This Just In: BSNYC On Vacation!

One of the best things about writing this blog is that I answer to nobody but myself. So recently I asked myself if I could take a much-needed summer vacation, and I was delighted when the answer came back "Yes!" I can be unpredictable, though, so I also figured I'd better pack up and split quickly before I changed my mind. As such, I'll be gone through next week, and will return on Monday, July 14th with regular updates.

This should give me ample time to add a few more Tour de France stage wins to my palmares before the race heads into the mountains and I abandon Cipollini-style as I have in years past. (Suffering is so undignified.)

In my absense, please enjoy our nation's birthday, the first week of the Tour, and whatever else happens to be going on. As always, thanks everybody for reading, and ride safe. I'll see you again on the 14th.

--BSNYC

The Indelible Cleanliness of Riding: Drugs No, Tattoos Yes!

By this time I think pretty much everybody knows that Floyd Landis has lost his appeal against the US Anti-Doping Agency, thus really, really losing the 2006 Tour de France. Landis says he is "saddened" by this decision, though he may take some consolation in the fact that Rowan Atkinson has signed on to play him in the Hollywood screen adaptation of his life:

Not only do they bear more than a passing resemblance, but Atkinson also has the experience in the peloton to bring some much-needed authenticity to the film. Here he is reenacting the epic break that brought Floyd fame, and then misfortune:

Of course, as we all know, not doping is the new doping. And while Slipstream may be leading the charge, they're not the only ones drawing the proverbial "X" on their hands. VeloNews reports that cherubic wunderkind Damiano Cunego has also jumped into the pit. Not only that, but he's so committed to clean racing that "he's supporting a new anti-doping campaign and has had its slogan tattooed on his left arm. It reads: 'I’m doping free.'"

Now that's impressive. Nobody would ever get a hypocritical tattoo. Hopefully Cunego will now be exempt from doping controls and need only flash his ink when he's called. As for the tattoo itself, VeloNews didn't have any pictures, but having been a fan of his ever since he starred in Woody Allen's "Match Point," I was highly curious. So I followed the link to Cunego's campaign, but all I could find was this:

Is this what Cunego has indelibly applied to himself? To me the winking coupled with the phrasing implies not that Cunego is a clean athlete, but rather that he's doping for free, as in Lampre or some third party is paying for his drugs. I wonder if the tattoo on his arm winks too, or if he has to flex or something to get it to do that.

Unsatisfied, I hoped that maybe Cunego's own site had a picture of the tattoo. Now, if you've ever visited an Italian website, you know it's a lot like walking into some awful nightclub--lots of flash and techno. So I clicked over, plugged my ears, and averted my eyes. There was no techno, but there was the requisite animation. To save you the trouble of visiting yourself, I present you with a still from the homepage:

The piercing eyes of Damiano Cunego have been known to make competitors wilt at a thousand paces. These eyes have flattened mountain passes, melted cheese onto little pieces of bruschetta, and frightened the Epstein-Barr virus he battled with in 2005 right out of his body. Even though the heading says, "Welcome to my official website" the greeting is so at odds with his forbidding visage that I was almost afraid to click further. However, I rummaged around in my suitcase of courage, took a slug from my bidon of fortitude, nibbled on some cheese, and somehow found the wherewithal to press on.


I was happy that I did, because while I didn't find the tattoo I did find a kinder, more welcoming Cunego. This picture says, "See? I'm not just a killing machine. I'm also just a regular guy who likes to put on a black suit, style my hair, and cruise around town on my Wilier hybrid which has reflectors--for safety!" One might be tempted to say Cunego's reflector use is at odds with his lack of a helmet, but actually Cunego is wearing a"Gelmet,"which is a hair gel made of 70% silicone. The Gelmet not only makes your coif wind- and waterproof but also provides head protection in the event of a fall. It's expected to be a huge seller in Europe, Astoria Queens, and south Florida.

Despite being won over by Cunego's endearing side I still found myself questioning the validity of his anti-doping stance. Notice his stat card boasts that he's married to Margherita. Hey, if he drinks that much chances are he's doing other things too. (I'm married to Vodka so I know what I'm talking about.) Note also that Cunego's distinguishing features are that he's "A Winner!!!" Yeah, that should be tremendous help in identifying him should he do something illegal. "Officer, some rubber-haired guy on a bike just ran over my dog!" "What did he look like, Ma'am?" "A Winner!!!" In the spirit of full disclosure Cunego should at least add to his list of distinguishing features that he also has a winking tattoo that says "I'm doping [for] free."

