The Price of Meh: How Low Can a Fred Get?

This past weekend was an auspicious one in the world of riding road bikes as quickly as possible, for it marked the start of the Giro d'Italia, which is a three-week bicycle cycling race that takes place in Italy. I'm pleased to announce that this race is off to a flambullient start, for with only two stages down we've already gotten to see both a Mark Cavendish temper tantrum and at least one close-up of Mario Cipollini, whose tanned and unctuous visage looks uncannily like a freshly-oiled Brooks. (Cipollini has actually been known to exploit this resemblance for lascivious purposes, as you can see in this unsafe-for-work video.) Also, as I mentioned on Friday, I'm "covering" the Giro for the "Bicycling" magazine website, and they've even devised a special graphic to accompany my missives:

Not only was I pleased to find that "Bicycling" did not exhaust all its considerable design prowess with their "epic" redesign, but with a few minor tweaks I will also be able to repurpose this image when I launch my new sandwich blog:

Some might call that stealing, but I prefer to think of it as sustainable logo recycling.

Meanwhile, closer to (my) home, yesterday the Gran Fondo New York took place, and by the looks of things it was a total "Fred-pocalypse:"

I was sequestered on my own side of the "Big Skanky" yesterday, but when I look at this image all I can see are thousands and thousands of profoundly disappointed mothers.

Speaking of absurd contests and stunning graphics, you may recall that on Friday I also announced the "There Will Be Action Wipes" contest:

Well, subsequent to this announcement something of a Twitter frenzy ensued (by "frenzy" I mean one or two people exchanged Tweets), and the upshot of all this social networking is that, in addition to winning actual Action Wipes, you can also win a Liz Hatch video courtesy of Cyclefilm:

That's a £12.99 £7.99 value! (£7.99 is roughly equivalent to US$978.00). Now, I'm not going to tell the winner what to do with a pack of Action Wipes and a Liz Hatch DVD, but whatever you decide I suggest that you keep it to yourself. In the meantime, the contest entries have been coming frequently and often, like a person with a pack of Action Wipes and a Liz Hatch DVD. Just some of the submissions I've received include this public restroom door-worthy example:

This simplified rendering, complete with "flavor saver:"

(Via "Pseudo Rhys")

And this bold imagining which shows the proposed international symbol for cycling in situ and even incorporates some Action Wipes product placement:

As for the slogan, this should not imply that Action Wipes are not safe or gentle enough for a baby's butt--they certainly are, because they're not moistened with toxins, caustic acids, and recycled developer recovered from old photo labs like some of their competitors' wipes.

Of course, not every submission adhered strictly to the "international symbol for cycling" requirement, but while this may cost them overall victory it does not make them any less artistically valid:

One day, this will hang from suburban bedroom walls all over North America, right next to the Justin Bieber posters. I feel strongly that the time-traveling t-shirt-wearing retro-Fred from the planet Tridork would make a wholesome and inspirational role model for "the youth"--much more so than those fixie riders with their rapping musics and their designer sweatshirts, and even more than professional cyclists with their unfinished tattoos and their doping scandals.

This is not to say that doping is the exclusive domain of the professional--far from it. When it comes to emulating the pros, some Freds do not stop with the crabon wheelsets and the power meters, and some even go as far as to taste the forbidden nectar of the performance-enhancing substance. In fact, a reader recently informed me that one such rider, journalist Andrew Tilin, has written a book about his experiences as a doping Cat 4:

Tilin started doping in January of 2008, and his results as of that date will be nullified. So what were those results? Well, you can see them here, and they basically amount to a bunch of mediocre finishes in his local races. Evidently, even with the aid of performance enhancing drugs, Tilin was unable to reach the podium in a single Cat 4 race. I'm guessing his goals were more journalistic than they were competitive, but even so, if he needs to dope in order to be a lousy Cat 4 than he should probably give up cycling, in the same way that someone who thinks the Grateful Dead suck even after smoking a bunch of "wednesday Weed" should probably quit trying to be a Deadhead.

