Beating the Sense Into You: Experience is Overrated

If you've been cycling for a long time, you may have noticed that with each passing year you understand it less and less. I know this is the case for me. Just when I think I've finally learned something, I check in with the "experts" and realize that I've actually got it all wrong. This is because experience is no substitute for "facts," at least when it comes to bicycles. I was reminded of this recently when reading the following article in Bicycling, in which a novice cyclist chronicles his attempts to purchase a road bicycle and encounters some good old-fashioned bike industry "expertise" :


Unsurprisingly, as a middle-aged gentleman with negligible road bike experience, he is profoundly uncomfortable on a crabon TrekCialized S-Wanks Whatever SL:

I waited while he rolled out a speedy-looking carbon-fiber model from a major brand, left over from last year. I don't know much about bikes, but I know a few things about shopping. I test-drove the great deal around the neighborhood and felt completely miserable. This was the first time I'd ever sat on such a bike before, and I was unaccustomed to the slender seat. When I put my hands in the drops, they were so low and far away that the position threatened to put me in traction. The shifters were Martian technology. Mostly, though, I was freaked out by how fast the bike wanted to go and how vaporously light it felt. I've owned kites that weighed more.

At this point in the article, you may have been thinking exactly what I was, which is: This guy is total Grant Petersen bait. He's befuddled by STI shifters, he's profoundly uncomfortable in the drops, and his soft posterior is being savaged by that plastic "ass hatchet" of a saddle. In fact, I almost stopped reading at this point, since I couldn't imagine any way this guy wasn't going to wind up on a Rivendell with a Brooks saddle, bar end shifters, mustache bars, and roughly 19 feet of quill stem.

Amazingly, though, I was wrong, for I underestimated the seductive powers of the crabon--and, more importantly, the marketing forces behind it:

Still, carbon interested me. At Central Wheel in West Hartford, I asked Al the Shop Guy about it.

"One thing carbon does is smooth out the jolt from a bump," he said. "On an aluminum frame, the bump might feel more like the equivalent of this."

And then he punched me…in my damaged shoulder. I knew cycling can be a risky sport, but it hadn't occurred to me that I might get hurt just talking about bikes. "On the carbon frame, it would feel like this." Al whacked me more gently.

If someone not only gave me a line like that but then had the audacity to punch me after delivering it I can't imagine I wouldn't reply with a swift kick to the "pants yabbies." But then I'd be forgetting that when people repeat some marketing "wisdom" over and over again--like the one about how somehow it's better to ride into a pothole on a crabon bike than on a metal one--it eventually hardens into a little wart of "truth" that no amount of real world experience can ever dissipate. I have an aluminum bike I ride fairly often. Sometimes I even catch myself thinking it's at least as comfortable as any crabon or steel bicycle I've ever owned, but then I remind myself that it's beating the crap out of me. If only a bike shop employee would sock me every once in awhile to drive the point home then maybe I'd be cured of these lapses of sense once and for all.

Anyway, after the bike industry literally beats some "sense" into this guy, he eventually finds a crabon road bike he likes:

I tried another bike brand, just because they had one. Then I took a day to "think it over," but who was kidding whom? It turns out that Jim Felt was destined to build a bike ideally suited to a middle-aged left-handed Irish-American writer with a penicillin allergy. When I went back for a fitting, Dave's colleague Jeff put the bike on the trainer and watched me pedal for a while. "This doesn't happen very often," he said, "but I wouldn't change anything."

In other words, after test riding a bunch of bikes and not liking them because they don't fit well, he finally gets on one that does and--surprise!--he likes it. And thus another Fred is born.

None of this is to say there's anything wrong with crabon, or that he doesn't love his Felt. I just find it frightening that cycling is now so invested in crabon that salespeople will actually beat you if you question its superiority. But I suppose they have to, because when it comes to cycling experience is often the worst teacher, and fortunately the author of the above article was spared before he might actually have any that led him astray from the Crabon Mistress. So, lest we all fall victim to the delusion that comes with experience, let us all repeat the Frame Material Mantra:

Crabon is Comfy

Steel is Real (But Only If It's Handmade)

Titanium is Forever

Aluminum Will Beat You Up On Long Rides

That should keep us all on track.

