ONE MUST PEDAL TO GIVE BIRTH TO A DANCING STAR

Chaos comes before all principles of order & entropy, it's neither a god nor a maggot, its idiotic desires encompass & define every possible choreography, all meaningless aethers & phlogistons: its masks are crystallizations of its own facelessness, like clouds.

Everything in nature is perfectly real including consciousness, there's absolutely nothing to worry about. Not only have the chains of the Law been broken, they never existed; demons never guarded the stars, the Empire never got started, Eros never grew a beard.

No, listen, what happened was this: they lied to you, sold you ideas of good & evil, gave you distrust of your body & shame for your prophethood of chaos, invented words of disgust for your molecular love, mesmerized you with inattention, bored you with civilization & all its usurious emotions.

There is no becoming, no revolution, no struggle, no path; already you're the monarch of your own skin ó your inviolable freedom waits to be completed only by the love of other monarchs: a politics of dream, urgent as the blueness of sky.

To shed all the illusory rights & hesitations of history demands the economy of some legendary Stone Age ó shamans not priests, bards not lords, hunters not police, gatherers of paleolithic laziness, gentle as blood, going naked for a sign or painted as birds, poised on the wave of explicit presence, the clockless nowever.

Agents of chaos cast burning glances at anything or anyone capable of bearing witness to their condition, their fever of lux et voluptas. I am awake only in what I love & desire to the point of terror ó everything else is just shrouded furniture, quotidian anaesthesia, shit-for-brains, sub-reptilian ennui of totalitarian regimes, banal censorship & useless pain.

Avatars of chaos act as spies, saboteurs, criminals of amour fou, neither selfless nor selfish, accessible as children,
mannered as barbarians, chafed with obsessions, unemployed, sensually deranged, wolfangels, mirrors for contemplation, eyes like flowers, pirates of all signs & meanings.

Here we are crawling the cracks between walls of church state school & factory, all the paranoid monoliths. Cut off from the tribe by feral nostalgia we tunnel after lost words, imaginary bombs.

The last possible deed is that which defines perception itself, an invisible golden cord that connects us: illegal dancing in the courthouse corridors. If I were to kiss you here they'd call it an act of terrorism ó so let's take our pistols to bed & wake up the city at midnight like drunken bandits celebrating with a fusillade, the message of the taste of chaos. --Hakim Bey, T.A.Z. The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism

Did you read that all the way through? Good work. Don't know if we would have done the same on a Saturday. First a quick primer: we really like Hakim Bey on just about all fronts. The anarcho-philospher puts his pennies where his politics are--the book we lifted the above lines from is anti-copyright. That means that you can print it at out and even produce your own press run at will. And if you like a backbeat to your polemic, Bey hooked-up with the wildly prolific bass player and producer Bill Laswell a decade ago and put a few essays from TAZ to music. what's that Emma Goldman said about revolution and dancing? And what does any of this have to do with bikes?

Plenty. Especially when a poet like Jen Hofer is at the helm. She organized a social ride at a 40,000 square foot warehouse in downtown LA earlier this month. About 150 cyclist gathered that night, white head lights and red blinking tail lights illuminating the pre-Nine Inch Nails industrial space in a spectacular fashion. And riding on the smooth, polished concrete was like walking deep in the woods after a heavy snowfall--a special kind of sublime quiet.

She planned this week's happening too. Thursday night's event was slated to held in the same space. But this one would have a DJ and a "Dance Battle" for amateurs. We were pretty sure that translated into something between krumping and a breakdance battle of yore. Only with fewer sheets of cardboard to throw backspins on, no one dressed as a clown (regrettably), and more SPD shoes than Adidas Shelltoes.

Then the double dose of bad news came: due to work being done on the space, it would not be available and the DJ couldn't make it. But Hofer found a replacement DJ lickety split and moved the event outside. Too bad we couldn't find the event in similar, hasty fashion.