But such are the perils of Fred-dom, and as much as the bicycle can be a tool for self-discovery and actualization, so can it lead you to your own demise. Who among us has not either known or indeed been a Fred who got sucked into the delusional spiral of training, and spending, and upgrading, all at the expense of personal relationships, professional advancement, and happiness? In this regard the bicycle can be a malevolent seductress, and a siren leading us to perdition. This is not limited to the traditional Fred, either, and the so-called "Nü-Fred" can also fall victim. Consider this video, forwarded by a reader, about a rider preparing for the Red Hook Criterium:



Evidently, the filmmaker is aiming to become the hipster Bud Greenspan, and amazingly he has raised over $1,000:

Here's the pitch:

This is a story about one rider's journey towards his first-ever Red Hook Crit. Frank Warren, owner of the Breukelen Coffee House in Crown Heights, is a passionate amateur cyclist who dreams of making a podium finish and cementing his name on the fixed gear circuit. But running a successful business while training for the biggest race of his life is a difficult balancing act. Can he do both?

It's depressing that fixed-gear self-glorification has come to this, a movie that asks the question: "Can one man balance a job and a hobby?" Plus, he's not even having fun:

"I wanna win. I'm not doing this for fun."

Then again, maybe I'm missing the point of the film. Maybe it's a parody. Or, maybe it's actually about being in complete and utter self-denial. To wit:

"This ain't no hipster shit."

No, not at all. I'm looking forward to the sequel to this movie, in which a freelance graphic designer attempts to balance his grueling 20-hour workweek with his burning desire to never, ever miss a single happy hour.

Speaking of Kickstarter, it is rapidly establishing itself as a real incubator for gratuitous cycling accessories, and I recently learned via the Tweeter that someone is working on a pair of titanium salad tongs that doubles as a bike lock:

On one hand, this could be a failure since hipsters can't stick it in their back pockets. On the other, it could be a huge success, since when you arrive at a barbecue you can easily remove your own frankfurter from the grill. Either way, if this ever makes it to market, they should make sure to include at least one disembodied hipster hand, as forwarded to me by yet another reader:

Now that's choking your Cinelli.

Back in the Saddle: The Unwatched Pot Boils Over

As you may have surmised from the fact that you're reading this now, I have officially returned from my leave of absence. During my leave, I attended to the birth of my child, and while I always make best efforts to divorce my personal affairs from this blog, I will share three facts about my new roommate: 1) He is of the male genderway; 2) He weighs exactly one (1) baby; and 3) He is both vertically and laterally compliant. Also, I would be remiss if I failed to point out that childbirth is truly one of life's greatest miracles--though my "taint" is freaking killing me.

Moving on, I'm also pleased to report that, while my Universal Sports Giro d'Italia blog has concluded along with the Giro itself (spoiler alert: Basso won), I have been hornswoggled into "curating" yet another extracurricular blogular undertaking. This time, I will be a "guest blogger" for the website of the celebrated independent Portland bookseller Powell's. My first post will "drop" sometime today, and the BSNYC/RTMS x Powell's "collabo" will continue until Friday. (I recommend sipping chamomile tea with a raised pinkie as you read my Powell's blog for the full "indie" bookstore experience.)

Meanwhile, in the past week the State of the Cycling Union seems to have slipped beneath "weak" and is now hovering somewhere between "fissiparous" and "moribund." For example, I was amazed to find that this whole "motorized doping" thing seems to be gaining traction, and that it has even made the New York Times:

Granted, this is less indicative of the sorry state of cycling than it is of the sorry state of mainstream journalism, since it appears that the Times is now getting it's cycling sporting news from Boing Boing. One prominent voice in this "controversy" is retired professional Davide Cassani, who, at 50 years old, claims that one of these surreptitiously motorized bicycles would allow him to win a stage at the Giro d'Italia. Clearly, Cassani is making a bold gambit to become to hidden motors what Greg LeMond is to EPO. I personally feel that professional cycling is yet again being singled out unfairly. If the world of sports were truly fair and balanced, people would be just as assiduously investigating rumors that Michael Phelps secreted a Gruber Assist in his anal cavity at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. (Frankly, his claims that those bubbles were caused by flatulence doesn't exactly hold water.)

