include "haute tarck," complete with stylishly curved seat tube:

Classic fixie:


And even (this one really surprised me) full-on Dutch-style "cycle chic:"


Meanwhile the guy with the Firefly is paying a zillion dollars to replicate the ride of his beloved 1998 Pacific with the unhooked v-brakes.

I never thought I'd see it, but I guess it's finally happened: the dreaded Walmart/custom inversion.

I can't wait until I can finally buy a "More Bob Marley, or Ima fucking kill you!" t-shirt at Target.

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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.

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Posable Figures: Playing With Yourself

Not too long ago, I received an email with the subject line "famous pie plate." Naturally, I opened it immediately--even though there was another email right next to it notifying me that I had just won the Irish lottery. (Yes, I take pie plates that seriously.) The sender was a bicycle shop mechanic, and awhile back he removed a pie plate from a customer's Trek. That customer, he assured me, was actor Jake Gyllenhaal, seen here swaddled in Raphinery and "palping" the offending plat de pâté en croûte:

According to the mechanic, he had been treating the pie plate as a sort of talisman, but its "awesome power" was now becoming too much for him to handle. (This is hardly surprising when you consider the provenance of the thing, and the fact that it's a mere one degree of separation from Heath Ledger's reflector.) For this reason, the mechanic was offering the pie plate to me, and I accepted it faster than a Garmin physiologist accepts a job at Radio Shack. Well, I'm pleased to announce that it has finally arrived, and here it is in all its paired spoke-protecting glory:

My first few moments of Jake Gyllenhaal pie plate ownership consisted mostly of holding it to my chest and murmuring "I can finally die now" over and over to myself. However, this elation soon gave way to a gnawing sense of self-doubt. Why was I so happy? I pondered this question for awhile and eventually realized that this pie plate was a actually a physical manifestation of my own insecurity. Certainly, when I take pleasure in the fact that Jake Gyllenhall is riding a bicycle with a "dork disc," or a "nerd rotor," or a "Fred cog," or whatever you choose to call it, it's really because I long to feel superior to him. Furthermore, it is just this sort of insecurity that feeds the lurid world of tabloid journalism and celebrity gossip. Sure, we may snigger over pictures of Jake Gyllenhaal on his bicycle, or rumors that Lady Gaga is a hermaphrodite (false), or that Larry King is a hermaphrodite (true). In the short term it makes us feel better about ourselves, but in the long term it is this very impulse that may cost us our souls.

It was then that I realized Jake Gyllenhall's pie plate was actually a monkey's paw, and that the mechanic had in fact passed the curse on to me by grifting me with the old "pie plate flim-flam." I've already learned my lesson though, and as the Who famously sang, "I shan't be hoodwinked a second time." In fact, I've already been in touch with the Irish lottery people to arrange for collection of my winnings. Clearly my luck is beginning to change.

Still, even the most self-assured cyclist can't help being amused by the juxtaposition of Rapha clothing and a pie plate. The former represents stereotypical roadie fastidiousness, and the latter is the prototypical cycling fashion faux-pas. Of course, Rapha loves to play up this image, which is why they recently published their Rules of the Road--though I was especially baffled by rules 5 and 6:

Firstly, scarves are for magicians and aging rock stars, and should not be worn while cycling at all. Secondly, leaving a gap between your arm warmers and jersey is insouciant high style, since it implies you either pulled them down hastily in the heat of battle, or that they fell down due to the relentless pounding of the cobbles:

Of course, even Rapha will surely admit that blind adherence to such rules is ridiculous. Like the pie plate, these fashion codes speak to our need to distinguish ourselves from those who we deem to be "inauthentic" somehow, when in truth it is often the people who become indignant over things like improper sock height and Japanese components on Italian frames who are the least authentic. Style is probably the least interesting aspect of cycling, and sometimes listening to someone wax poetic about what is "PRO" or about "vintage" Campagnolo is like watching someone dry-hump a loaf of stale Italian bread.

Then again, it's hard not to judge others when you watch something like "Pedaling." Amazingly, the producers keep releasing new episodes, and as I watched the latest one (entitled "Baking @ Birdbath") I found myself pitying poor Meredith Miller, an accomplished professional racer who in this installment is forced to endure cycling insight from a restauranteur. Here he is explaining that, with regard to winter riding, "I kinda have the 40-degree rule," to which Miller replies, "Yeah...right:"

Certainly judging others by the weather conditions in which they prefer to ride is like judging them by their bar tape color, and you shouldn't ride in the cold if you don't enjoy it. Indeed, being able to approach cycling casually is perhaps the best way to enjoy it and an attitude many of us would do well to adopt. That said, it's hard not to wonder why casual, fair-weather cycling requires such exotic equipment:

After this, the restauranteur hands Meredith Miller over to someone even more bizarre--a man who makes his comestibles "in a low-energy manufacturing situation," by which I assume he means he bakes them while stoned:

Given his hemp cardigan, I braced myself when he told Miller that he was going inside to get his bike. Sure enough, he came out looking like there was a fire back in the 19th century and he was going to put it out:

Even the unflappable Meredith Miller can't keep a straight face.

Still, there's an important difference between the person with pro equipment who only rides when it's warm and the guy who gets baked and rides around with a mixing bowl on his head, and sometimes looking crazy can be more dignified than trying to look the part. If you're going to play pro cyclist but you don't like physical discomfort then you might as well glue a bunch of figurines to your dashboard and just drive around, as in this video which was forwarded to me by a reader:



Yes, why pose yourself when you can let the toys do it for you?
Just make sure that if you do get carried away playing with your toys and attempt to ride a bicycle yourself that you learn Japanese and read the "Street Bike Culture Start Book!!" from "Loop" magazine, which was photographed and forwarded to me by another reader:


The bike polo look promises to be hot in 2010:

Somebody better write up some rules, because I'm not sure if your designer sunglasses should be worn over or under your "collabo" cap.

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