That night, we put on our second favorite full-faced skull mask, grabbed our favorite bike, and hit the road heading downtown. We got to the general vicinity without incident and even found a gas station that sold beer when we were blocks away. We removed the mask, got our sixer of Tecate, and paid the lady through the thick, bulletproof glass. She was shaking her head in amused sort of way when she looked towards our mask and asked, "Isn't it a little early for that?"

The homeless man behind us in line offered a bit of advice, "You don't want to wear that down here, you'll get shot."

Eke. We slid the beer into our bag and proceeded to get lost for a longtime. The warehouse district of Los Angeles is largely a grid but when you get close to the LA River, where we were, the whole grid implodes and the layout of the city has all the logic of those paved carriage paths they call streets in New England. Gentrification has yet to arrive to this area yet and it is more Blade Runner than 90210.

By the time we rolled up, it was too late to get into the dance competition. We watched the two teams practice instead. This was the set-up: each team had a leader or two who coached them through a routine. For the battle, each team would take the "dance floor"--a yellow circle painted on the cement--and give it up. The coaches made their teams legit by giving them matching long-sleeve T-shirts. It was gonna be war between the blue and the red.



And a scene it was. The alley is at least as wide as a four-lane highway and contains forgotten railroad tracks that have not seen a steel wheel in decades. On one side are warehouses with loading docks poking out from their red brick bellies. On the other side is a chain link fence and that night there were more bikes leaning against it than there were cars parked in front of it. Next to the make-shift DJ booth, there was an old gray Ford Ranger with five milk crates filled with records in the back and two padded bags filled with the same. A few elevated speakers were pushing bass-heavy beats and producing enough low-end sound that we're pretty sure there was an invisible sub-woofer kicking in for the cause somewhere.

We won't give you the ins-and-outs of the dance battle. We hate to say it, especially because the organizer was on the
non-winning crew, but the red team schooled everyone in attendance and was soon spraying them with the celebratory champagne.

The music continued to spin and people continued to roll in. And because it's a LA, many of them looked like American Apparel models on fixed gear bikes or understudies for "The Royal Tenenbaums." Shepard Fairey's doppelganger also showed up.

We mingled and met a lot of new faces. One was from Bushwick. She told us she had been raised in Brooklyn but had not become homeless until she was in Manhattan. In LA since 2003, she had recently secured Section 8 housing and was heading back to the Big Apple. But at that point and on that night, she didn't have a place to stay. And she felt fortunate for that. "God has blessed me [by making sure that I don't have a bed for tonight.] Otherwise I'd be in a shelter and couldn't be here" she said, speaking about dance party, before asking for a sip of our drink and shimmying down the alley in time with the music.




(That's not rain on the camera lens. It's champagne.)

10/26/06 13:34:51 PDT
TOO BLACK, TOO STRONG: THE JERSEY



We're not big on hero worship here at the Donkey and we stopped buying shirts supporting are favorite bands a while ago (that black ink on black cotton Shellac T being the exception). But, when it comes to Major Taylor all bets are off. One of the first black professional athletes, Taylor was winning races 50 years before Jackie Robinson went pro on the baseball diamond. Taylor got his professional start in 1896 when cycling was one of the biggest sports in the land. Six day races were all the rage and the velodrome was a huge spectator draw. There are even those who claim that Madison Square Garden was built for bike racing.

We couldn't confirm that, but we do know that Major Taylor schooled whitey and everyone else on the boards. In his first race at MSG he lapped the entire field in a half-mile event. But bikes were bigger Europe and those Euros weren't so hung-up about skin color, so off he went.

Taylor kicked ass and took the Lord's day off. Like Sandy Koufax who wouldn't pitch on the Sabbath, Taylor was a devout man. He refused to race on Sundays and sacrificed thousands of dollars in potential winnings for his faith. He had all the faith of George W without any of the hypocrisy. Maybe 'cause he rode a fixed?

Anyway, the Major Taylor Association" is selling a limited edition jersey. It's a fundraiser and the garment looks way better than that Pink Floyd "Darkside of Moon" number you've been eyeing.