Similarly shocking to me was just how bad things have become in my own hometown, and I suppose even I have become acclimatized to the absurdity like a lobster sitting in a pot of water on a low flame. Indeed, it took this horrifying Streetfilms "NYC Bike Month Montage" for me to realize that the local "bike culture" has begun to boil over:



This is not to say I didn't learn anything from the video. In fact, I was quite surprised to discover that Streetfilms "curator" and smugmonger-in-chief Clarence Eckerson Jr. may be a closet "freerider":

Granted, he appears to be about 75lbs lighter than the typical long-travel bicycle enthusiast, and he doesn't have a goatee or tribal tattoo, but with the sunglasses and helmet he still looks suspiciously like one of those people you see at the trailhead at Cunningham Park in Queens inflating the tires of their dual suspension bikes with compressors before removing them from the trunk racks of their Xterras.

I was also horrified to learn that at some point New York City played unwitting host to a "David Bowie Dance Ride:"

This is simply something that should not be allowed to happen, and I suspect even the most ebullient Portlander would wince at the prospect. There's just no reason for David Bowie and cycling to come together. In fact, as far as "coming together" and David Bowie are concerned, that's something best left to Iman--and quite possibly Mick Jagger. Still, this evidently did not stop people from dancing in the streets:

Here's one participant who appears to be sporting some kind of nicotine patch on her forehead:

Perhaps she's trying to wean herself off of her addiction to public humiliation.

But Bike Month in New York City isn't just about honoring aging rock stars--it's also about powering fans:

And eating sandwiches:

And still more dancing:

I was also quite pleased to get some "backstory" on a controversy I once covered on this blog. You may recall the woman who boasted about dropping a bunch of recreational cyclists on a leisurely group ride while wearing high heels:

Well, apparently this ride has become the stuff of day-tripper legend, because here's one of the victims recounting the details of that "epic" sightseeing excursion, and it seems he rather enjoyed the beating:

Evidently she's like a dominatrix of Fred-dom.

Indeed, Streetfilms has left no stone of New York City bike-dorkdom unturned, for it even includes scenes from the "New York Bike Jumble:"

I've never attended the "Bike Jumble," partially because it seems like the Craigslist "bikes for sale" section come to life, and partially because I find the word "jumble" off-putting. It just sounds too "folksy" to me, and I avoid "jamborees," "knees-ups," and "hoedowns" for the same reason. However, I now realize I may have made a mistake, because as much as I hate "jamborees" I love watching "hipsters" scrutinize things, and it appears that the "Bike Jumble" featured this in abundance:

There's nothing quite like the woodgrain veneer of expertise over the particle board of cluelessness that is a "hipster" mulling over the inevitable purchase of a lifestyle item. Almost as satisfying though is watching "hipsters" scrutinize maps:

("We better go that way if we want to stay where the white people are.")

Fortunately for them, it's becoming increasingly difficult to escape the growing Brooklyn Gentri-verse, even by accident.

Still, we do not live in a world of absolutes--though I do believe some things are "either/or" propositions. This is especially true when it comes to attire, and ties and bandanas are a perfect example of this:

It's fine to wear a necktie, and even fine to wear a bandana, but under no circumstances should the two ever be worn together. (The same is true of baseball caps and overcoats, flip-flops and wool caps, and of course sleeveless jerseys and arm-warmers.)

Most distressing of all, though, (at least to me) was the fact that I appeared in the video:

Thank goodness I had the foresight to remove my bandana and necktie.

Anyway, after watching the "Bike Month Montage" I needed something to assuage my nerves. As it happens, my collaborator on this NPR piece recently sent me some "vintage" bathroom reading:

I'm sure you'll agree that's a really sweet pie plate. (The spoke protector on that Schwinn isn't too bad either.) Of course, like anybody, I only read vintage Playboys for the vintage articles, and this one had a feature on the "Bike Boom:"


Not only does it include Raleigh Twenty folder and a fine 10-speed:
But it also includes a Bob Jackson track bike:


Alas, who knew back in 1971 that the track bike for track racing would go the way of the full pubic bush?