By the way, in case you don't believe me about the danger of experience, consider this video which was forwarded to me by a reader:

Basically, it's about a guy who rides obsessively, and when I saw the following warning I just assumed it was more mainstream media anti-bike propaganda:

The bike industry wants us to believe that crabon is a miracle material that will turn the pain of cycling into the handjob that never ends, and the mainstream media wants us to believe that riding bicycles of any material is something dangerous and risky in nature that viewers should not attempt. However, in this case, it turns out the warning is totally accurate, because the guy they feature does in fact have a serious problem:

No, the problem isn't that he wears a tank top tucked into half-shorts, or that his stem angle is identical to his seat post angle, or that he uses aerobars to replicate the upright fit of a Rivendell. The problem is that he's so compulsive he even rides a stationary bike while he's working:


As cyclists, we're all compulsive. We also tend to argue about who among us is too compulsive, or not compulsive enough, or what constitutes someone who doesn't ride enough, or what constitutes someone who rides too much. We will probably never reach a consensus as far as these eternal debates are concerned, but I do think most of us would agree that you're riding way too much when you're going pee-pee in a tennis ball can instead of using the bathroom:

By the way, this image raises two questions for me, and those are:

1) The presence of a wedding ring on his left hand indicates that he has a spouse. How is this possible?

and

2) How many times has he accidentally drunk the contents of that tennis ball can?

This second question in turn reminds me of the time when I was shopping for a new road bicycle. I was checking out a jaunty crabon number, but suddenly a more modestly price aluminum bike caught my eye. I'd never really owned or ridden a road bike before, so I didn't understand the reason for the price difference. So I asked the salesperson about it, and he produced an empty tennis ball can.

"Urinate in this," he said.

"Wait...what?," I replied.

He then punched me in my bad shoulder, grabbed me by my polo shirt collar, pushed me up against the pegboard where they hang the gel gloves, and growled, "Piss in the fucking can."

So I did, and handed it back to him.

"Now drink it," he commanded, holding the warm can of urine just beneath my nose as I cowered next to the Oakley display. "Because that's what riding aluminum is like."

I could smell last night's asparagus, and it began to rise up my throat. I was going to vomit.

"No, no, I get it now. I'll take the crabon," I sobbed.

"That's right, you will take the crabon. You will," snarled the salesman. Then he pulled off a latex mask, revealing himself to be Specialized chairman Mike Sinyard, and he licked his own eyeball with his reptilian forked tongue.

The bike, I'm too afraid for my own safety not to report, is fantastic, and my only regret is that I didn't fork over $15,000 for one of these.

Speaking of lavish purchases, I received an email from a reader with the following subject line:

I would like your views on this

As well as a link to this limited edition €1700 (or roughly US$126,000) Rapha espresso machine:


Well, it should go without saying that I would totally buy this if it was made out of crabon. In the meantime, though, I'll stick with my Nashbar version:


Not only can the Nashbar Microshift Hot Brown Beverage Maker make up to four (4) cups of hot brown beverage, but it also features a timer that's accurate to within six hours, as well as an integrated shift lever with Shimano-esque ergonomics that serves no purpose whatsoever. For best results, visit sister company Performance and buy their new Scattante beans, as well as that Spin Doctor Clean Machine combination chain cleaner/coffee grinder that looks exactly like a penis:

It takes the mystery out of drivetrain maintenance, thanks to the handy indicator that lets you know when you're doing it right:

So how long does it take to clean a chain with the Spin Doctor Clean Machine? Well, it varies, but trust me--when it's finished you'll know.

Help Me Help You: All You Haters Pull My Bootstraps

Hi! Welcome to my Kickstarter page. I am a sardonic cycling enthusiast and aspiring blogger who spends the bulk of the day in my underpants surrounded by soggy half-eaten bowls of heavily-sweetened breakfast cereal.

Also, I have a cat:

(The cat that I have.)