Of course, without seeing Cunego's ink I can't tell where it ranks among the world's cycling-related tattoos. My two all-time favorites, which I've mentioned in the past, are the "Hug Life" tattoo (the "Last Supper" of cycling tattoos):

and the "Ambiguous Lance" tattoo (the jersey and shorts of Lance Armstrong and the face of Robbie McEwen, riding a Colnago, all applied to a hairy leg).

Indeed, it is a bold rider who inks his or her love of cycling permanently on him- or herself. Even the most dedicated cyclist's tastes can be mercurial--eBay is littered with titanium frames which were purchased in the '90s as "the last bike I'll ever need." As such, getting a bike tattoo is nearly as risky as getting a tattoo of a partner's name or a favorite band. There's also a big gap between the two masterpieces above (which are totally regret-proof in their brilliance, of course) and all other cycling-related tattoos, some of which you can see here. I must say though that there are some stand-outs among all the chainrings, chain armbands and black-bicycle-silhouettes-on-the-ankle you see so often, including:

The left-hand drive road bike with what appears to be either a singleator or a bent spoon for a derailleur;




The woman on a left-hand drive bike (I'm smelling a motif here);

The Permanent Product Placement (corporate version);

The PPP (indie version);

The crossed pistons (which bicycles don't have, unless you consider your legs, in which case why not a pair of crossed legs?);

And of course municipal signage.

Don't get me wrong, though. I'm a tremendous tattoo fan. Actually, I'm in the midst of getting a full sleeve consisting entirely of outdated bike parts. It's going to be all stuff like biopace chainrings, Mektronic shift levers, Girvin Flexstems, and Dura-Ace 8-speed derailleurs. I'm also getting a high-normal mountain bike derailleur on one ankle and a low-normal one on the other. I figure that should cover me either way.

These Just In: Of Bridgework and Birdcages

Once again, I have been proven wrong about dentists and their supposed love of Serottas. An attentive reader (who may or may not be looking for crown and bridge dentistry) has just forwarded me the following:

DENTAL CARE FOR SPECIALIZED ROAD BIKE (BERGEN COUNTY) [original URL: http://newyork.craigslist.org/jsy/bik/737223724.html]

Reply to: [deleted]

Date: 2008-06-29, 7:52PM EDT

I am a general dentist who performs a great deal of crown and bridge dentistry in addition to the highest quality root-canal treatment, cosmetic care,dentures,etc. I am looking to barter my services for a specialized carbon frame road bike, 54cm with a compact crank and ultegra or dura-ace. If you are a specialized dealer in need of the finest in dental care, please contact me.

I applaud this dentist's populist choice in bicycles and I admire his courage in eschewing the boutique marques so coveted by his colleagues. However, I don't think he'll have much luck. All Specialized dealers worth their Tarmacs have long ago had Zertz inserts placed in all their teeth by Mike Sinyard's team of dental technicians, thus allowing them to eat unpopped popcorn kernels by the fistful without even the slightest discomfort. He might have better luck scoring a Jamis or something.

Moving on, alleycat organizers have long been plundering pop culture for alleycat flyers, but it would appear that pop culture may not be a renewable resource:

(art by Jimmy in Brooklyn)

Indeed, when even the 1978 Édouard Molinaro comedy of manners La Cage aux Folles has become grist for the alleycat flyer mill, it would appear that the bottom of the barrel may have been scraped and the trend may have reached its zenith. No mention of where this may be going down, but if you're interested in taking part you might try the French Riviera.

Now back to rabid antidentites.

One Bike Too Many: From Buddha to Burgess

On Monday, I put forth that it's important to limit the number of bicycles you own, and I stand by my assertion. You can't have a bike for every ride, just like you can't have a gear for every hill, and the rider with a bike for every eventuality is hardly different from the celebutard who must purchase another apartment to house her shoes. Then, on Wednesday, I went on to criticize "The Climb" author Robert Mackey (who cleaned his front tire recently) for going to Europe in order to prep for his trip to Europe, likening this to "the dentist who buys a Madone while he waits for his custom Serotta to come in." And here, according to at least one reader, I crossed a line.

