Asinine

Within about a dozen years of the Wright brothers flights there were war planes and commercial flights.

The Russians put Sputnik up in 1957 using computer power that is dwarfed by todays home computers.

You can take almost any smart phone into a store and scan an items' barcode and see how their price compares to others.


The reason I'm thinking about all this technology and marveling at the advances that are made every day is because I'm just finished the first physical I've had in a very long time and I was wondering why the hell I was bent over some damned table.

What, they don't have an app for that? Somebody could make a fortune. They could call it the Apphole.

After this guy does this he hands me a box of tissues and says "wipe yourself". Now, I've just been probed and I'm searching for some kind of way to man up and for a brief moment I contemplate telling him "you made the mess, YOU clean it up!" in my most menacing, yeah, that's right, MAN here! voice but then I realize him wiping up the mess isn't going to improve the situation.

So I clean up while he's still in the room and we finish up and I'm heading out to get on my bike.

I ride to the closest corner and stop to watch the women go by. Cause that's what men do. I give my best deep voice "How you doin" to a couple of them til one says "asshole" which doesn't improve the situation.

So I head on out for a bike ride. Rats.

I decide to go to this Italian deli to pick up some homemade pasta and I'm bombing down Connecticut ave. cause I'm standing up and hammering cause I got no interest in sitting down, and I'm making most of the lights when I finally miss one and come to a stop. And some tool behind me bombs right through it weaving between the crossing cars. He wasn't costumed and I didn't get a good enough look to see if he was the other half of the CAT-0.

While I'm standing there waiting for the light along comes a girl on one of those cargo bikes and she slows then dashes through the intersection as well.  Dammit.

I ride awhile and a light changes and I'm in a bad mood, and I am man, so I slow but dash across at the first opening and I'm going along when a cop pulls me over and yells at me for running a red light. I never run red lights dammit. This is like the first one ever!

The guy let's me go without a ticket. Nice not to get it stuck to me twice in one day.

Fadsters part Deux

Over a million Pet Rocks were sold. Rocks the guy got from the local rocks r us shop and sold them for $4 each. Without Fadsters the guy would have been stuck with a truckload of rocks. Fadsters have made possible banana-seat bikes, mood rings, muppet babies, beanie babies, slammer whammers, tie-die, polyester, blue suede shoes, slinky's, the boufant, Pee Wee Herman, silly putty, the British invasion v. 1 and 2, spud guns, platform shoes, the macarena, flappers, suv's, magic 8 ball, grunge, lava lamps and hipsters.

Not that long ago the bicycle was the thing you got when you were a kid and soon forgot about when you weren't. Or those rusty things in the garage that you and the little lady got so you could go and have some "exercise" together. 

That's all changed (unless you live in like some small town in Ohio, like where I'm from, where they're still in the garage).

Now there's designer bikes and designer helmets and designer clothing and designer bags and designer accessories, and the Fadsters can't get enough of them. And there's Cycle Chic sites and bicycle blogs and magazines that praise the utilitarian bike. We're in full blown bicycle Fadster mode. 

And what would a good fad be without some music? Some Fadsters are making an album called "Bicycle" that will be comprised of songs about... bicycling! The singer is a 17 (soon to be 18) year old girl with a "sweet" voice and the songs will most definitely not be for the CAT-0 crowd. 

Being privy to the process I have access to early home recordings of the songs. I had a choice of several to pick from but I just had to go with one named "Cycle Chic". 

"Cycle Chic" 

(©2011 Patches Publishing/ASCAP)

Th head Fadster says it probably won't be released til the fall. Not very "now now now!" generation but I guess we'll just have to wait.

Fadsters

If you are a member of CABI, the DC bike share thing, then you can get a free cupcake at Sprinkles Cupcakes in Georgetown through this week.

Cupcakes stores have been popping up for a few years now. This appears to be a hot fad among those that follow fads. I'm guessing there are people who follow fads because there sure is a line of 'em lined up outside of these cupcake places and just as there is no way a sane and rational person would mount a fixie there is no way a sane and rational person would stand in line for a cupcake. No, this is the realm of fadsters.

Of course it helps to have a TV show. Georgetown Cupcake has a show on TLC (DC Cupcake).

Georgetown Cupcake

With a line of fadsters

What surprises me is how far cupcakes had fallen out of favor. That they have made a comeback to the point where you can make a career out of them and even get a tv show is a testament to how much we have missed and longed for them.

I certainly had no idea. I don't recall there being a shortage of Little Debbies on the grocer shelf but surely there must have been, no?

With all the health food diets over recent years I would never have imagined a baked cake topped with gobs of sugary frosting would line 'em up. But then the last and only fad I can recall participating in was bell bottom trousers.

Hey, if they were good enough for the King...

As all fads, the cupcake will again fall out of favor for no other reason than fads change. I predict that macarons will be the next fad. By that time brakes will be the "new" fad for bikes and, to draw them in, the macaron stores should offer free macarons to all bikers with brakes. The fadsters will line right up.

Too sexy for NY

In case you're not aware NYC has been brutal on bikers this summer. Bikers getting tickets are becoming as common as tattoos on bike mechanics.
As this young lass from Dutch country learned.

Apparently the men in blue of NYC think that a woman wearing a skirt is a danger to others and could warrant a ticket if they go about looking too good.

I have to side with the officer on this one. We should have a standard in which bicyclists present themselves. However it should be based not on simply good looks but looking good in general and with some style. To start with we need to establish a baseline:

Going from here we can take a sampling of todays bikers and see if they're ticketable.