Fully Loaded: Excessive Packaging

[CUE HIGH-BUDGET DREAM SEQUENCE]

As everybody knows by now, yesterday professional cyclist George Hincapie carved his name into the pavé of history by winning the [instert number here]th edition of the Paris-Roubaix bicycle race, also known as the "Spleen of the Classics:"

(Hincapie, resplendent in his size "M" USPRO Champion Stars-and-Stripes Hanes® Beefy-T®, savors his solo victory)

While few people saw Hincapie as a favorite, nobody could have possibly predicted the dramatic manner in which the race unfolded. As the peloton entered the famed Forest of Arenberg, Hincapie's BMC whatever-it-is bicycle crumbled beneath him as though it were made of Pringles. This, it would seem, was the end of Hincapie's 42nd participation in this storied race. However, spectators and commentators were amazed when, on the penultimate ("penultimate" means the one that hurts your penis the most) sector of cobblestones, Hincapie suddenly rejoined an elite chase group in pursuit of race leader Fabian Cancellara. Even more stunning than the superhuman effort was the fact that Hincapie was riding a period-correct pennyfarthing (or "p-far") bicycle, apparently proffered by a costumed bystander. Hincapie then rode through the chase group (which included riders like Tom Boonen and the preternaturally viscous Filippo Pozzato) like a brakeless "hipster" rides through a bunch of pedestrians at an intersection, overtook a rather nonplussed Cancellara, switched back to a team-issue bicycle upon entering the "Ruby Velodrome," and took the victory that has eluded him for the past 59 years.

Also, cycling fans got to witness another milestone yesterday, when Versus commentator Paul Sherwen uttered the words "around about" for the one millionth time during a Paris-Roubaix broadcast. This phrase will now be encased in a Lucite cobblestone, which will be laid in the Carrefour de l'Arbre pavé sector in an elaborate ceremony to be presided over by professional cyclist turned flax mogul Johan Museeuw, Roger De Vlaeminck, and renowned artistic cyclist Serge Huercio (who, in his previous incarnation as a Classics rider, won Liege-Bastogne-Liege five consecutive times).

[CUE HIGH-BUDGET "BACK-TO-REALITY" SEQUENCE]

Of course, we all know the real Paris-Roubaix story--so "sparctacular" is Fabian "Spartacus" Cancellara that he can humor his sponsors by riding famously brittle Zipp wheels, crack those wheels, and still win by like two and a half hours. Boonen, on the other hand, was not quite as sharp as his pointy sideburns would indicate. As for Hincapie, rather than carving his name into the cobbles of history, sadly he instead chose to write it in bubble letters on the dry erase board walls of the Halls of Meh.

In fact, considerably more exciting than Hincapie's performance (by which I mean slightly more than not at all) were the commercials during the Versus broadcast. I was particularly fascinated to learn about the "Sea-Doo," which is apparently the world's first personal watercraft with a brake:

With the advent of the on-water braking system, the road-going "tarck" bike is now officially the last machine in the world of "flambullient," DayGlo, color-coordinated, and mostly pointless transport (a flat-brim-capped realm which also includes vehicles such as chrome-laden crotch-rockets and custom Civics) for which brakes are still not acceptable. Then again, I'm not a part of "personal watercraft culture," and it may be that using an on-water braking system also means you have no "seaworthiness" (which is, of course, the nautical equivalent of "street cred") and marks you as a total "Nü-Landlubber"--or, worse yet, a complete "fakencaptain." Or, maybe the on-water brake makes this contraption even more like a "tarck" bike, since it essentially creates a reverse thrust, which is similar to the whole "leg braking" concept. Either way, even though designers are attempting to "coolify" the bicycle brake with ill-conceived novelties like the Blockhead stem and the handlebar-mounted clay-cutter, from what I see out there on the "streeetzzz" brakelessness is still the order of the day. Consider this typical specimen:

Apart from the lack of a brake, it also has other "Save the Track Bike" styling cues, my favorite of which is the popular "shoulder pad" grip setup:

This of course evokes the shoulder-pads-and-pushed-up-blazer--sleeves look of the 1980s, and it allows the rider to show off the anodization of his handlebars in the same way it allowed Don Johnson to show off his tanned and waxed forearms:

Another commerical I saw on Versus was one for "ExtenZe Male Enhancement," an annotated variant of which you can see here:



I'm not sure why so many men want to make their penises bigger. Really, having unwieldy genitalia seems like a major inconvenience, and if anything I think it would be more beneficial to make it more compact, easily portable, and less susceptible to damage. Plus, having ExtenZe in your medicine cabinet could be potentially embarrassing, but keeping a box of "male reducer" laying around in plain sight suggests you actually require mediation to reign in your endowment. Apparently, though, increased size isn't the only effect of ExtenZe--according to the Versus commercial, it also makes men "perform" better. By "perform" I assume they don't mean you'll be able to deliver a knockout monologue and land that speaking part at your local repertory theater, and that they're really talking about "s-e-x." Presumably, Extenze will impart upon you the potency of "five Japanese slow-drippers," which is helpful if you're currently only a "one-touch dripper:"

("All You Haters Touch My Dripper," spotted by a reader in Japan.)

Or if you're a "Husband For Hire:"

I spotted the above vehicle in Brooklyn and immediately assumed the driver was some sort of male prostitute. Subsequently, I consulted a popular search engine and learned that he's actually just a contractor, though his website did include a drawing of a person with an enormous tool, which kindled my suspicions anew:

Speaking of large packages, I took the opportunity this past weekend to transport some items with the Surly Big Dummy I've been borrowing:

(The Wagon Queen Family Truckster)

As I must regularly visit the off-site storage area where I receive bulky parcels, house my ironic intern Spencer Madsen, and store canned foods and Snapple in preparation for the Apocalypse, the Big Dummy has already proved itself to be quite useful for what the pretentious mistakenly call "portaging" and what I prefer to call "shuttling crap." Of course, I also live in fear of the moment when, having discharged my load and carrying nothing, I will be spotted by some smug cargo cyclist who's hauling a hemp sofa and 400 pounds of compost and be branded a "fakenporter." In fact, in the event that the cargo bike becomes Fixed-Gear 2.0, I plan to market a line of color-coordinated and pre-distressed empty cardboard boxes that people can simply keep on their bikes at all times for instant "load cred." It's the "porteur" equivalent of ExtenZe.

The other fear I have is dropping my load all over the street (in the literal sense, not the "one-touch dripper sense"). Hopefully, though, if that were to happen then someone would help me--just like they helped this drunk guy who fell off his bike:

Saved me after falling off my bike - m4w (Midtown West)
Date: 2010-04-12, 12:19AM EDT

There is no way this is going to work but I hope it does. You helped me up and helped me fix my bike. It was around 3am I was tipsy and went over the handlebars of my bike; you came to the rescue and then ran off! Email me

Sounds like David Byrne is off the wagon again. Really, falling off your bike while drunk is even more embarrassing than riding around and high-fiving Rollerbladers:

central park today- high 5! (Gramercy)
Date: 2010-04-11, 7:02PM EDT

hey there, today we passed each other a couple times going around the park. you were rollerblading and I was riding my bike. I gave you a high 5 riding past one of the times. I should have stopped. I thought your were quite the rollerblader and definitely looked good doing it. Maybe we can go for a rollerblade together sometime. I would love to get to know you. Hope you see this.

Obviously, the above poster is a "troll," since nobody looks good Rollerblading. And speaking of "portaging," it seems that some sort of "bicycle guru" is walking around the East Village while "portaging" a frame:

To the bicycle guru. - m4w (East Village)
Date: 2010-04-10, 1:51AM EDT

You had your Soma bike frame slung over your shoulder on 14th and A. I said you were missing something. You took out your ear buds to hear what I was saying.