That reader was Dr. John M. Gowey, DDS. Dentists everywhere owe Dr. Gowey a debt of gratitude, for it is he who emails me to from time to time to correct some of my misconceptions about dentists. Just some of the things I've learned from Dr. Gowey are: 1) not all dentists ride Serottas (at least he doesn't); 2) dentists care for their bikes as meticulously as they care for their teeth (at least Dr. Gowey does); and 3) dentists love "Seinfeld" because Dr. Tim Whatley is one of the few non-psychopathic dentists in mainstream entertainment. (In that regard it seems Dr. Whatley is to some degree their Paul Robeson, or at least their Sidney Poitier.)

And I just thought they were just a bunch of sadistic Serotta-straddling maniacs. Who knew!?!

Anyway, with regard to my comment about a dentist buying a Madone while waiting for his Serotta, the always insightful Dr. Gowey had this to say:

In today's post, you insinuated that there is something wrong if a dentist gets a Madone while having to wait for his Serotta. What you did not specify was the length of time the dentist was forced to wait before the arrival of the Serotta. Now if it were only a couple of weeks he had to do without the Serotta, I would certainly agree with you that although it is good for the current economy, the dentist was exhibiting signs of excessive consumerism. If the lag time for the new bike was projected at more than two weeks however, I think a dentist (or even a non-dentist) is perfectly justified in buying a "gap bike" to help him make it through the difficult waiting period. You should acknowledge that if an "Orange Julius bike" is a reasonable purchase, then a "bike purchased while waiting for a new bike" or "gap bike" should be justified as well.

I pondered Dr. Gowey's email for some seconds. At first I was tempted to dismiss the very notion of a "gap bike" as excessive, but then I decided to appease Dr. Gowey, mostly because despite Gowey's assertions to the contrary and his fondness for Tim Whatley I still think dentists actually are sadistic psychopaths and I was afraid he might come after me. So I decided to allow Gowey and his dental ilk their "gap bikes," provided they adhere to a formula. I replied to him thusly:

I'm prepared to give an allowance of $150 a month. That means if you've got to wait three months for a Serotta or similar you can spend $450 on an old aluminum bike with 8 speed or something. I think that's more than fair. Given that, if the gap bike were a Madone 5.1 retailing at $3,019.99 (the Ultegra bike, slumming it I know but still a decent gap bike) the gap would need to be 20.13 months.

You may exceed that if you can recoup the excess by selling it (on the Serotta forums, where else?) but if you can't you're personally liable for the balance.

This I hope will appease dentists everywhere and thus spare me an untimely demise at the wrong end of some hideous dental implement.

Gap bikes aside, however, I maintain there are circumstances under which even one bicycle is one too many. Here is just one such circumstance:

This De Rosa was repainted by De Rosa in Italy. Previous owner had moola and up close the paint is stunning. To do the paint job justice, I built it up with some nice components, Phil woods, Campy Cranks, Campy brakes, Pearl this, Nitto that. I don't really ride it as I enjoyed putting the bike together more. That's why I am selling this one and starting another one. So I decided to post some pics before selling.

I think an actual geared drivetrain might have done this frame more justice, and that a frame should at least reach a certain level of deterioration before it's given the fixed-gear treatment. But hey, if your idea of fun is bolting track components to road frames I'm the last person who's going to stop you. And yes, building bicycles, however incongruous they may be, can be both enjoyable and rewarding. But it is also fun to ride bicycles, and if riding a bicycle you built isn't as enjoyable as building it, then that doesn't reflect so well on the build. Most dangerous though is flirting with addiction by endlessly purchasing and assembling components. This is something we all flirt with as cyclists. Building a bicycle can bring you joy or it can lead you to ruin, and if you're not riding the bikes you're building at least long enough to wear out a set of tires, you may be on a ruinous road. I would advise him to satisfy his need to build anew by rebuilding his current bike as a geared road bike. If the compulsion to sell and replace is still present, seek help.

Then there's this.



Yes, it should come as no surprise to anybody at this point that bars are getting shorter. It's almost as though stems are electric sharpeners and the bars are pencils being fed into them from either end. At this point I think the only thing keeping straight bars long enough to actually protrude beyond the stem clamp is the size of the grips out there on the market. This at least is ensuring that riders maintain a fistful of bar on either end of the stem. But once some fixed-gear rider has that "2001" bone-in-the-air moment of revelation and takes a scissor to his Ourys, watch out--that's when you're going to see some serious index-finger-and-thumb steering. Just imagine someone eating a piece of baby corn like it's regular corn--that's how people are going to be holding their handlebars.

