Real fast, I thought I'd share a couple images from the races with y'all.
All of these photosets were found via cyclingreporter.com, which I recently found to be an awesome repository of NYC's local races. let the narcissism commence:
Take that Hasids! An even more antiquated and repressive society than yours and (gasp!) they're on bicycles! I wonder if they oraganized any tweed rides back in those days, or if they had to revert to knickerbocker-themed rides instead since everyone was in ridiculous wool pantaloons to begin with...
...but it is... while I prefer to be riding, sometimes I dig being all cozy inside with hot coffee, chilled out tunes and something to keep busy with. The rain just stokes the productivity.
So unfortunately I got a call Tuesday around noon from NYC Velo saying that my parts were delayed yet again, and that they had to order them from another distributor... According to their latest account of the situation, they should be here today. I'm going to see if they can knock the tax or something off for making me wait three times longer than I had intended.
In other news, I got an e-mail from Rapha this morning inviting me to join them on a gentleman's race at 7:30 am on Sunday, February 28th. Since I'm all about epic rides and rapha in general, I'd totally be there with socks on, except for the problem that it takes place in Richmond VA.
Why Virginia, you ask? Well Rapha and countless others are descending on the town for the North American Handmade Bicycle Show (NAHBS) next week. Needless to say, handmade bikes make mass-produced ones look tired and boring:
Rear Dropout from Signal Cycles' Rapha Continental Bike
I'm sure if I was able to make it all the way down there on such short notice, It'd be an awesome time; though I think journalism is best left to journalists, photography to photographers; as the wanton reappropriation of copyrighted material is best left to bloggers. (Just to be clear, I do feel bad using other people's photos without permission, but they'd probably want money and I figure this is free fuckin' advertizing anyway, so I'm faultless here... Shit; how many of you would've known about Signal, Engin, Courage, Black Sheep, etc... if I hadn't just linked you to them, hmm?)
Speaking of blogs, while wasting time on facebook just now, I came across a great photo of a friend taken by someone who seems to be a rather accomplished photographer.
Just ran across this site, chicks and bikes, whilst perusing tracko. while I usually have little interest in blogs of the ccc or sartorialist blog-way; I am a fan of pretty girls. and bikes. and boobies. Of course the undisputed masters of fixed-gear-soft-core-hipster-porn is the fixfixfix.
Happy holdays everybody. And happy new year as well, for that matter.
After a lengthy sabbatical from blogging, I have decided to return to posting about shit I find here or there that piques my interest or earns my ire. Of course that presupposes my having mountains of cool stuff worth looking at which (while perhaps I do now) is not always the case; especially after divulging it in large heaps on a daily basis.
Since my last post, I've had a life filled with both tumult and elation, though (for better or worse) more so of the tumultuous.
I spent Christmas in Washington State with the folks and opened some really great gifts between traipsing around the verdant wilderness of the northwest, which I must add, is just as foggy and moist as one would expect it to be.
The non-gift highlights of that trip were finally getting to see some of Seattle, including the Pike St. Market and the space needle.
Worth mentioning is the EMP/SFM. While its collections were totally rad, the "architecture" in which it was housed was bile-eliciting to say the least. I found it humorous that the first thing people said to me when I told them I wouldn't discuss my distaste of the building with them was, "It's supposed to look like a smashed guitar from above."
Fortunately for Frankie, it's adjacent to the space needle so that perspective is available, though I find it odd that one would design a thing to be viewed from another thing altogether.
This is certainly a topic for the Philosoraptor to tackle at some future date.
Anyway, returning to the city (new yorkers are so insular that they feel it unnecessary to preface 'city' with 'new york'), I turned my attention to several pressing matters that required my immediate attention, most importantly, the rapidly advancing first race of the [road] season.
Noting that my bicycle was in dire need of some sexification, I proceeded to spend countless hours at "work" perusing competitive cyclist (the most verbose and simultaneously selectively stocked bike-parts website), posting inane questions to bikeforums, and fantasizing about all sorts superfluous bells and whistles for my ride (as a figure of speech only, every roadie knows that bells are needlessly heavy and can easily be replaced by whistling.... with one's lips, that is).
Anyway, I'll save the bike-upgrade discussion for a later date, just wanted to say, "Hello, I'm back."
On an interesting side note before I get back to slaving away on the CAD, those Livestrong bikes Lance rode this past year were up for grabs at a Sotheby's auction recently, and some of them fetched some serious dough... Of course, Damien Hirst's ridiculous pink madone topped the list at $500,000.00
Boy it was a wet one this weekend; Friday saw me tromp through the rain on the rugged streets of LIC's waterfront to that interview I mentioned last week; and of course since I want the job, I needed to arrive looking presentable which, combined with the all-day downpours, necessitated taking the subway again.
Needless to say, I was getting tired of being forced indoors by the time Saturday rolled around, so a few of us braved the drizzling rain and went down to Red Hook where the cool breeze and soggy atmosphere lent a Homer-esque mood to the day (Homer as in this, not this; just to be clear).
I only wish my new Rapha cycling cap (aka breeze-induced-fro prevention device) had come in the mail earlier so I could have appeared all poignantly grey-scaled against the solemn maritime backdrop, much in the way Rapha depicts their products in use.
If you're not familiar with Rapha or their products, they claim to make "the finest in cycling clothing in the world..." and while I haven't yet tested the worth of that claim, I do know that they're one of the very few companies a cyclist like myself can turn to for reasonable cycling gear that doesn't make you into a rolling billboard for enterprises you have no stake in or reason to support.