The conversation ended when you had to take a picture of a church.
I think you are a bodhisattva in disguise. I felt good just being me around you. Thanks for that.

I find it difficult to believe that a Bodhisattva would be walking around with a Soma and listening to earbuds, though in these Apocalyptic times anything is possible. Perhaps she's the same person who helped that drunk fix his bike. Hopefully if I do drop my cargo, the Bicycle Guru will materialize like some sort of "hipster" version of Simon and help me "portage" my burden.

Coming to Terms: Reconciliation and Rationalization

We all ride bicycles for different reasons. For some of us, cycling is a means of transportation. For others, it is a way to engage in friendly competition. Some of us even use it as yet another excuse to get naked. But regardless of why we do it, cycling eventually makes us all come to terms with ourselves. Ultimately, no matter how exquisitely lugged your hand-fabricated road bike or how studiously utilitarian your $1,349.00 "Gazelle Toer Populair Gent" Dutch-style fop-conveyor, it is up to you to propel it forward. (Sure, there are bicycles with electrical assist, but I have chosen to pretend they do not exist.)

Still, it obviously helps a lot if your bicycle is working properly--though sometimes even an equipment malfunction is not enough to stop a powerful and determined rider. Such was the case at yesterday's Tour of Flanders, which Fabian Cancellara managed to win despite a bike change necessitated by a "bad-luck incident with a couple of brake binder assemblies:"

Cancellara's teammate, Matti Breschel, was not so fortunate. He also had to switch bikes due to a brake malfunction, though apparently Saxo Bank mechanics took the opportunity to pull the old "Stuart O'Grady Bike Flim-Flam" on him:

This certainly is a "big, big, big mistake." Firstly, according to a popular user-edited Internet encyclopedia, Breschel is an inch and a half taller than O'Grady, which means that the bike did not fit properly. Secondly, cyclists are notoriously superstitious, and many riders in the professional peloton believe a gypsy mechanic placed a curse on O'Grady's spare bike back in the Crédit Agricole days and that grave misfortune will befall anybody who rides it. As a result, O'Grady has had the same spare bike since the late '90s. What's more, it's gone completely untouched since then. Sometimes, if you're watching a race on Versus, you see it atop the team car, covered in cobwebs with a raven perched nonchalantly on the top tube. So as you can imagine, Breschel was horrified to receive it, and I'm sure even now his teammates are looking askance at him and waiting for him to either drop dead or fall victim to some horrible crotchal fungus.

As for the "bad-luck incident" with the brakes, I'm not sure what caused the brake binder assemblies to fail. Perhaps SRAM equipped Saxo Bank with crappy brakes, or perhaps a ham-fisted mechanic over-tightened something, or perhaps Cancellara's and Breschel's bikes were placed too close to O'Grady's spare bike on the roof of the team car. Regardless, it's more the sort of thing you'd expect from a Walmart bike--and in fact, it's exactly the sort of thing I encountered on my Walmart Mongoose Cachet "fixed-speed" bicycle, which I recently purchased for testing purposes after filling out the necessary paperwork:

I plan to report in more detail on the bicycle in due course, but in the meantime I will say that it was equipped with some sort of cursed front brake binder bolt that spins eternally in both directions without either loosening or tightening. (Insert eerie bird sound here.)

Of course, I already knew most of what happened in the Tour of Flanders hours before actually watching it, since the Versus coverage did not air until yesterday evening. Still, I did watch the race, partially to witness the action firsthand but mostly to check in on the commercials, one of which was a commercial for the "Road ID" in which Bob Roll advocates carrying a bazooka:



I watched this with interest since a "PR" person was kind enough to contact me recently and ask if I wanted to "test" a Road ID myself. However, I politely declined, since in order to properly test one I'd have to get in some sort of horrible accident that would render me unable to convey information about myself verbally. I was briefly tempted to engineer a "prank" test in which I would lie motionless on the Brooklyn Bridge bike path and wait for someone to call the number on my bracelet, at which point they would hear this, but I dismissed this as being in extremely poor taste and ultimately decided to forego the opportunity altogether.