10/26/06 08:38:04 PDT
TAKING A PULL FOR BIG JONNY



Drunk Cyclist has provided a steady stream of politics, porn, and talk about bikes since the fall of 2000. In addition to the light-hearted tales of liver workouts and long rides, Big Jonny, the man behind the site, also posts stories about cyclists who have been hit/killed by motor vehicles as well as follow-ups to the trials that rarely follow these crashes. If you're looking for anecdotal evidence that cyclists are second-class citizens in the eyes of the law, look no further. After reading countless "biker down" stories, it was tough to read the entry from August 7.Big Jonny had beed tagged himself that weekend by a drunk driver. It left him with multiple lumbar fractures, a sprained ankle, and a "beat up leg". He recently completed eight weeks of physical therapy, was allowed to remove his back brace, and even took his first bike ride this week. But he hasn't worked since the accident. Show him some love and buy a Drunk Cyclist t-shirt, beer cozy, or headbadge.. They're perfect for that special someone on your Christmas list.



10/25/06 15:05:19 PDT
GRAFFITI FOR THE FALLEN

Take a quick look at 50mm Los Angeles and you'll see that graffiti culture is alive and well in the city everyone loves to hate. As all taggers know, there are lots of ways to get to a spot: you can drive, take public transit, walk, or if you're down with the "HIV" crew, you'll probably be able to catch a ride with your buddy's mom. At least you could have until she was busted. That's right, this summer a 42 year-old woman was pinched for driving her 19 year-old son and his five person crew all over the eastside in her SUV so they could tag. The crew concentrated on world famous Sunset Boulevard and tagged, get this, "HIV," which stands for "High in Vandalism".

That gives us reason to like Cache even more. He pedals just about everywhere he goes, paints bikes and chickens (not in that order), hooked up the interior of Orange 20 Bikes and recently finished a piece dedicated to his "fellow couriers and commuters that have died on our roads."




10/25/06 09:41:55 PDT
BIKE MESSENGERS DOWN UNDER: CMWC 14



The 14th annual Cycle Messenger World Championships wrapped up in Sydney this weekend. The results were not available when we were writing this update, but if last year's race in Jersey City, we mean New York, was any indication here's what happened in the main race: Europeans kicked ass, some Americans went almost as fast, and there were more than a few folks missing teeth but rocking $6,000 rigs. That's to say nothing of the more spectator-friendly track stand and skid competitions. The Donkey predicts that that the skid contest will replace NASCAR in less than a decade. It's fun to watch, always good for a few crashes, and even more fun with beer. You heard it here first.

Speaking of the future, mark your calendars, and start working your way through Ulysses because next year's CMWC is in Dublin. In the meantime, checkout some pix from Down Under.

10/24/06 15:23:49 PDT
SANTA CRUZ BIKES, 1; BIKE RAG, O



When it comes to cycling scribes, there are few bylines that we can't see enough of. At the top of the list, at least for half of the donkey, is the full of piss and vinegar, politically-obsessed, and boat-rocker extraordinaire Patrick O'Grady. Daniel Coyle is also on that short list. His book Lance Armstrong's War was a keeper and if you didn't checkout his profile of Jure Robic in the New York Times this year, you should. And then there's Mike Ferrentino, probably the most talented person to write about mountain biking. Ever. He's been at Bike since 1994 and his column "The Grimy Handshake" is always worth a read. But soon, that column will be no longer. Ferrentino, who was bumped up to editor-in-chief last year, is out.

Ferrentino's pedaling over the darkside. That's right, he's getting into marketing and he's going to hang-up his helmet at Rob Roskopp's Santa Cruz bikes, according to Bicycle Retailer and Industry News. Deputy editor Lou Mazzante has been tapped to take over the editorial reins.