I am planning to create an Internet blog post about bikes. This blog post will have words, and pictures, and possibly video, and will feature state-of-the-art 1990s-era blogging features such as "hyperlinks." It will also allow readers to leave "comments" such as "LOL," "Cats rule!," and "You suck!" Just imagine not only being able to read about bikes on your web-enabled device, but also being able to tell the person who wrote what you're reading that he sucks. Holy shit, right?

This is where YOU come in. I estimate that it will take me anywhere from one-half to one hour to complete this project, as well as a budget of around $5 (I'm out of Froot Loops), and I'm simply not prepared to launch a project of this scope purely on speculation. After all, this is America (the crappy prize hidden inside your box of Canada Flakes), and Americans shouldn't have to make any sort of effort unless our success is assured beforehand.

So I'm going to need 50 grand.

Also, I lied about the cat. I actually don't have a cat, but I thought if I said I had one you'd like me more.

(I don't really have this cat.)

I'm sort of starting to like the idea of having a cat though, so after I get this blog post off the ground I'm going to launch a new Kickstarter page to help me get one. Your life would obviously be greatly improved by my having a domesticated feline, and I figure I can get a comprehensive cat ownership plan up and running for not more than 75 grand.

Thanks for your support,

--Wildcat Rock Machine

Sure, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Why, the nerve of this guy!" Trust me, I can relate. I mean, why would you give some guy $50,000 to create a blog post when you could give some other guy $50,000 to make a glove that flashes turn signals?

He may not have a cat, but he does have the technological know-how to transform your wildest turn-signaling dreams into reality:


He can also control your thoughts, and once we've all been duped into wearing his insidious device he will use it to turn humankind into an army of drones and order us to lay waste to the Earth:

If you don't believe me, watch the video again. At exactly 1:51, the following subliminal image appears:

Thus satisfying my personal criteria for supervillainy:

By the way, Gerard Vroomen of Cervelo also scores two out of three:

The second I see a lizard pop up in a Cervelo commercial I'm summoning his arch-nemesis, the Clean Bottle doofus, who will imprison Vroomen in his redundantly-capped Bidon of Justice:

(Jens Voigt realizing he actually has the second-worst job in cycling.)

I wonder if the Clean Bottle will also get his own Tour blog on Bicycling.com next year.

Speaking of heroes and villains, one of America's biggest bike dork heroes is Congressman Earl Blumenauer--who, a number of readers inform me, made quite a stir in the UK when he wore a bike pin on the BBC:

When asked about it, Blumenauer declared himself "aggressively 'bike partisan:'"

Even Jeremy Paxman couldn't resist, ending the interview with the query: "Can I just ask you, Mr Blumenauer, what is that extraordinary green bicycle on your lapel?"

"Well, I am aggressively 'bike partisan'," replied Blumenauer, "and this is the congressional bike caucus membership pin."

Sadly, this admission will probably spell the end of his political career in the United States, where the average person thinks a "bike partisan" is someone who's romantically attracted to both males and females.

Of course, when it comes to romance, there's no better way to woo your partner than with a bottle of wine you've "portaged" by means of a leather holder mounted on your top tube. I've briefly mentioned this product before, but I had not seen the promotional video, which was forwarded to me by a reader:

Besides the fact that he could have just saved himself a bunch of time by throwing the bottle into his bag, I also noticed the gratuitous insertion of this leather popular smart phone holder:

Clearly when it comes to superfluous leather this guy is nothing less than a genius, and I wonder what it must be like to be unable to look at anything without envisioning a leather holder for it. Is it a blessing or a curse? He's like the John Nash of tchotchkes.

But while humankind has been making stuff out of leather for millennia, it's only recently that we've unleashed the seemingly limitless potential of carbon--or, if you prefer, "crabon." Already though a new miracle material is on the horizon, and it is called "cabon:"

(Via Chris from Electra Bikes)

Presumably, engineers at 3T have figured out how to remove the "r" from carbon/crabon for weight savings while retaining the material's lateral stiffness, vertical compliance, and superior wallet-emptying capability.

Of course, even the finest cabon steed is useless if you don't have a flashy wardrobe to match, and what better way to garner covetous looks from your fellow Freds than with a genuine disembodied hand jersey?

(Via Wheel and Sprocket)

Complete with Renaissance-era male genitalway:


If glove indicator light guy could figure out how to incorporate a directional signal into that jersey somehow I think he'd really be onto something.