This bicycle may also be one too many:

I'm not sure if "pengy" is a diminutive form of "penguin," or of "penga." If the former, it may refer to the animal this bicycle represents. If the latter, it refers to the organ which the top-tube pad protects. In either case, it wouldn't be terribly difficult to imagine Burgess Meredith straddling this bike and softly quacking to himself as he pedaled bow-leggedly away.

Worst of NYC Craigslist SPECIAL EDITION: Pista Price Is Right!

The PistaDex in New York City is currently at 650. I don't know if the market's going to crash tomorrow or sometime during the next decade, but for the moment there's no doubt we're living in the "go-go aughts" when it comes to fixed-gears. So with the weekend upon us, I figured I'd put together a little game show. Below are the four Pistas on the New York City Craigslist which yield the 650 PistaDex. I've blocked out the prices on each. Simply study the ad, try to guess what the seller is asking, and then choose a price. If you're right, you'll see the ad. If you're wrong, you'll see a roller catastrophe. As far as a prize, you'll have to contact the respective sellers--I'm sure they'd be willing to give you their bikes if they knew you guessed correctly.

(By the way, if you have some Rain Man-like ability to scan all four sets of choices, average them all in your head, and ace the game that way, my hat is off to you. I lack the basic math skills to come up with choices that will prevent you from doing that.)

Thanks, have fun, and have a good weekend.

--RTMS

2008 Bianchi Pista (Fixed Gear) with Major Upgrades 57 - $?
Reply to: [deleted]
Date: 2008-06-20, 2:03PM EDT

2008 Bianchi Pista with low miles and new Nitto chrome handlebars, Fi'zi:k tape, better chain, and new wheel set. The costume wheel set cost 500 and consists of: Mavic Open Sport rims with Grar Campe hubs. The bike is blue and in good condition.

Frame Size: 57

Yep, you read right: a costume wheelset with Grar Campe hubs. (That's an upgrade from the Gwar hubs.) That should help jack the price up. But by how much?

--$600

--$700

--$800

--$900

Black Bianchi Pista - Fixed Gear Track Bike - $? (Inwood / Wash Hts)
Reply to: [deleted]
Date: 2008-06-23, 6:09PM EDT

Sick Bike. 57 cm. Pink Velocity Deep V Rim. Vittoria Pro Blue Rubino tires. Velo Plush Seat. Specialized toe clips.

Is available for pickup in NYC, Fairfield County, and New Haven.

This one's pretty funky. But is it funky enough to warrant an asking price below full MSRP?

--$450

--$550

--$600

--$650

Stripped chrome Bianchi Pista w/ Brooks saddle, nitto bars + more - $? (Wburg)
Reply to: [deleted]
Date: 2008-06-26, 5:16PM EDT

2004 Chrome Bianchi Pista (first year Bianchi issued the chrome pista)

Gearing - 48/16 Fixed

Size - 51cm (small guys and girls)

This bike is in great condition, and hasn't been ridden in the last 2 years. The frame was stripped of all decals except for the Bianchi crest on the head tube. There are almost no logos on the bike, and even the brake cable was done in silver. Included are Specialized Silver wall all condition pro tires (brand new), so even the tires will match.

Upgrades include:
- Butchered Brooks B17 narrow leather saddle, cut down to look like a swallow saddle.
- MKS track peddles with cage and white leather straps
- Paul Components love lever (brake, can be removed)
- Nitto 36cm ridding bars chopped and flipped. The most narrow nitto bullhorns I could make (great for squeezing between cars)
- Specialized all condition pro tires in Grey to match bike. New, never installed.

All other items are stock

I'll be showing the bike this weekend in Williamsburg. $?

Some major work has gone into this baby, and the Brooks saddle has even been shaved down by hand! Plus, chrome Pistas with no decals are so hot right now. But how hot are they?

--$750

--$800

--$850

--$900

bianchi fixed/ track bike - $?
Reply to: [deleted]
Date: 2008-06-27, 1:13AM EDT

this is a bianchi pista track bike that i stripped of all the logos. personally, i dont like riding around looking like an advertisement and the all chrome and black looks cooler anyway. because it was a d.i.y. striping job though, the decals kind of smudged up the frame giving it a bit of a scuffy look in some places. (shown in picture.) it has a rpm crankset-jalco deep v wheels. it has a small front brake, easily removable if youre a bit more macho than me. the back wheel has a flip-flop hub,so you can turn it around and ride single speed on those days when you just gotta coast down the willy b bridge. the bars are covered with neoprene on the drops and cloth on the top. i have an extra pair of NJS stamped nitto track drop bars ill throw in. theyre about 80 bucks new alone. ? obo. unfortunately i have to let it go. times are hard! p.s. this was my everyday commuter, so there is small scratches from locking up and stuff, but it was well taken care of, lways inside, and will last you a long ass time if you take care of it too. i live in brooklyn but will meet in manhattan if you like.

