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

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

And here's what happened during their set:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BicycleBungee™ Promotional Video Pronunciation Guide:

"Air"="EEE-yah"

"Effort"="EEE-faht"

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Commuter?!?)

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

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

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

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

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

Classic fixie:


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


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

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

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

In The Zeitgeist Tonight: Don't Be a Pie Biter

As you may know, not too long ago I wrote a book. Naturally, like any author, I hoped it would be well received. At the same time, though, I of course realized that as a first-time author I should temper my expectations. So you can imagine my surprise when that book, "The Da Vinci Code," became a worldwide bestseller and went on to sell over 80 million copies and was adapted into a movie starring Tom Hanks.

Sadly, my follow-up book, the self-titled "Bike Snob," did not sell quite as well, and Tom Hanks also declined to star in the film version, citing a prior commitment to do "Turner and Hooch II." ("Bike Snob" the movie will instead star lesser known Baldwin brother Chico--at least he says he's a Baldwin brother.) However, "Bike Snob" has been something of a success in its own right, having appeared under a dead turtle in the West Elm furniture catalog, and now, as a number of people inform me, being barely visible inside a bag sold by the Timbuk2 bagular conglomerate:

The bag is called the Zeitgeist, which means "the spirit of the times," and if there are two things that are emblematic of our age they are certainly books and croquet. As far as I knew, croquet breathed its last gasp in 1989 with the movie "Heathers:"

And as for books, the only thing keeping them around is that people need decorative pedestals for their dead turtles. In fact, even bags themselves are totally out of style, having given way once and for all to the "fanny pack," as the Wall Street Gerbil reports:

Unfortunately, the article omits the driving force behind the fanny pack resurgence, which as everybody knows is the urban "fixie" scene. Hipster cyclists love all those "waist bags" and "utility belts" and "u-lock holsters," and it is this irresistible compulsion to transform themselves into elaborately tattooed marsupials that has catapulted the "fanny pack" out of the faux dive bars of Brooklyn and the Mission District and onto the runways. The article did have one bit of useful information though, which is that not everybody calls them fanny packs because in some countries the word "fanny" is really dirty:

Some international designers have a cultural reason to back away from the word "fanny." Innocuous slang for the gluteus maximus in the U.S., the word is an obscenity in the U.K. and Australia, where it refers to female genitalia. In those countries, fanny packs are typically known as a "bum bags." The French call the style "le sac banane," a mocking reference to the banana shape of the pouch.

In other words, fanny means this--though that's not stopping at least one company from embracing the gynecologic connotations of the accessory:

Yes, it's called the "Cling," and nothing clings to your waist like a capacious Vag-X--though given the fact it employs a zipper I might have gone with the name "Vag-X Dentata" instead. Incidentally, the article also points out that the French call the fanny pack "le sac banane," which seems like it would mean "banana bag," and which in turn sounds suspiciously similar to what many English speakers call a "banana hammock:"

I wonder how many bananas you can "portage" in a Vag-X, and the 'Hof looks like he can't wait to find out.

Speaking of idiotic things to put on your waist, if you still have room next to your Vag-X and your u-lock holster and your fanny pack and your utility pouch and you don't mind the fact that you're unable to go to the bathroom without sending 60lbs of loose change, combination 15mm wrench-and-bottle-openers, and "Wednesday weed"-smoking paraphernalia crashing to the sticky restroom floor, you might want to wedge one of these things in there too:

"Turn any ride into Critical Mass," suggests the copy, and I'm sure the police will be delighted by the strains of the neutered warbling "indie" rock leitmotif that follows you everywhere as they impound your bicycle and pack you off to jail.