10/24/06 09:26:37 PDT
THE POWER OF 24 HOURS--SECREST SETS NEW RECORD



While you were, eating, sleeping, pedaling, and/or working this Sunday and Monday, Michael Secrest was making left turns down at the ADT Event Center in Carson, California. He made a lot of them. The 53-year-old pushed a 55 x 16 gear for 24 hours, traveling about 534.7 miles, completing well over 3300 laps, and setting a new record in process, according to the folks at Adventure Corps.

The previous record was set in 1994 and belonged to Rod Evans who traveled 530.41 miles.

Secrest is no stranger to ultra cycling. He won the Race Across America in 1987 and pedaled coast-to-coast in less than 8 days three years later, a record that still stands today. Our favorite feat by the "Bulldog"? When he covered 1216.81 miles in one day while drafting behind an 18-wheeler on the Phoenix Motor Speedway.

10/23/06 10:20:08 PDT
THESE BIKES *ARE* PIPE BOMBS

As a general rule, we like to see bikes in the news. Show us someone who is finding a way to integrate a bike into their day-to-day and we're tickled silly. Then we read this lede in an AP article and found a big exception to our axiom of bikes=good:

Five bicycle bombs and a hail of mortar shells ripped apart a market south of Baghdad on Saturday, killing 18 people in yet another sign that Iraq's government and U.S. forces are struggling to contain sectarian violence.

It turns out the bad guys, those villains who sometimes wear black, like bikes too.



10/23/06 00:32:13 PDT
OF RAT FINKS, LIBERTARIANISM, DOPING & THE KANDY-KOLORED TANGERINE-FLAKE STREAMLINED BABY

In The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, Tom Wolfe's epochal snapshot of Southern California's drag racing boom of the early 1960s, the author quotes notorious renegade hot rod builder and radical beatnik sculptor Ed "Big Daddy" Roth (the man who designed the "Rat Fink" icon, a dirty cartoon rodent whose ethos was that of the anti-Mickey Mouse and whose stature as an eternal piece of pop art would dwarf even Andy Warhol's soup cans in the public's consciousness) in regards to imposing safety rules on racecars. Nay-says the anti-authority, iconoclastic Roth: "Hell, if a guy wants to go, let him go."



In an essay-slash-screed by Patrick O'Grady entitled "A Modest Proposal," there were similar libertarian sentiments published last Friday by VeloNews, but instead of Wolfe and Roth's motorsports milieu and its Rat-Fink-be-damned regulatory insistence on cars being built with actual structural integrity to withstand crashes, as well as the necessity of say, firesuits or maybe even safety helmets for racecar drivers, O'Grady is, of course, saying, in effect: "Hell, if a guy wants to go, let him go..." i.e. that the prohibition of steroids and blood doping in cycling is quaint, unpoliceable and no longer germane nor relevant to the pursuit of professional cycling, which, in itself, is not even a sport anymore but a business...

With all of that being said, the Donkey feels that maybe instead of steroids, what should be banned, first and foremost, is the tres predictable, passe and seemingly ad nauseum journalistic practice of liberating Jonathan Swift's title to his 1729 essay, "A Modest Proposal," a piece that sardonically advocates the boiling and culinary consumption of children as a means to end poverty. Note to VeloNews: It was funny and provocative the first time. Almost 300 years ago...



10/19/06 10:37:16 PDT
MY SKID IS BIGGER THAN YOUR SKID: A RANT ABOUT TRACK BIKES



Over the past two years there's been a lot of ink spilled about the rising popularity of track bikes. Until we saw this piece in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, we didn't think there was much left to say. We were wrong. Reading this rant is as much as riding your fixed on [insert your favorite place to ride]. Be forewarned: it's not for fanatical fixed aficionados or those lacking a sense of humor and we point you to the comments section of the story (38 and counting) as evidence.