Goofy looking - ticket

Goofy looking - ticket

Goofy looking - ticket 

Ass holes - ticket

 Riding a clown bike without a clown costume - ticket

CAT-0 - ticket

CAT-0 - ticket

Cell phone - ticket

Shopping cart and sandals - ticket

Not enough threads. Ticket.

No ticket

Exposed crank and tattoo's - TICKET TICKET TICKET!

No ticket

Swim trunks - ticket

The middle ground - CAT-Os and morning commuters

Having been off the bike for the last week or so (bad hamstring, bad bad hamstring) I've been forced into the dreaded car.
This is a painful thing seeing all the bikers going merrily about the day while I'm stuck in way too much metal and plastic.

I've always thought that the Costumed And Tattooed (CAT-0) who go about terrorizing the other users of MUPs have a lot in common with aggressive drivers. The only difference is that the drivers are pretty much forced to slow and wait to pass when there's oncoming traffic whereas the CAT-0s simply blasts down the middle.

I was wrong.

 

Driving to work on MacArthur Blvd. has shown me the light. The number of cars that straddle the middle to pass the bikers while there is oncoming traffic is scary. I've even encountered cars that are half in my lane coming around blind curves. This has damaged my cyche. I thought it was only the CAT-0s that figured they have a right to make you use half of your lane. I had no idea that someone driving an SUV figured the same way.

They certainly figured right.  I will hold my ground when the CAT-0s challenge me but no way I'm messing with damn commuters in SUVs. I scooted over every time.

b x c x d > a x d2 + eb2

In my never ending quest to understand how exactly I don't fall over more often I stumbled on this:



My search continues.

Poor poor pitiful me

This story in the Washington Post tells the adventure of a dad taking his son out for riding lessons on a local MUP. Pretty funny. Not the story, the comments. 

So here we have a father taking his son, fresh out of training wheels, out for a ride on an MUP. After 30 minutes he gave up. He asked:

"Was it unreasonable for me to ask that people make room for a dad using one lane of the bike trail to teach his kid how to ride? Should I have more respect for the super-commuters who use (I’m being generous) their ride home to blow off steam from a rough day? I honestly don’t know. My wife says I was brave even to try."

Well, yeah. What a stupid question.  As you can imagine the responses from the bikers were all in agreement that it was a dumb idea. 

Alsatan1 wrote:

"Please don't mix your medium, wobbly (i.e., unpredictable 40 pound son going 5mph with large balanced 180 pound cyclists going 10-20 mph. Your son is the unexpected condition and the collision would have had terrible results for everyone. It wasn't a good idea."

A public MUP where individuals and families run and walk and ride. What kind of a father would throw his kid into this mix?

He continues:

"It's one of the worst because it's one of the most unpredictable. It puts me in a position to make a split second decision with which I have little experience."

Ah, the ol' split second decision. We've all faced it. You're riding along and up ahead are people. Maybe even little people. We know that little people can be even more unpredictable than the big kind. So let's just maintain our pace til we're right on top of them (because you can't whisper "on your left" until you're like right on top of them) and hope like hell we don't have to deal with the split second decision.

"Now quick, the cyclist has to weigh those options and make a decision in 2 seconds."

The cyclist must make a decision in 2 seconds because the cyclist isn't looking down the road. He's checking his "stats" on his $200 Garmin bike computer.  And if the cyclist were to plan for some unforeseen event then he would need to adjust his speed and the cyclist simply will not adjust the speed unless it's absolutely necessary and only then within the last possible 2 seconds. 

Nosmo writes:

"Was it too inconvenient to either walk or toss the childs bike into the back seat of the car and find an empty parking lot at a nearby Church or school? Sheesh... the kid wasn't scared of the fast moving bike riders, he was scared of the knucklehead decision of his father for thinking it was a great solution to put his son in a dangerous situation."

And is there any situation more dangerous than the runners and the walkers and the dogs and mothers pushing a baby carriage? Because it's not the fast moving bike riders. Yes it takes a real knucklehead to go out to an MUP and think those damned mothers with their baby carriages won't be terrorizing all the other MUP users. 

Alsatan1 again:

"Most cyclists pass you with a warning, almost all pass you safely."

Alsatan1 lives in a different world than I do.

"If you expect cyclists to reduce speed to 5 mph for every runner they pass, cyclists will not be able to utilize the trails and will use the roads where they'll demand cars reduce their speed to 12 mph, but then a runner will be on the road at 5mph, the cyclist will to to 5 mph and the cars will need to go 5mph. Ridiculous, right?"

It sure is! I can't recall the last time I read anything so ridiculous. 

I'm curious though. What is the minimum speed a cyclist can pass runners and still be able to utilize the trail? Is it 7mph? 9? 

I could be wrong here but I don't think we expect cars to travel at the same speed as us, just that they use some caution and pass safely and not blast by us with inches to spare, that when there's no opening they actually slow and wait. 

My guess is that not one other user of the trail on that day had a problem with the little one on his bike. I doubt a single runner or stroller had a complaint. I doubt any of them were unable to look at it as anything but a father teaching a kid how to ride a bike. I doubt any of them saw it as some kind of intrusion and a "dangerous" thing to do with a kid. 

The poor poor lonely biker. So misunderstood. All he wants is to get where he's going at the pace he wants to use and for others to get the hell out of the way. Is that so much to ask?