PEDALPHILES: a bike gang

[diesel_powered]

Damn, I want to start reading this and I don't even care about biking.

[morgan]

Bike Snob is pretty great.

I hate seeing videos of people whipping through traffic like that. Shit makes me angry, for real.

[davy]

Guys, check out these righteous biking tees:

http://www.blackt-shirt.com/tees.html

I like this one in particular:



And I'm not real sure who Josh Ritter is--he's like a singer-songwriter, right?--but apparently he's got some of the nicest fucking merch EVER.

[Doctor Bob]

And I'm not real sure who Josh Ritter is--he's like a singer-songwriter, right?--but apparently he's got some of the nicest fucking merch EVER.

Yep- a singer-songwriter.  American, lived in Dublin for a while, married to Dawn Landes.  I''ve never met the chap, but I'm three degrees of separation from him, in two directions.

Also, BSNYC has been a daily read of mine for quite a while.  Probably the best bike blog out there.  He's given at least two terms - salmoning and sandbar of idiocy (or shoaling) - to the cycling lexicon.  (He has little time for RLJers too.)

[elpollodiablo]

Davy I think you'd quite like Josh Ritter. Little surprised you haven't heard him, actually.

[elpollodiablo]

This underscores a fundamental requirement of outrageous protest, which is that if you say you're going to do something crazy you need to at least follow through with it. Unfortunately, though, "following through" is not exactly the strong suit of the so-called "hipster." Meanwhile, they've pitted themselves against the Hasidim, whose very existence is pretty much based on crazy behavior, and who have been following through with this behavior reliably for a really long time. All the "hipsters" had to do was take their shirts off and ride for a few minutes, yet their adversaries have been not doing stuff on Saturday, dressing like weirdos, and taking diet advice from "God" for centuries. Not only that, but the Hasidim even stuck to their crazy behavior when they were threatened with death, while all the "hipsters" were really facing was the prospect of cold nipples. Really, trying to compete with the Hasidim in this regard is like challenging Michael Jordan to a game of H-O-R-S-E. If the game is being crazy, you just can't win.

Hoping that the characterization of the Hasidim isn't sincerely that dismissive, but I've made more or less this point with much less wit and verve before. The Bedford Ave cycling crybabies are the worst.

[YojimboMonkey]

man what a great ride this morning, what a great fuckin morning, the kind of morning to make you say FUCK WORK and just get on your bike and ride all fuckin day. I am considering this.

[davy]

Davy I think you'd quite like Josh Ritter. Little surprised you haven't heard him, actually.

I've always got a John Mayer-type vibe from him.

Off-base?

[elpollodiablo]

I think so. Others may disagree, dunno. I really dig this track: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm3lWq4s5-U

[donblood]

Hoping that the characterization of the Hasidim isn't sincerely that dismissive, but I've made more or less this point with much less wit and verve before. The Bedford Ave cycling crybabies are the worst.

Very tongue-in-cheek.  He also goes on at length about the perfect day when young white people never have to encounter anyone unlike themselves.

[elpollodiablo]

That blog is awesome

[Greg Nog]

Hoping that the characterization of the Hasidim isn't sincerely that dismissive, but I've made more or less this point with much less wit and verve before. The Bedford Ave cycling crybabies are the worst.

Also worth noting:

in the larger sense they have already won, since the world of craziness in which the Hasidim live is a small one, and both sanity and a gigantic new bike lane can be found just a few blocks over. In fact, one city official calls it "the Cadillac of bike paths,"

That bike path a few blocks over (on Kent) is indeed tremendously fucking impressive.  It's essentially like a little highway for bikes; a lane going each way, separated from traffic, freshly-paved and well-tended, going at least a mile.  It's quite a thing to behold.

[elpollodiablo]

Yeah but there are more ladies to viz yer sweet wheels over on Bedford

[davy]

That bike path a few blocks over (on Kent) is indeed tremendously fucking impressive.  It's essentially like a little highway for bikes; a lane going each way, separated from traffic, freshly-paved and well-tended, going at least a mile.  It's quite a thing to behold.

All the bike paths are like this in Fort Collins, and there are 280 miles of them criss-crossing town (I don't even know how that's possible, really, but that's what the website says). Benches, waste baskets, signage, bridges, even air pumps, all exclusively for cyclists. A lot of the paths didn't parallel any roads at all, just cut through parks and such. It was amazing.








Two superior photos I'm not able to copy & paste:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeff_saylor/401279725/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajschroetlin/148104122/

Of course, that's Colorado for you.