10/19/06 09:15:42 PDT
THUS CLIMBED ZARATHUSTRA: A RACE REPORT



No one wakes up early in LA. That's aces when you're riding in the AM or marking a race course on a Sunday morn. That's what we were doing on Lord's Day last, a bit dizzy from lack of sleep and the previous evening's festivities. We'd been out in the hills of Silver Lake for about 90 minutes marking every turn in the confusing-even-for-locals hills of Silverlake. That's when we saw her-- a shoe-in for that cat we left at home. Maybe it was the quietude of the day but that feline brought out the long-distance trucker in us. Like we hadn't seen another living thing in days, we started to chat her up and were a good 45 seconds into it when we turned around, chalk in hand, and realized that there was one more person in Silverlake who was up. He was walking up the sidewalk, could not see the cat from where he was, and thought we were a raving/chalking lunatic.

"Uh, this must look weird," we tried to explain. "But, there's a cat... forget it, the insanity is creeping in again." He just nodded and walked away quickly.

Many hours later, participants started rolling up to the starting line of the Thus Climbed Zarathustra urban cyclocross race. They signed up, threw $5 or more into the pot (all money went to Orlando Godoy, a local messenger who is on the mend after being hit by a car and has a huge medical bill looming over him) and received a spoke card and route slip.

The course was short--less than ten miles. But there were 10 staircases between the start and the finish line and each was about 100 steps long. After a LeMan's start, three of the four members from Team Bonobo took the lead. They had raced the Furnace Creek 508 on fixies the week previous and were looking strong. Brian Davidson was the first racer to summit the first set of steps and snag a prime. Max Lucas and Matt Rucigno were hot on his tail. And just off the front group, but ahead of the main group was Alec racing on a tall bike.


(Photo Credit: Jen Diamond courtesy of BikeBoom)

And that's pretty much how it ended up. No one else reported any cat sightings:

MEN'S:

1. Matt Ruscigno
2. Brian Davidson
3. Max Lucas
4. Alec
5. Andrew Maizel
6. Camryn*
7. TJ*
8. Dingo Marin*
9. Troy DeBridges
10. Eric Howard
11. Wesley Ryan
12. Daniel Alavi
13. K
14. Matt Benjamin
15. Andrew Otto
16. Alex Aranda
17. Stephen Box**

*did not do all the steps.
**stopped at a garage sale on the course and got a really nice Timbuktu messenger bag for $1.
***was forced to attend garage sale.

WOMEN:

1. Molly Arevalo
2. Stacy Zung*
3. Enci***

Molly ascending the stairs.
(Photo Credit: Jen Diamond courtesy of BikeBoom)


Big shout-out to Swrve Cycling and Orange 20 for providing a deep prize list that included knickers, T's, frame pads, and other goodies. Thanks to Morgan and Bonobo Megan for volunteering and all the racers. We raised $250 for Orlando.


(Photo Credit: Jen Diamond courtesy of BikeBoom)


10/16/06 18:27:27 PDT
LA EMPLOYERS PAY THEIR WORKERS TO BE GREEN

We were goofing around before the "Thus Climbed Zarathustra" race yesterday when one of the competitors shared his latest brainstorm with us: lobby the federal government to pay people NOT to drive. They pay farmers not to farm, went his reasoning; why not pay potential drivers to keep out of the driver's seat? It turns out that the city of Los Angeles already beat him the punch. There's a law that's been on the books in Los Angeles since 1992 that requires some employers to give employees the option of cash instead of free parking, according to a story in the Los Angeles Times. One person quoted in the article got $185/month. $2,220/year translates into a really nice commuter, lock, and some clothing if you ask us. A professor from UCLA who helped write the law said that 17% of all drivers that are offered cash for their free parking space will give up their car.

10/16/06 17:22:45 PDT
SPANDEX MAN VS. MINI-VAN IN ROCKET CITY



In her opinion column in the Huntsville Times (Oh, the bicycle riders you meet slowly pedaling on local streets), Alabama writer Karen Mango bemoans having to share streets and highways with Rocket City sprocketheads, based on two dubious encounters.

Writes she:

... In the right lane, in all their glory, was Spandex Man on his bicycle, riding alongside Lycra Dude. Apparently single-file-only applies to schoolchildren and automobiles.