Sideways: Take Me Away!

If you were around "back in the day," then you might remember this commercial:



Who among us can't relate? It's a sentiment that rings as true today as it did back then. The goddamn traffic. That sonofabitch boss! That Spawn of Satan baby!! And the dog!!! Oh my God, won't somebody kill that fucking dog!?!?!

Between David Berkowitz and the Calgon lady, people of the 1970s and '80s were highly susceptible to dog-induced stress. This, as much as anything else, was responsible for the so-called "cat boom" of the 1990s.

In any case, when I find myself overwhelmed by the barking baby and the crying dog and the boss who snarls indecipherable orders at me, I can't just slip into a hot bath with a bar of Calgon--mostly because the dog always follows me in, and the smell of wet canine is not exactly aroma therapy. So instead, I daydream about people whose lives I envy, and I imagine what they're probably doing right then.

I used to imagine Mario Cipollini, since it's a pretty good bet that at any given moment he's pectorals-deep in decadence at his Tuscan villa--either that, or he's just riding shirtless:

Now, though, I've found somebody who lives even more sumptuously than Mario Cipollini. That person is of course the man we met yesterday, Larry Olmsted, writer of "The Great Life" column on Forbes.com. In addition to being the author of canonical cycling classics such as "Why You Need A Custom Road Bike," he also penned "Dog Days of Summer? Not With the KoolCollar!," which you'll no doubt recognize as perhaps the single greatest thing ever written about how to keep your dog from getting too hot.

Anyway, there I was, once again drowning in life's travail as an overheated dog humped my leg and a baby, in turn, humped the dog. And once again, I wondered how I could possibly manage all this stress. Taking a deep breath, I thought to myself, "I wonder what old Larry's up to right now. Something fabulous no doubt." So I checked his Twitter, and sure enough he was in Norway stuffing his face full of moose meat:
Sigh... I can almost taste the fur. Moose meat, take me away!

By the way, when he's not gorging himself on moose, Olmsed is riding around Italy dressed as a cow:

Presumably he never saw the movie "Top Secret." Or, more profoundly, maybe he did.

But while it's easy to be jealous of people like Larry Olmsted, whose lives are filled with custom bicycles, and moose meat, and cow jerseys, and Golden Retrievers with ice collars around their necks, it's important to remember that life just isn't fair. The truth is, the universe doesn't owe you anything, and it all comes down to the fact that some people are simply better than others. Larry Olmsted is one of those people. You ride a Cannondale, he rides a Seven. You eat chicken, he eats moose meat. You have a regular jersey that's one color, he has a mottled one that makes him look like the world's Fredliest Holstein.

Look, he can't help it if he's naturally awesome. And how awesome is he? Well, he's so awesome that he had to get a singlespeed because he was too fast for the group ride:

I got my first single speed three years ago because I often participated in group fun rides where the pace was bit slow and not challenging, but that’s okay because I was there for the social aspect. But I soon thought, if instead of slacking off so I could hang and chat, what if I was working the entire time?

Sure, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "If you're so fast why don't you just find a stronger group instead of sandbagging on the MS ride?" Well, that's just the sort of thing a loser would say. See, what I've learned from reading Olmsted's work is that you can't think like a loser--you have to think like a Larry. Sure, a loser might just quit that slow group ride, but a Larry just keeps taking parts off his bike until the ride is hard again. Problem solved.

Actually, I think USA Cycling should introduce this concept to bike racing. Instead of having a bunch of different categories, there should just be a single Category 5, and instead of upgrading you they could just remove components every time you win. This way, the slow people could all ride their custom Sevens, and the fast people would have to ride unicycles.

This is the beauty of Larryism. Instead of seeking new challenges and experiences, you simply change your equipment. This allows you to live in a perpetual state of moronic condescension.