Another de-decaled chrome Pista. He's including a bunch of extras, but he also seems to be under duress. How will that affect his asking price? He's already admitted he's not that macho.

--$450

--$500

--$575

--$600

Real Niche Sports: HBO Does Millar

Last night, the HBO show “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” aired a segment about David Millar. I always perk up when cycling is going to appear on mainstream television, so I made sure to watch. Of course, cycling only gets attention outside the cycling media when the subject is doping, and I knew this piece was yet another doping story, but still, like a virgin entering a whorehouse, I went in hopeful.

Now, as a caveat, I should mention I don’t follow any sports apart from cycling. I’m not a fan of unscripted entertainment, and to me watching a sport like baseball is like watching the “Flavor of Love” in that’s it’s basically a bunch of cheesy people with unfortunate hairdos being winnowed down to a single winner over the course of a season. Cycling, on the other hand, is lots of different events with lots of different winners. (Though there’s still the cheese factor and the bad hairdo factor.) Also, I like to ride my bicycle, whereas the only ball sport I like to play is pocket pool.

Well, I was disappointed almost immediately—Bryant Gumbel wasn’t the guy I thought he was. To be honest, though, the fault was mine as I had gotten my hard-hitting sports journalists confused. I had thought Gumbel was that guy from “Pootie Tang,” but it turns out he’s actually that guy from the ‘80s who was in “Gumbel to Gumbel.” I soon got over that, but I was disappointed anew to learn that the first segment was about women’s softball and how it’s no longer going to be an Olympic sport. Whatever. Softball’s just a watered-down version of a sport I don’t care about anyway, and that fast-motion underhanded pitching creeps me out. Actually, truth be told, I don’t care if they get rid of cycling in the Olympics, either. I think they should fix the problem of Olympic bloat by getting rid of every sport except the ones that cavemen used to do. The Olympics should just be about who can lift the heaviest rock, who can run the fastest, who can jump the highest, and who can throw a heavy rock or stick the farthest. Done and done. Leave the rest to the professionals.

So I fast-forwarded through the softball and went straight to the Millar piece, only to encounter more softball--reporting, that is. Gumbel, Cone of Smugness firmly in place, introduced the piece by calling cycling "a niche sport whose image has been trashed by a series of scandals and allegations involving performance-enhancing drugs." I really can’t stand when people call cycling a niche sport. Yes, it's not regarded as mainstream, but the truth is it’s actually incredibly popular. Not only is the Tour de France (despite itself) one of the world’s most popular sporting events, but participation on the amateur level is huge as well. Outside of an academic environment how many people do you know who compete in organized and sanctioned baseball, or football, or basketball? Globally speaking, who the hell cares about the “World Series?” If cycling is a niche sport then Islam is a niche religion. Cycling’s not a niche sport—Gumbel’s a niche journalist.

Gumbel then passed the Cone of Smugness to John Frankel. Millar’s story is already familiar to most cycling fans, but if you’re not up to speed here are the highlights as presented by the piece:

--Millar is now clean, and he wants to help younger riders stay clean too. He recognizes that "fans of the sport no longer believe what they're seeing."

--Millar talks to Frankel while having his blood tested. Frankel asks him if it evokes a time when he used to stick a "needle in your arm--or elsewhere" in order to dope. The “elsewhere” is highly intriguing, yet they never follow up on it.

--Millar was a clean athlete until 2001, when he finally submitted to pressure to dope. When he proudly showed off a natural hematocrit of over 40%, a teammate remarked, "’Why aren't you at 50?’...for him it wasn't professional." Finally, tired and lacking results, he reached the breaking point. A team official sat Millar down for a talk and explained he needed to “prepare properly.” "It was relief,” says Millar. “I was just tired."

--Millar used EPO, which helped him win Vuelta stages and the World TT Championship. Jaded, Millar felt "no joy, absolutely no joy,” and kept the used EPO syringes on his bookshelf--the evidence which ultimately damned him.