Of course, if you're only a waist and legs then a fanny pack may be your only choice, and that's certainly the case with the model in this eBay auction that was forwarded to me by a reader:

Featuring two disembodied hands as well as a disembodied pelvis, this photograph sets the new standard by which all future eBay photographs will be measured:

If only there were some clue as to what sort of magic the seller employed to achieve this effect, for the way in which the upper body seamlessly disappears into that sponge-painted wall is nothing short of beguiling. In fact, it was so amazing that I almost considered placing a bid, except I've now decided to hold off on any road bike purchases until the new BERU f1sytems Factor001 SuperDouche 9000 Ubercycle is available at my LBS:

Yes, this stunning engineering marvel costs £25,000 (or something like US$9 billion in my country's pretend money) and it can tell the moneyed Fred how just how badly he sucks at riding a bike in something like 17 different ways:

BERU f1systems have brought together virtually every available measurement of rider performance to create a professional training tool leaps ahead of anything the cycling world has even envisaged.

I'm not sure if this bicycle will end amateur road racing once and for all by finally providing participants with incontrovertible evidence of how pathetic they are, or if it will cause it to grow tenfold by amplifying the Quixotic nature of "training" scientifically for your local club race or group ride. It could go either way, but I suspect it will be the latter. Unfortunately, the makers of this ridiculous machine couldn't manage to incorporate the "breath gas analysis," but they did equip it with "core-temperature sensing:"

Was there a technology that you weren’t able to incorporate into the 001?

We looked long and hard at physiological metrics and the only useful one we wanted that wasn’t possible to provide was breath gas analysis. We were told people wanted to see real-time oxygen consumption figures but that was a step too far even for us. We're proud to offer riders core-temperature sensing from an encapsulated sensor which is swallowed by the rider and then transmits data to the head unit. Performance in the heat has received a lot of attention from pro teams so we think that's a great addition.

This will be a very welcome feature for the Fred who's so captivated by his meager wattage output that he doesn't realize it's time to take off his neon green windbreaker. I'm also sure this bicycle will appeal to Charles Manantan of PezCycling News (author of the ultimate dentist bike review), who a commenter recently mentioned actually wrote the following:

A bike part’s relative importance is, as ever, directly related to the proximity and effect on genitalia (as is literally everything else in life).

Given this, he should really enjoy the core temperature sensor on that BERU bike, since it's probably a repurposed rectal thermometer that nestles itself delightfully close to the prostate.

Meanwhile, while Manantan is enthralled by anything that comes into contact with his taint, the mainstream media remains fascinated by people who ride bicycles, and a reader has forwarded me a (non-embeddable, so click the link) Weather.com report about some guy who rides a snow bike to work:

One of my favorite aspects of any bicycling-themed news report is always the reporter's total incredulity that someone actually rides a bicycle. Note her inflection when she says the following at 44 seconds:

His bikes have more miles than his car!

I love how she says it as though that's the epitome of insanity, in exactly the same way she'd say something like: "He keeps an incredibly rare Fahaka puffer fish in his toilet!"

Now, sure, those are some pretty nasty conditions, and even a rider as hardy as Charles Manantan would probably leave the bike at home on a day like that, but is riding your bike in the winter really that crazy? I don't ski, but as far as I know people ski in the winter pretty much exclusively, but I never see stories about those quirky people who slide down snowy mountains in February. "His skis have more miles than his Rollerblades!"

Similarly, a number of people have alerted me to a student who's delivering pies by bicycle in Seattle, and the local news seems to find this concept similarly unfathomable:

Here he is at work:

Don't get me wrong--I admire "Piecycle" guy's entrepreneurship and can-do sub-Canadian spirit, but why is everybody in the story so amazed? Maybe it's because I live in New York, where I can't even walk outside without getting mowed down by some food delivery guy riding an electric bike at 30mph on the sidewalk, but is bringing pie from one place to another on a bicycle really that big a deal? Apparently it is--so much so that he even has "groupies:"

"When I heard that he was delivering pie by bicycle, it was a short stop to me falling in love."

This satisfied customer was similarly blown away by the unthinkable notion that someone could actually bake a pie, put it in a bicycle basket, and miraculously transport that very same pie to him for consumption:

"We were like, 'Hey, guy's delivering pie on a bicycle so we had to do it.'"