Speaking of singlespeeds, a reader has forwarded me one that is so "bad ass" that even Larry "Too Strong For The Group Ride" Olmsted probably couldn't handle it:

Bad Ass Bike - $315 (The Dalles Ore)
Date: 2011-07-19, 8:36PM PDT
Reply to:

This is a bad ass mother fucker Bike. This bike has no speed limit. Brand new chain tenser. If you can't handle it, I have the shimano derailer. Michelin Kromion tires ($60.00 per tire.) (Sugio) 52 teeth front sproket, fuji bars & seat post. Alex rims, tektro clip on brakes.
Adam 600 vintage pedals. 1 altar custom butted alloy frame.

This bike is meant for a hard-core mother fucker.....

Call Kirk at 541-993-[deleted] $ 315.00 or best offer


Do you know what the definition of "bad ass" is? It's a chain that contains at least two right angles:

The only way you can outdo that is with the elusive "Cat's Cradle" setup:

Show up at the SSWC with that and they'll give you the winner's tattoo before the race even begins.

Meanwhile, moving from "bad ass" to "bad Assos," another reader tells me that the gilded "A" is still running ads which feature egregious examples of cleat/pedal incompatibility:


To wit:

You'd really think they'd have noticed by now. Then again, the model is probably another Larryist, and he set his bike up that way on purpose since his local charity ride wasn't hard enough.

Also, the very same reader also sent me this ad, which features a disembodied hand:

As much as I admire downhill mountain bike chic and the manner in which it evokes chin-strap facial hair, "peeing Calvin" decals, and that whole 1990s "cat boom"-era Limp Bizkit aesthetic in general, I also can't help thinking that the hand would be doing him a huge favor by handing him a change of clothes instead of a camera. At the very least, perhaps the hand could proffer him this anorak, to which I was alerted by high-end clothier Outlier:

Here are three (3) quick facts about this garment:

--It is "experimental;"

--It has a magnetic dickey;

--It costs $425.

It's also an ideal choice for scurrying crab-like on all fours:

Beyond this though I'm sorry to say I can't provide you with any additional insight. For example, I have no idea why it's "experimental," though perhaps the magnetic dickey is untested and there's still some danger of strangulation. (Warning: never use your magnetic dickey while wearing metallic neck jewelry.) Also, the jacket appears to have something on the order of 97 pockets, and from the looks of things can be folded up into the shape of a teddy bear, but as for how you'd do this or why I have no idea. Presumably, if you break your leg while scurrying on stuff and get stranded in the wilderness, you can snuggle the teddy bear as you alternately scream for help and sob about the cruelness of fate.

I will hand it to Outlier, though, for this appears to be by far their most complicated garment to date. I'd get one myself, except I'm reasonably sure I couldn't figure it out and would get caught in it like a straight jacket. Also, I try to keep the crab-like scurrying to a minimum. And, it's $425, which I could use instead to buy like 20 moronically simple baja-style pullovers with the marijuana smell pre-impregnated:

Thus attired, I'd hop on my sideways bike (forwarded by another reader) and ride off into the sunset:



Of course, you really should get a custom sideways bike, but I'm saving that article for Forbes.

Tongue and Groove: The Future of Bike Construction

There is right now, taking place over the sea, a bicycle racing called "The Touring of France." In this racing, the men winning the race at those moments will be Thomas Voecklers. He wears a Glorious Shirt of Yellow™, and his tongue goes like this:

(via Cycling Inquisition)

I admit I've never been much of a Thomas Voeckler fan in the past. The suitcase of courage; the tortured expressions; the failed breakaways... Really, a Thomas Voeckler ride was exactly like a Lifetime movie special: long, overly melodramatic, and you knew exactly how it would end.

Now, though, I find myself feeling differently. As I mentioned on the Bicycling website, Voeckler has proven himself to be a possible contender for the overall, and suddenly very much I want him to win. Voeckler becoming the first Frenchman since 1826 to win the Tour de France would be a turnaround of profound historical significance. Meanwhile, what do we get if Andy Schleck wins? We'll just see him do more of that that lemon-sucking face he does:

Even a Cadel Evans victory would just encourage more of his trademark "fierce kitten" behavior:

There's only one problem, which is Voeckler himself:

I don't want to lie to the public. Maybe it would be good to say I'm a possible winner of the Tour de France but I'm not interested in that. I don't want to say that I have a chance to win. The Tour has been designed with the last week to be decisive. I'll fight, that's for sure, but let's be honest: I have 0% of chances to win the Tour de France.