--We see footage of Millar walking a city street pensively in a black peacoat. During his two year suspension he says he disappeared off the grid and drank excessively. This is more intriguing even than the “or elsewhere” with regard to the injections. Personally, I’d love to learn more about the lost years of David Millar. It’s kind of like John Lennon’s “Lost Weekend,” or that period in Jesus’s life that’s not covered in the Bible, during which people try to say he went to India and studied Buddhism or whatever. Did Millar smoke crack with Amy Winehouse? Did he paint himself green, eat peyote, and run around the desert at Burning Man? Did he take a creative writing course at the Learning Annex? I’m strangely curious.

--Eventually, Millar rediscovered his love for cycling. Enter Jonathan Vaughters whose own Cone of Smugness is pointier even than his sideburns. His riders are tested randomly once every two weeks, year round, and five times more than those on other teams.

--Vaughters wants people to "go back to believing in the athletes for what they really are" and he’s going to "put it all on the table." They’re putting it on the table all right—we see lots of shots of doctors putting vials of urine on one while Vaughters is talking.

--Slipstream is a "culture shift" in cycling; they all live together in Gerona, which allows “teammates to police each-other." They’re each given a Blackberry so they’re "easily found for testing at any time." “The result is the result,” Vaughters says. “If it's first it's first, if it's 132nd it's 132nd."

Hey, I respect Millar for serving his time and ostensibly being honest. I also respect Vaughters and Slipstream for trying to be “transparent.” They're like a straight-edge band: boring perhaps, but their hearts are in the right place. What creeps me out though is this idea of “policing” each-other. Treating riders like a bunch of unruly 7th graders seems worse for the sport than an underground culture of doping. Things get “transparent” when you slice them too thin. They also fall apart. There’s nothing in the world that holds up to intense scrutiny, and you can’t dissect something unless it’s already dead. And why do people expect such integrity out of sports anyway? It's not something important, it’s sports. Set some rules, make some guidelines, and enjoy the show. Sheesh.

Then we go back to the studio and niche journalist Bryant Gumbel. He and John Frankel exchange a few words, and then Gumbel moves his glasses down his nose emphatically and asks Frenkel: "And yet here's what I don't get. The sport is in shambles for doping, and yet its greatest champion, Lance Armstrong, is still revered as a hero. Where's the logic in that?"

Smirking, Frenkel replies, "Lance would say, 'I never tested positive.'"

"Neither did Roger Clemens or Barry Bonds or Mark McGuire," says Gumbel.

Frenkel (smirking even more aggressively): "We agree on this subject."

Gumbel and Frenkel then look at each-other a bit too long, like they’re both savoring the same delicious pudding, or like they might suddenly start french-kissing, and then Gumbel introduces the next piece which is about a horse or something.

Thanks, Gumbel. We almost got to the end of a cycling segment without the subject turning to Lance Armstrong, and we almost got to the end of a piece of journalism without winking and insinuations. Didn't Armstrong retire? What does he have to do with this story about Millar and Slipstream? And hey, if you’re sitting on some good stuff, let’s have it! I have to admit, though, it’s pretty clever what you did there. You sucked people in by presenting an optimistic story about the clean future of cycling, but then you grabbed the sport by the wing, stuck a pin in it, and started plucking its legs off at the end. Still, though, I do thank you for the revelation that David Millar injected EPO directly into his penis. I mean, he didn’t contradict you when you mentioned that he injected EPO into his arm “or elsewhere.” He never said he didn’t inject EPO into his penis. So I’m going to assume he did. I believe they call that “niche doping.”

From the Tour to the Torrid: It's Getting Ugly Out There

The Tour de France starts a week from Saturday and I just can’t seem to get excited about it. And it’s not because of the incessant doping scandals, or the mind-numbingly boring transitional stages, or the fact that three weeks is a really long time to pay attention to anything that’s not an HBO miniseries. No, it’s because Levi won’t be there. Sure, Levi may be boring, but boring ingredients are essential. Flour is boring, but can you make delicious cakes without it? No, you can’t. Levi may be the plain dry cracker of bike racing, but sometimes you need plain dry crackers. Think of Levi as a big piece of Matzoh, and then imagine the Tour as a Passover seder. If I understand Judaism correctly, you can’t have a seder without Matzoh. It just doesn’t work!