In addition to the Road ID commercial, there was also one for Denorex shampoo, which was an updated version of the old half-and-half head test:

"On this side I can feel a tingling sensation," says the tester. While this was not a cycling-specific commercial, as I watched it I realized that this premise would also be perfect for selling chamois cream. Basically, you'd take a pair of cycling shorts and smear half the chamois with one brand of cream and the other half with a competing cream. Then, you'd get a pro cyclist like David Millar to wear the shorts during a big race like the Tour of Flanders and describe the taintal sensations:

David Millar: "Nothing's happening yet."

Tyler Farrar: "Just wait. I'm telling you, it's like having an anxious sea urchin in your shorts."

Speaking of cycling and coming to terms with yourself, as time goes on it can grow increasingly difficult to reconcile your constantly changing needs and desires with your self-image. Consider the world of fixed-gears, for example. Not only has the act of riding a fixed-gear lost any semblance of "street cred," but it's inevitable that fixed-gear riders are now becoming interested in other types of cycling. Still, they're not quite ready to cast off the fixed-gear identity. Consider this entry from the Fixedgeargallery, which was forwarded to me by a reader:

The polarizing ("polarizing" is a polite was of saying "disgusting") aesthetic considerations of the Cannondale Raven aside, this is not even a fixed-gear bicycle; it's a single-speed. Why, then, did the owner submit it to the Fixedgeargallery, and more importantly, why did the "curator" of the site post it? I am simultaneously dismayed by the incongruity yet pleased that the Fixedgeargallery appears to be expanding its purview. In any case, it's sort of like visiting a familiar porn site and suddenly finding an unexpected combination of genitalia.

Similarly incongruent is the persona of "cultural snake handler" Mike Giant, shown here writing his name on a wall for the umpteenth time:

MIKE GIANT on Jessie Street from Sean Desmond on Vimeo.

Then, after writing his name on a wall, he signs it:

Signing a picture of your name seems unnecessary to me--it's kind of like pouring sugar on your Cocoa Puffs.

Anyway, event though Giant has built a brand and career based entirely on "flambulliently" writing his own name and then selling it to others (actually, that's not fair--sometimes he just copies stuff), he also likes to espouse Buddhism:

This is even more vexing than singlespeed bikes on Fixedgeargallery. Regardless of your opinion of Buddhism, I'm pretty sure it's the opposite of what Mike Giant does, and I'm also reasonably certain Siddhartha didn't gain a worldwide following by writing the name "Buddha" really cool all over India. Then again, while vanity and Buddhism aren't really compatible, I suppose both are pretty easy to engage in when you're stoned. Actually, being stoned is all about combining things that don't go well together--that's why it makes people put peanut butter on their pizza. I guess that's really the depth of Mr. Giant's worldview.

But while it's pretty easy to reconcile opposing concepts with liberal application of "Wednesday weed," it's a little harder to reconcile your need for a brake when you don't want people to see that you have one. Fortunately, at least one designer is coming to the rescue, for fixed-gear freestyle impresario and streetwear enthusiast Prolly recently alerted me to this contraption:

Yes, you can finger this diminutive nubbin without anybody knowing; surreptitious braking is the "hipster" equivalent of playing "pocket pool" while leering at someone on a subway platform. However, to truly appreciate this setup you need to see it in context, and fortunately someone posted a complete picture of the bike in Prolly's comment section:

While I don't believe in judging people by their bicycles, sometimes it's difficult not to draw conclusions. I may be way off here, but everything about this bike suggests middle-aged designer with an erectile dysfunction. By the way, the stem is called the "Blockhead," and it features "sharp edges and corners." Furthermore, it's "not for everyone," and you should "Ride it at your own risk:"


Not for everyone indeed. I suppose after taking a Blockhead stem in the "pants yabbies" two or three times you might need one of those weird saddles too. Really, I can't help thinking that the owner of that bike can't come to terms with the fact that he should really be riding this:


It's called the "Shoppy," and unlike the Blockhead stem, it is intended for everyone--both men:

And women:

"Flambullient" coif not required but recommended.