However they do make it a point to advertise with seductive photography and the organization of "gentlemen's races" around the country wherein eleven teams of six rider compete on an open course (meaning cars, uncontrolled intersections, etc..) in a picturesque environment.
Here's a video of the gentlemen's race in New Paltz NY earlier this year...
I find it interesting that while it's been dubbed a "gentlemen's race" the brusquely competitive reputation of New Easterners precedes them even in what is essentially a for-fun race. I've taken note of this as well when I do laps at the parks or ride up to Nyack, as I did again this weekend.
The "me first" attitude of New Yorkers really bugs me sometimes and becomes really obvious when coupled with the seemingly grouchy nature of roadies in general. When I first started riding seriously, I definitely got my fair share of 'asshole roadies' yelling at me to hold my line or shooting me disapproving glances for other reasons I couldn't figure.
Now, having ridden quite a bit with cyclists of all types, I've found that not only are the curmudgeonly racers right, they're justified in letting you know. One has to respect the fact that everyone rides a bike for an entirely different reason; some do it as a random leisure activity, others do it strictly for fitness, and others still do it simply to travel pleasantly from place to place.
Roadies gripe at other "less serious" cyclists not so much because of some haughty self righteousness, but because the majority of people on bikes in the US have absolutely no idea how to operate one and as such, present a danger to those who do. If all cyclists observed but a few frequently forgone rules of the road, everyone would be much happier.
Ride right, pass left: you'd be surprised at how many apparently "experienced" cyclists can't follow this simple rule... If you feel like you're being overtaken a lot, you need to be on the rightmost side of the path because you're slow. Deal with it or ride faster.
Don't pass-n'-stop: If you are riding behind someone you'd like to pass, make sure you're not going to have to slam on the brakes right after you overtake them, cause doing that's just mean.
Make your intentions known: Hand signals, yelling, eye contact, whatever... the prime cause of enraged roadies is being cut off or run into by someone going half their speed without so much as a glance over their shoulder to check for overtaking cyclists.
No half-wheeling: This is more of an etiquette thing, but it's also extremely dangerous to have your front wheel overlapping another cyclist's rear wheel... If sudden movements are made, you're both going down. If you want to chat with someone, ride directly side by side. that in mind,
No jerky movements: If you are riding around other bikers, sometimes you have to just accept rolling over that manhole cover or pothole you'd normally swerve around. Keep a straight line whenever possible.
What I'm proposing here isn't that everyone accommodate the customs a select few riders, but that we all be courteous to our neighbors. Since in this country we're brought up believing that bicycles are more toys than anything else, this can be framed as simply good sportsmanship.
Bad sportsmanship is not only ungentlemanly and distasteful, but can really damage your performance as evidenced by Serena Williams' tirade yesterday (justified as it may have been). Right or wrong aside, there's no appropriate excuse for hindering the pursuits of others for personal convenience or aspiration.
Obviously doping tops the list of unsportsmanlike conduct because it obscures the successes of clean athletes, but unsporting behavior also applies to social decorum. Kanye West and Rep. Joe Wilson are the most recent examples of this and they would do well to aspire toward more gentlemanly conduct in the future.
For this reason I applaud Rapha in their campaign to bring a level of civility and normalcy to the often neon-logoed world of competitive cycling. Perhaps more cyclists will don classy, logo-free gear (assuming they can afford it) and perhaps the growing interest in tweed garb will usher in a new era of cycling dandiness where the bicycle isn't shunned as a dirty, childish, or pedestrian (in the social sense) way to perambulate.
(On that note, be sure to peruse the photography at Velodramatic for more poetic visions of road cycling in the Rapha vein by a staunch fan of theirs)
Til' next time remember, nothings more stylish than the mild-mannered confidence of a pro in control...
The Big Picture is an awesome photo-journalism arm of Boston.com where you can waste hours flipping through large format pictures of excellent composition on a smattering of subjects. My current favorite, of course: 2009 Tour de France. (forwarded by a reader)
Sashae's Flickr photostream of cyclists and their bikes. It seems primed to become (gasp) another Cycle-Chic blog though of the fixed gear and grungy urban-chic, not the 'artistically' monochromed and leather saddled-chic to which we have become accustomed. (via Prolly)
This prototype tail-light that paints colored lines on the road with lasers to help drivers be aware of clearances you require when they pass. I thought that this was just another product enabling hipsters to further customize their fixed-gear bikes until I saw this video. Considering that the lines don't fade under headlights and ambient light, I will definitely get one of these if they decide to make them in multiple 'colorways'. (via altitude)
Students at MIT are developing batteries for electric cars that can be fully recharged in 10 minutes flat! Let's see if the government squashes this as quietly and efficiently as they did the EV1. (via Inhabitat)
Using Wiimotes as tracking devices, Japanese researchers have figured out how to create touchable holograms utilizing a "phenomena called acoustic radiation pressure" to create sensations in a user's hand. I wonder how long it'll take for this to turn into hyper-realistic, interactive porn... (via physorg.com)
The great hipster silk route has widened to accomodate a new watering hole in the form of Der Schwarze Kölner, a new beer garden that has just opened on Fulton and S. Oxford St. Considering they offer liter mugs, I may have to stop in tonight for a cold one or three. (via NYTimes: Ft. Greene/Clinton Hill blog)
I practice architecture, cycling, loafing, and speculating on a daily basis. Writing this blog is, for me, a way to speak with myself and others about strange things I notice each day. While people may not always agree with my views, I hope that perhaps my rants and lame attempts at jokes encourage readers to take note of their surroundings and learn to laugh a little at the circus that is life.