So in lieu of the actual Tour I’ve decided instead to focus entirely on Robert Mackey’s “The Climb” blog on the New York Times. Sure, I may have been hard on Mr. Mackey a few weeks back, but I have to admit his dogged determination, his indomitable spirit, and his seemingly bottomless pocketbook have finally won me over. (And by “won me over” I mean I no longer have any ambivalence in my disdain for him—it’s now complete.) You’ll be glad to know that Mr. Mackey has just returned from the four-day Tour du Mont Blanc in the Alps. That’s right—Mr. Mackey has taken a European bike tour in order to prepare for his upcoming European bike tour, thereby breaking through to a new level of excessive expenditure I had heretofore thought impossible even for him. This is akin to spending a week in St. Barths in order to acclimate yourself for your weeklong vacation to Turks and Caicos, or to the dentist who buys a Madone while he waits for his custom Serotta to come in. Then again, I suppose we can excuse Mr. Mackey. I mean, he is going to be riding the Tour, and every Tour contender needs his Dauphine, right?

If you’d rather not go through the trouble of reading Mr. Mackey’s blog yourself, I’ve gone though the trouble of skimming it, and here’s a summary of the last eight installments. It’s kind of cute to watch him discovering things most cyclists have long been aware of as a natural consequence of simply riding their bikes:

24 Days to Go:

Discovers numbness.

23 Days to Go:

Discovers that John Kerry is the World’s Most Famous Fred. (As opposed to his counterpart, George W. Bush, the World’s Most Famous Barney.)

20 Days to Go:

Discovers riding in a paceline and learns how to eat and drink on the bike. (Yes, it's possible!) He also discovers roadie anorexia.

19 Days to Go:

Mackey makes the leap to SRAM, ditching his 12/27 Ultegra cassette for a 12/28 SRAM cassette. The extra tooth may help him get over the cols, but will he ever get over himself?

18 Days to Go:

Mackey can’t be bothered to rent “Breaking Away,” so he watches highlights on the internet instead.

17 Days to Go:

Mackey arrives in Europe. Let the Euros fly!

16 Days to Go:

Thanks to his Thule case, Mackey’s bike arrives unscathed, and he enlists a bike fitter to help him put it back together. Yes, putting a seatpost back into a frame and tightening a bolt can be quite difficult.

12 Days to Go:

Mackey may stop in London on his way back to Europe for L’Etape to buy some custom insoles.


Whatever. In the course of writing his blog Mackey may cross the Atlantic four times and the rubicon of monied excess infinitely, but I’m totally over bike racing anyway. As usual, the Times is about eight years behind the curve. Everybody knows that bike commuting is the new bike racing. I see more exciting cycling in a single morning going over the bridge to Manhattan than I’ve seen in the last three Tours combined. If you haven’t experienced the thrill of hitting the base of the Manhattan Bridge bike lane at a blistering 15 MPH with an elite group consisting of a young guy on a Bianchi Pista with chopped flat bars, a middle-aged gentleman on an dayglo mountain bike with thumbshifters and a chipped and yellowed pie plate, and a woman on a Bianchi Volpe with fully-loaded panniers and a blinky light on the back of her helmet, then you don’t know what a real shot of adrenaline feels like. Who will take the KOM is anybody’s guess, and the drama on the descent is twice as gripping. (My money’s always on the woman with the Volpe due to her ability to coast coupled with the weight of the panniers.) I’m seriously considering building myself a little crow’s nest and broadcasting blow-by-blow commentary on weekday mornings. It would make Versus Tour de France coverage look like the "Antiques Roadshow."

Even alleycat racing is totally over. I mean, how many fliers spoofing album covers, movies, and pop culture references can you look at anyway? With commuting being the new racing, I’m also in the early planning stages of a PracticalityCat, where the essence of commuting is distilled into a single day of grassroots competition. Contests will include:

The DorkStand (who can stay on his saddle at a red light while keeping the bike upright with his tippy-toes the longest);

The Splashback (contestants ride through a puddle and see who gets the least amount of mud and water on their business casual outfits—it’s all about adequate fender coverage!);

and of course the gruelling Bike Path TT. Bar ends allowed, helmet mirrors encouraged!

Speaking of commuting, there’s a new menace out there. Scooters:

(Born to be Riled: I hate scooters.)