Of course, this is exactly the sort of thing that boggles the mind of the marijuana enthusiast, so I guess their amazement makes sense. "Dude, how awesome would it be if some guy showed up on a bike with a big fucking pie right now?" So I'm sure when it actually happens it seems like magic.

Needless to say, pie porteur bikes are almost certainly to be all the rage at this year's NAHBS, which means that whittled stick cockpits like this one spotted in Portland by a reader will soon be totally out of style:

Though I suppose the rider could use them to roast marshmallows and become a cycling roasted marshmallow vendor. "We were like, 'Hey, guy's roasting marshmallows on his own handlebars and delivering them, so we had to do it.'" Just wait until those S'mores "drop"--the pie will go the way of the designer cupcake.

Posable Figures: Playing With Yourself

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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


The bike polo look promises to be hot in 2010:

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

All You Riders Flog My Product: Epics in the Service of Publicity

As cyclists, I think we can all agree that it can sometimes be quite enjoyable to occasionally take a ride that's longer than the ones we usually take. Whether or not you choose to call this ride an "epic" is up to you, but underneath all the evocative language and imagery the fundamental truth is we like to spend time on our bikes. Furthermore, whether you find Rapha's presentation of the "epic" ride seductive or pretentious, I think we can also agree that when it comes to taking long rides the Rapha Continental do it right. No, I don't mean that you need a Richard Sachs frame and a pair of $200 bibs to take a long ride, nor do I mean it needs to be documented in black and white photography and recounted in overwrought prose later. I simply mean that if you're going to spend five or six hours riding on the road and you don't need to carry any clothing or supplies with you, a road bike, a pair of cycling shorts, and a jersey is a pretty good choice.

However, some riders have a different way of approaching the "epic." For them, an "epic" ride isn't pushing themselves and their equipment as far and as hard as possible. Instead, it involves simply using the wrong equipment altogether. One group of riders selling this version of the "epic" is Nabiis, who have undertaken what they call the "Tour de Taiwan," and they're doing it on fixed-gears:








Now you might think that track bicycles equipped with riser bars of the sort normally used by urban cyclists to cover short distances and perform unimpressive tricks would be a bad choice for a longish road ride, and from the looks of their times it seems you'd be right. Here's how they fared on day one:


Please note I've converted the data from pretentious to cumbersome for the convenience of my fellow Americans. As you can see, the Nabiis crew managed to cover a distance of 51 miles in roughly three and a half hours, making their average speed about 15mph. To put this in context, on May 24th Rapha had one of their "Gentlemen's Races" in upstate New York, in which various six-person teams from the region covered a distance of roughly 120 miles. The winning team, Empire, finished in five hours and 28 minutes. The last place team, HUP United, finished in eight hours and 15 minutes complete with a rider who had never ridden over 100 miles before.

So what does this mean? Well, given the fact that HUP averaged about the same speed as the Nabiis riders over some significant climbs for well over twice the distance, it means that Nabiis might want to consider rethinking their choice of bicycle. Sure, I realize Nabiis aren't necessarily racing or even trying to finish quickly, but if that's the case why are they posting finishing times and riding with a follow car? Even the Rapha riders don't have support. The only conclusion I can draw is that they're trying to prove that hipster bikes make pretty bad road bikes, and in that respect they've succeeded admirably. Either that, or they don't want to tire themselves out for the post-stage stunting sessions:

In that respect though, I suppose doing a half-assed road ride and then doing some half-assed tricks all in the same day and on a bicycle ill-suited to both could be considered "epic."

Speaking of riser bars, the latest reason I've been hearing often for using them on fixed-gears (besides freestyling) is that they let you see over traffic. This is ridiculous. Firstly, people drive enormous cars these days, and unless you live in a town where everybody drives a DeLorean there's no way you're seeing over traffic unless you're riding a tall bike--and that's to say nothing of all the vans, trucks, and buses. If a high vantage point made a better city bike then we'd all still be riding p-fars. Secondly, even if you could see over traffic, why would you want to? When you ride in the city the most important thing by what's happening a few feet in front of you, particularly with regard to the road surface. It's no good craning your neck to see what's happening down the block if you're going to ride right into a pothole or a storm grate. Plus, you don't need to see over the cars, you need to see between them. You're riding through traffic, not over it. Then again, when you've got no brakes and it takes you half a block to stop, I guess you need to see as far down the street as possible. Maybe Soma can make an urban periscope. In fact, the reason you can't see over traffic is because everyone's driving SUVs so they can see over traffic, and you can see how well that turned out for everybody.