O% chance of winning?!? That must be his Frenchness talking. I mean, he's probably right, but clearly he needs to take the American approach by surrendering himself to delusions of grandeur and adopting a grossly swollen sense of self-importance out of all proportion to his natural ability. He could also probably use some American-style motivation:

That oughtta light a fire under his chamois.

Speaking of Andy Schleck, he was recently subject to the extreme indignity of walking through a restaurant while carrying a cup of his own pee-pee:

Then I had another one at the hotel, we hit the restaurant and had to walk through holding a cup of my own urine which I’m sure the people eating dinner really appreciated. Then I woke up and had another test in the morning.

If all that wasn't bad enough, the restaurant also charged Schleck a €150 "corking fee" for bringing his own beverage.

Meanwhile, as the professionals go about their business over in France, many of us do our best to emulate them--though some of us try harder than others. One way to do this is by riding the same bike they do, and a reader has forwarded me this video of somebody who sounds like he's masturbating while reviewing the $15,000 Specialized McFadden Verde:



Yes, that's right: the Specialized MacDonald's Penga costs $15,000. However, the reviewer says it's worth it. Actually, he says he'd pay more than that:

I’m a 44 yr-old, Cat 2 Masters Racer. I can drive a line, bridge a gap and finish mid pack. I looked down at the speedo while jumping between groups and I was going 31.5 mph with a slight sidewind and not at full effort. 15k? Really for that sensation and speed, I’d pay more.

Really, he'd pay more than $15,000 for this bike? Wow. Well, you know when I'll take a single word in this review seriously? When he actually does this and furnishes a receipt to prove it. I'd love to see a bike reviewer willing put his money where his bad metaphor hole is. In fact, I'll even take him at his word if he pays the $15,000 "base price." However, I'm pretty sure that he won't, because even he must realize that $15,000 is a great deal of money, and that in order to spend it on a bike like this you'd have to be completely insane.

Then again, on the Specialized MacPherson Vulva you can bridge gaps between bloated Specialized dealers on demo rides at will. Plus, you apparently don't even have to pedal it:

The ground effects are real. In the various groups I rode with, before punching out of them, I’d roll up on the wheel in front of me without pedaling.

Well, Mark Cavendish is riding one of these, and if the above were true then he'd fire his leadout man Mark Renshaw. HTC doesn't have a sponsor for next year, and I'm sure they could use the money.

None of this is to say I have any issue with Specialized spending a bunch of money to develop a bike that may offer their pro riders a slight advantage. I also have no problem with them trying to sell the bike to the general public since, hey, they might as well, right? I even believe that you might ride the Specialized Malcolm McLaren Venti Soy Latte and think, "Holy shit, this thing feels fast." Still, it's important to maintain some perspective, and if you want to spend $15,000 to experience what it's like being a pro bike racer, then spend $2,000 on a Scattante and the rest on a Toyota Corolla. Make sure the interior's in decent shape too, because you're going to be living in it.

By contrast, paying $6,000 to stick a walnut between your legs seems like a bargain, and according to another reader you can now do just that:


Really, who hasn't been stoned on the sofa and wondered, "Dude, what if the coffee table was a fixie?"

The build quality—custom made in American Black Walnut with aluminum and titanium metal parts—seems exquisite. So simple and beautiful. I'm sure Steve Jobs is ordering one right now.

Right. I'd wager that Steve Jobs is probably a little more concerned with his health right now than he is with riding around on his living room furniture like an idiot.

Of course, if you do opt for the walnut fixie over the Specialized McMuffin Henge, just make sure you don't spoil its minimalist woodgrain Jobsian lines with a plastic water bottle. Instead, you should probably just drink out of a coconut. And speaking of coconuts, yet another reader informs me that the time-traveling t-shirt-wearing retro-Fred from the planet Tridork Bret wholeheartedly endorses coconut water:

By the way, if you're wondering about Bret's odd riding position, he's just using the old "one-cheek" sitting technique. It relieves pressure from the perineum while simultaneously sparing you the indignity of a noseless saddle.