True to their mandate of telling readers things they already know, The New York Times recently reported that more people in New York are turning to scooters in the face of high gas prices. Tell me about it. Dealing with moronic drivers, moronic cyclists, and moronic pedestrians is bad enough, but now we’ve also got to deal with the newbie scooter owner. This is a distinct breed from the Mod or Ska scooter dork of old who rides his two-stroke Vespa to the bar in a cloud of smoke or tunes his Lambretta so it can reach blistering speeds of up to 48mph. I mean, I hate those people too, but I hate them in the normal, friendly way that I hate any subculture that’s not my own. Every subculture knows it is hated by every other subculture, and vice-versa. In fact, this truth is so universal I think it’s time people simply acknowledged it by greeting each-other with a friendly middle finger when they pass. The world would be a better place for the honesty. “Screw your two-tone side panels and your Davida helmet.” “Screw your Deep Vs and your Chrome bag.” “Uh, wanna grab a beer?” “Sure!”

No, the new scooter owner is a different breed entirely. This is the person who has just bought a brand-new twist-and-go Vespa complete with matching helmet and hard cases and has just gotten comfortable enough on it to start splitting lanes, cutting between cars, and darting into the bike path when the traffic gets heavy, but not comfortable enough to actually handle the thing well and ride it without it going all wobbly. Suddenly this flaccid, foppish metrosexual advertising copywriter is on your turf—and he’s dangerous. A truck unloading in the bike lane makes me angry, but a Vespa in the bike lane makes me furious. Even more infuriating is when they come bearing down behind you. At first it sounds like someone’s mixing a margarita or firing up a vibrator in a convertible or something—then you realize you're not in a Van Halen video and it’s actually the diminutive whirr of yet another dandy on a neutercycle. These people can barely handle machines that have been mastered long ago by 90 lb. European women, and I hate them. If you want to break traffic laws, ride a bicycle like the rest of us.

In closing, I’d like to share with you something that made me sicker than even scooters do:

As I bicycled by, she turned, and our eyes locked - m4w - 27 (Fifth Avenue, Park Slope) [original URL: http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/mis/731814855.html]
Reply to: [deleted]
Date: 2008-06-25, 2:44AM EDT

As I bicycled by, she turned, and our eyes locked, one, two, three...

At the end of the street, I wondered whether I should stop. Should I go back for her, tell her our eyes had locked, that we might be meant for each other?

Follow my gut at least one time this week, right?

At the next block, the light turned red against the night. I knew this corner. The park ahead to my right, the bar across the street on my left...I stopped. I turned onto the sidewalk, a slow semi-circle. Would she catch up? Yes. There she was, walking this way, her skirt catching the evening breeze, her brown hair like streamer ribbons.

Okay. I'll wait.

The light stayed red, thank God. And here she almost was.

I called out, "Our eyes locked. That was intense!"

And she was here before me.

She wanted something. We were dancing, somehow, with our eyes, my bike, her skirt and hair.

"Give me a ride?" she said. The words were new to me, I'd never heard them before, ever.

"What?" "Give me a ride? On your bike?" She was on my left side now, about to clutch and leap on.

"Sure." I moved forward somewhere. She positioned herself to sit in front of me, yet sensed something.

"You ever done this before?"

"Given a girl a ride on my bike? No. Never."

"You think you can?"

Of course I could give her a ride on my bike. If she could get on.

"Sure." How hard could it be?

"Okay."

I opened my left arm, she climbed over the bar in front of me. She squeezed her butt back, almost on to the seat.

"I'll sit on the bar."

"You sure? I can move back."

"Yeah."

"There's a hill," she asked me, looking several blocks ahead at the rising pavement.

"If we can get to the hill, we can get up the hill."

She smiled.

She sat on the bar, lifted her legs off the ground...

It was so easy! Is that all? A girl sits in front of you on the bike, and lifts up her legs off the ground, and you can give her a ride?

She was light, a steady weight. Not super-light, but a real presence, a real girl.

I pushed off the ground, my feet on the pedals. Quickly I realized her body was inside my thighs, so I opened my knees wider, and pedaling, we were off.

Her shoulders brushed inside my arms, her hair and head was in front of my mouth.

I will skip the dialogue, since the thrill was all body. Her name was Marta, she was coming from tango, she was going home to 17th Street. My name was Alex, I was coming from the Tea Lounge where I was writing a little book, I was going home to 45th Street. I'd never given a girl a ride on a bike before. She'd gotten many rides, of course, how else do you get home?

What, no mention of your erection poking her in the back? You, sir, are Park Slope. I hope you are attacked by a swarm of Vespas.