[what whale]

man what a great ride this morning, what a great fuckin morning, the kind of morning to make you say FUCK WORK and just get on your bike and ride all fuckin day. I am considering this.

These are the best days, particularly if you follow through on your whole FUCK WORK idea.

 

Which is also to say: a co-worker and I have decided that, the first really nice spring day, we're going to leave work early - on bikes - and head downtown to sit outside and drink wine and eat oysters and cheese at this little wine and oyster and cheese joint.  For this day, I cannot wait.

[YojimboMonkey]

I have not followed through on FUCK WORK


Though I think I am going to ride to a deli and get a nice Italian sub for lunch

[donblood]

Once the gigantic beergarden in my neighborhood opens for the season, I'm gonna cut out at like 3:00, ride my bike there, sit around outside drinking beer and smoking, then wobble home like the bougie hipster asshole I am.

[donblood]

But in my other life, where I am not in a metal band, do not have tattoos, and do not smoke American Spirits, I am a businessperson, and I still haven't figured out how I'm going to go about commuting to work on the bike.  The main issue is the sweatiness;  wardrobe changes I could probably handle, and bike parking is tough but doable. 

Goddamn you, intractable sweatiness problem.  Also goddamn the financial services industry, since when I stay home I can work in jeans and a t-shirt, like I am doing right now, but there is no biking involved.

[DCDave]

But in my other life, where I am not in a metal band, do not have tattoos, and do not smoke American Spirits, I am a businessperson, and I still haven't figured out how I'm going to go about commuting to work on the bike.  The main issue is the sweatiness;  wardrobe changes I could probably handle, and bike parking is tough but doable. 

Goddamn you, intractable sweatiness problem.  Also goddamn the financial services industry, since when I stay home I can work in jeans and a t-shirt, like I am doing right now, but there is no biking involved.

This is true for me as well but replace financial services with government consulting.

[donblood]

No thanks

Wait, yes please?  Hard to say.

[DCDave]

Government consulting ABOUT SCIENCE.

[elpollodiablo]

BOO

Government consulting is the worst

[donblood]

Hey Billyburg Brooklynites - I pedaled around your sleepy little neighborhood today and it was awesome.  I saw a lot of people dressed like they were 1980s teenagers.

The ride was fairly uneventful, or rather these-days uneventful, since frightened late '09 me would consider the constant double-yellow riding an event unto itself.  But a few fun things happened:

* I pulled onto the Pulaski bridge right behind a massive group of teenagers.  I had to call out to them one by one to get out of the way.  On the return trip I passed them again, but this time one of them saw me coming from 100 yards off, and they suddenly formed a single-file line.  Good kids.

* Also on the Pulaski:  came upon two people walking abreast, both of them heard my coasting click-click sound, each decided to move in the opposite direction at once, and they banged their heads together.  Comedy!

* I was riding McGuinness Boulevard, which was a complete nightmare of inadequate space, double-parked cars and heavy traffic.  A van passed and the driver screamed something at me about Manhattan and using a lane.  What?  After I'd visited a bike shop by McCarren Park to get a map, I realized he'd been telling me that Manhattan Ave was one block over and had a huge bike lane.  Thanks van guy.

* Immediately after first van guy yelled at me, another van passed, with TWO PEOPLE YELLING AT ONCE.  Having just been yelled at, I immediately became very paranoid that I was breaking some kind of Brooklyn Bicycle Code, but when I pulled up to the light, I realized they were screaming along to "Born To Be Wild."

* On Bedford Ave I saw a dude in green shades on a BMX who looked really relaxed, so I decided to follow him for a while.  It meant slowing way down, but man, that's the way to enjoy Bedford:  at low speed with a hipster escort.

* Just in case you were wondering about the state of traffic enforcement w/r/t bike lanes:  on Vernon Ave in Queens there was a car double-parked across the bike lane, which also happened to be right next to a legally-parked cop car.  The cop started to get in his car, and the double-parked guy ran out to move, but the cop was all NAW THAT'S COOL BRO, I GOT ROOM.

[donblood]

Here's the route from today:

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=3553857

Note the aimless circling in Greenpoint, where I was deciding if I should ride into Manhattan or not.  I remembered it was be-a-drunken-retard day and decided against it.

In other bike news, maybe this is the solution to my sweatiness problem?

http://www.actionwipes.com/

Can I bring myself to wipe myself with something called Action Wipes in the bathroom at work?  Maybe.

[elpollodiablo]

Hey, that map is cool! Did you make that manually, or did it map from a device or something?