Anyway, nobody with any sense would buy a walnut bicycle, since everybody knows that the alternative frame material of choice is bamboo. Until now, if you wanted a sweet bamboo bike, you had to ride something that was lashed together like Tom Hanks's escape raft in "Castaway." Now, though, yet another reader tells me you can simply grow the bike into its final shape:


That's right, no more joining:

Mr Vittouris, 25, was originally planning to use processed bamboo fibre to make the vehicle. But harvesting, weaving and compressing the bamboo tends to be energy and labour intensive. ''I thought, why not just grow the vehicle into the shape that's required in the first place,'' he said. And that's what he did, literally growing the bamboo vehicle, called Ajiro, by molding bamboo onto a skeleton frame, a process called arborsculpture.

In other words, "arborsculpture" is to bamboo what "monocoque" is to crabon. This could spell trouble for today's artisanal bamboo bike fabricators:

While his bamboo vehicle would be quite expensive initially, eventually he hoped it could be mass-produced, or rather mass-grown. ''It may be possible to plant a field of vehicles.''

Watch out, Craig Calfee, you're about to be replaced by a trellis.

You Are What You Eat: The "Other" Salmon

This Saturday, July 2nd, the Tour de France bicycle cycling race will begin. As it happens, I'm supposed to write about this bicycle cycling race for the "Bicycling" magazine website, so with only two days to go I figured I might as well look into who's actually competing in it. In this sense, I am heading into the unknown--just like Alberto Contador:

So will Contador win the Tour again? Well, that depends on two things:

1) Is he too tired after winning the Giro of Italy?

and;

2) Can he win without meat?

Yes, that's right, after falling victim to the steak that bites back last year, Contador has given up the red stuff:

Contador Gives up Meat

Contador says he has stopped eating meat since testing positive for clenbuterol on last year's Tour de France, a result he blamed on contaminated steak.

The 28-year-old favourite to win this year's Tour, which gets underway on Saturday, also said in an interview published on Wednesday that his Saxo Bank team will have its own cook this year.

"No, I have not eaten meat again," he told sports daily Marca when asked if he had eaten meat since traces of clenbuterol were discovered in a test on the second rest day of the 2010 Tour, which he won.

You've got to admire Contador for not only sticking to the tainted steak story, but also going so far as to give up meat altogether in order to make it seem more convincing. It's like the "Seinfeld" episode where Jerry had to wear glasses all the time so he wouldn't offend Lloyd Braun. Still, I'm not buying the part about Saxo Bank hiring its own cook, since that sounds expensive. I'm pretty sure when they say "cook" they just mean they're giving one of the mechanics a copy of "Babe's Country Cookbook: 80 Complete Meat-Free Recipes from the Farm" and telling him to get to work:

Babe says, "Don't eat the little piggies."

Meanwhile, a fellow Tweeterer informs me that Dave Zabriskie is attempting to do Contador one better by riding the entire Tour De France on a vegan diet:

This might be newsworthy, except for the fact that as part of his "vegan" diet Zabriskie "plans to eat small amounts of salmon two days per week," which means his diet is about as vegan as Babe's ass is kosher.

Now, when it comes to eating, I say eat whatever as long as it's not endangered, makes you happy, and keeps you regular. Want to join the "nose to tail movement?" Good for you. Want to go vegan because you can't stand even the thought of a human hand tugging on a bovine udder? Perfectly fine. Want to eat the heart of your human enemy while it's still beating so that you may absorb his powers? Well, you probably shouldn't do that, if only for sanitary reasons.

But regardless of what you eat, you don't get to call yourself a vegan if you eat salmon. That's it. Once that pink flesh passes your lips you're out of the squat and banned from the coop. Turn in your hemp shoes to the smelly guy lying on a mattress he pulled from a Dumpster, and don't let the door with the punk show flyers all over it hit you in the ass on the way out. That's all there is to it. If you need a fancy, pretentious name for yourself, then I guess you can call yourself a "pescetarian." (That's someone who only eats Joe Pesci.) But all it really means is you're not a vegan; you're just another lox-munching schmuck.