Of course, well before Nabiis set out on the "Tour de Taiwan," MASH already proved that track bikes make bad road bikes by riding the Tour of California stages on them:

Yes, the track bike is beautifully simple, but sometimes simplicity is complexity--especially when you need to stop yourself with your foot on a descent after dropping your chain. Actually, in this case, simplicity has leapfrogged over complexity and gone right to absurdity.

Furthermore, MASH seem to be positioning themselves as the fixed-gear Rapha. Just take a look at the copy for this "epic"-themed t-shirt:


One of the most beautiful moments in cycling is when riders are climbing up a mountain pass with their explosive energy and descending down to a valley floor with equally explosive power. There is a sense of sublime that bring us closer to the most primal part of nature within us. For this shirt, I wanted to create a single-minded design that captures this sense of sublime and to commemorate their incredible effort that went into riding the Tour of California by MASH riders on their fixed gear bikes this Spring. It was an epic attempt to provide all of us with much needed courage and possibilities to live our lives with beauty and simplicity.

Wow, that's a lot of words for picture of a mountain with an explosion on the top. Actually, my understanding of successful road riding is that you're not supposed to blow up on the climb. Being able to downshift on the ascent and upshift on the descent instead of stomping up one side and frantically spinning down the other can go a long way towards preventing this from happening. Throw a couple of brakes into the bargain and you won't even have to peform a "foot jam" if something goes wrong.

Even those "Albion in the Gloaming" guys are palping derailleurs on their own iteration of the "epic." As you can see from their site, they're well under way, and they don't seem to be rubbing the bikes from the bird-miming video:



While I'm pleased to see they seem to be riding relatively sensible bikes, I hope they realize doing so is not a good way to get attention--especially if they want to sell something. That's why I'm planning my own publicity-seeking "epic," in which I'm going to ride across the country on a singlespeed mountain bike. 50 gear inches, 30psi, and absolutely no point.

Epic-curious: Riding Long and Hard

As I posted yesterday, this past weekend I took the winner of the Fat Cyclist contest on a typical New York area road ride. However, while it was both typical and enjoyable, it was by no means "epic." Frankly, as a mediocre cyclist in all respects I don't possess the necessary passion, fortitude, and effortless style to lead an "epic" road ride. For that matter, I don't possess the proper clothing either. Sure, I once thought I had all these things, but then I read about the Rapha Continental:

Here is how Rapha define an "epic" ride:

No formula exists for epic. It happens when the right conditions are present and it cannot be manufactured. Mental, physical and emotional stress are all components as is suffering, which in the case of cycling, usually means extended periods of self-inflicted pain. Exposure, distance, duration, elevation, great camaraderie, road surfaces, waning sanity, exhaustion, rapidly fading sunlight, weather, empty pockets and broken chains. And competition both healthy and not so healthy are all likely a part of any epic ride. Epic is essentially the result of a series of intense experiences and hard riding.

I like easy-to-follow formulas, so I was disappointed to learn that I cannot employ one to have an "epic." Even though "mental, physical and emotional stress" are important components, as is "self-inflicted pain," these things alone cannot make your ride "epic." I know this because I recently thought really hard about the dire state of the economy while reminiscing about childhood traumas and administering a "purple nurple" to myself during a ride in Prospect Park, and while highly unpleasant, the ride was far from "epic."