Anyway, apparently Zabriskie is being mentored by another pretend-vegan athlete:

Zabriskie also consulted with a professional motorcycle racer, Ben Bostrom, also a vegan, who advised Zabriskie to include small amounts of fish a couple of times a week because of the incredibly large load he puts on his body during training. "He told me, don't get too hung up on the word 'vegan'," says Zabriskie. The fish, Zabriskie says, helps his body absorb certain vitamins and iron.

Again, I don't care what people are eating, but the word "vegan" means what it means. Don't get too hung up on the word "vegan?!?" Getting hung up about stuff is what being a vegan is all about! He's as bad as these minimalists who only have 15 things...except their accessory chargers. And their toiletries. And the fully-equipped luxury condo and summer house they share with their wife. Certain areas of life need to remain black and white, and the profoundly irritating self-righteousness of veganism is one of them. I mean, what if you replace the word "vegan" with "clean," and the word "fish" with "EPO?"

Zabriskie also consulted with a professional motorcycle racer, Ben Bostrom, also a clean rider, who advised Zabriskie to include small amounts of EPO a couple of times a week because of the incredibly large load he puts on his body during training. "He told me, don't get too hung up on the word 'clean'," says Zabriskie.

Or, what if you used "virgin" and "sexual intercourse?"

Zabriskie also consulted with a professional motorcycle racer, Ben Bostrom, also a virgin rider, who advised Zabriskie to include small amounts of sexual intercourse a couple of times a week because of the incredibly large load he puts on his body during training. "As he caressed me, he told me, don't get too hung up on the word 'virgin'," says Zabriskie.

I may have added a few extra words there, but I think you see my point. Being a vegan is like being a virgin: you either is, or you ain't. As far as I'm concerned, Zabriskie can eat all the salmon he wants. But he doesn't get to call himself a vegan, and he's officially out of contention for the maillot hemp traditionally given to the vegan riding highest on the GC. Nor does he get to wear a vegan tattoo:

(Vegans often opt for wrist placement since the word "vegan" is incompatible with knuckle tattoos.)

One rider who would never play fast and loose with the definition of veganism is the time-traveling t-shirt-wearing retro-Fred from the planet Tridork--or, as one reader informs me he is now called, "Bret:"


"If it rains take the bus," you say? Well not Bret! He trains for that century even when it's cloudy and drizzly:

Bret is clearly logging some serious miles. I don't know which charity ride he's training for, but I'm pretty sure he's going to dominate it.

Meanwhile, in the comments to yesterday's post (Critical Mass guy is still emailing me by the way), commenter "Mikeweb" linked to a distressing article:

I'd love it if we never had to read about a serious bicycle accident. However, as long as we do, it would be nice if the reporters could at least not always go out of their way to immediately mention whether or not the rider was wearing a helmet:

Ray Deter, 53, owner of d.b.a. New York in the East Village and d.b.a. Brooklyn in Williamsburg, was not wearing a helmet when he was hit on Canal St. as he headed to work.

What is the point of this, apart from unnecessarily heaping additional blame on the rider? He may have turned heedlessly as the article says, but whether or not he was wearing a helmet at the time has nothing to do with that decision. It's like the "Vegan Times" reporting on the incident and writing, "The victim had eaten a hamburger earlier in the day." It's a tacit judgment, and it's a device reporters love to use when writing about cycling.

Also, it takes two to have a collision, but I guess we just have to assume the 24 year-old in the Jaguar who keeps his weed in the car was driving safely (on Canal Street, where nobody ever speeds)--and also wearing his helmet, since the article doesn't say anything to the contrary.

On a much happier note, I've been waiting and waiting, and finally someone has reviewed the Mario Cipollini bike:


There were a bunch of words in the review, but these were the only ones I noticed:

a peach

tube shapes

curving around the rear

head

oversized, tapered

planted

seriously aggressive position

deep-section

riding position

feels close

full-on

massively oversized

taut

great fun to ride hard

overbuilt and stiff

buzz

vibration

remarkably good

spend all day

aggressive position

always in an ‘attack’ position

a lot of pressure on your lower back

not easy to sit up

Whew! I feel dirty.

Slap a noseless saddle on that and you may never experience "down time" again.