Further proof of my intrinsic lack of "epicness" is my experience at the Runcible Spoon. When Rapha visits the Runcible Spoon on an "epic," everything is all sepia and "epicy:"


When I go, it looks like this and I get served a hairy muffin:


But does this mean I lack soul and "epictude," or do I simply lack epic photography skills? Is there really such a thing as a serendipitous state of cycling perfection--a narcotic cocktail of pleasure and pain called an "epic?" Or is there simply a calculated state of visual cycling perfection--an opiate haze of seductive images and words called "epic roadie marketing?" Is it possible to experience this blissful state by riding with the Rapha Continental team-that-is-not-a-team who shave their legs in cold mountain streams and who poke at their deadened muscles with pins to elicit the last few spasms and twitches that will get them over that final, nearly insurmountable 19% climb at mile 135? Or do they just want me to buy some shorts?

I don't know, but whether it's reality or illusion or some combination thereof there are few other cycling companies that could get away with it--although I'd love to see them try. One such company who might want to consider taking a shot at marketing the "epic" is Primal Wear, makers of novelty cycling apparel such as the "Crankkin' Stein" jersey:


Primal Wear are often criticized for their outrageous, tasteless, and arguably hideous graphics. However, I think they should be applauded for having the courage to produce a jersey like this one that empowers Jewish cyclists. I'm not sure what the "Crankkin' Stein" jersey says on the back, but I'm guessing it's something like "Crankkin' Stein Cranks, but Never on Shabbos."

In my ongoing efforts to jump the shark, Primal Wear represents to me the great white. Sure, I may have a column in Bicycling, but that's just hopping over a baby nurse shark on a Razr scooter compared to my actual goal, which is designing Primal Wear jerseys. To that end, I've been working on some concepts, which I'm pleased to share with you here in rudimentary sketch form:



Primal wear have demonstrated a fondness for sexually suggestive double entendre in the past, so I'm hoping this "Derailleur?!? Damn near killed her!!!" design (complete with long-cage Sora rear derailleur) appeals to them as well. Obviously it needs some heavy airbrushing, but you get the idea.


If that's too subtle for them, maybe they'll go for this "I've Got a Compact Crank" design. Because it's not the size of your chainrings; it's how you spin them.


But Primal isn't only about bad puns. It's also about references to popular culture. That's why I think this homage to Charlie Sheen's epic hair in the 1989 baseball comedy "Major League" will be a home run.

But as Rapha has proven, it's not just about showing the clothes; it's also about showing what you can do in the clothes. (And I don't mean relieving yourself in them during a triathlon.) This is why Primal also need to market their version of the "epic" by putting together a group of riders who embody the Primal spirit. This group would be called the "Primal Continental" and they would participate in charity rides across North America. Of course, they'll also need bikes. Rapha Continental has tapped the country's most respected framebuilders to construct for them some of the most pretentious bikes ever made:


Likewise, Primal Continental would have access to the finest bicycles that Performance has to offer:

Plastic, stamped steel, and aluminum play indifferently, ride sufficiently, and look acceptable together. This bike would also look great in front of the Runcible Spoon--as photographed by me, not by Rapha--during a hairy muffin stop on a Primal "epic." Actually, I wonder if Primal would be interested in making "hairy muffin" jerseys. That would be epic.

In the meantime, though, I still can't help but feel inadequately "epic" most of the time. Not only do I have a hard time getting the rarefied blend of leather, carbon, camaraderie, and self-inflicted pain just right, but I also don't have that much time. Sadly, the best I can do most days is try to make my commute "epic." Fortunately, I often succeed--as long as your definition of an "epic" commute includes the words "infuriating" and "miserable." If an epic road ride involves steep climbs, gravel roads, road rash, mechanical mishaps and inclement weather, then an epic commute includes something like this:



Not only is this car disgorging an oblivious passenger on a cell phone right in the middle of the bike lane:


But it turns out the door was also hiding an oncoming bike-salmoning "Beautiful Godzilla."

Even more irritating than the Rapidly-Appearing Bike Salmon (RABS) are the Rollerbladers, whom I've been encountering in the bike lane with increasing frequency:


I wonder if it's possible to do an "epic" Rollerblade ride:

It seems more "meh-pic" to me.