Suddenly, Spandex Man decides he wants to make a left turn from the right hand lane. He does his fancy arm maneuver, and starts to make his move simultaneous with looking at his mirrors and before consulting his brain.

If he completed his desired action, he would have been implanted somewhere between the bumper and the side of my minivan.

I had a choice - speed up and ram Clampett's trailer, slam on my brakes and begin the insurance card exchange ritual with the driver behind me or keep driving. Spandex Man didn't agree with my decision, but waved anyway, except he forgot four of his fingers when doing it...

... This happened days after my encounter with Daredevil Dad.

He was on his Microsoft stock-option bicycle, with a baby chariot caddy attached. My guess is he had a toddler or a dozen bagels in there...

... Daredevil was cruising down the road, in the only westbound lane, with a child (or bagel) small enough to fit in the human trailer. He was not going as fast as my law-abiding 40 mph, so I had to put on the brakes. The only thing that went through my mind was that the wife/mother must be out of town on business...

10/16/06 16:19:37 PDT
SHERYL CROW AU GO GO: OCCASIONALLY LANCE ARMSTRONG MADE THE RIGHT CALL



Last night in Tampa, Florida, during the waning moments of musician John Mayer's set, half-talented megalomaniacal folk-rock singer Sheryl Crow joined him onstage and strutted her stuff in a rather unflattering blue bikini.

(The Donkey is sure the stunt/wardrobe dysfunction was an inside joke between Mayer and Crow, who were co-headliners on what was their last tour date.)

Ergo what, we ask? As a singer, a songwriter and performer, at best Crow is an exemplum of mediocrity and, at worst, a banal example of the Peter Principle as applied to the music business; moreover, when her shelf-life expired a few years ago, she was able to extend her ubiquity by cozying up to Lance Armstrong -- at that time not merely a champion cyclist, but an emerging media superstar -- and co-opt his wave during its peak of dominance.



At the height of the Crow-cum-Armstrong courtship-slash-schtupp-fest, we are sure we weren't the only viewers throwing our clickers at the teevee set during the coverage of the Tour de France. Yes, it became more than we could take when the Outdoor Network's coverage would cut away from the race itself and unctuous commentators would stick a mic in Crow's mug and encourage her to prattle on about what it takes to be a TdF champ. Her continued ego-driven misnomerization of pronouns (in her discussing Armstrong's training, trials and triumphs, "He", "Him", "His" invariably became "We", "Us", "Ours") transcended the realm of the narcissistic and the self-aborbed and entered the domain of the insufferable.

That is until earlier this year when Lance ended the love affair and their impending engagement... Aye... As more and more circumstantial evidence continues to mount against the integrity of Lance vis-a-vis his 7 consecutive Tour victories, it is difficult to congratulate him on anything.



But the bikini shots show that his cancelling their nuptials and brooming that hack folksinger out of his conjugal boudoir had to be a step in the right direction... But the Donkey wonders: Is it too late for Floyd Landis to hook-up with Courtney Love?

10/13/06 11:56:38 PDT
CAMERAS OUT, WANNABE WEEGEES AND AMBULANCE CHASERS!



Attention shutterbugs: The imprint known as Casagrande Press is accepting submissions for inclusion in its imminent crash and burn collection, Cycling's Greatest Misadventures.

If you don't have a suitably grisly image handy, don't despair: The Donkey advises the inspired amateur ambulance chaser to load up your lenses and get to tonight's Midnight Ridazz Visions of Superstitions-slash-Friday the 13th ride, which meets up at the FatBurger in Hollywood... There should be photo ops a'plenty, as at any given Ridazz ride these days, there are usually enough drunks on bikes to cause a plethora of pile-ups. It's simple: Just remember Weegee's first rule of photography: "F-8 and be there."

(And for the velo-centric wordsmiths, "(Casagrande Press) is looking for quality nonfiction stories about cycling mishaps, disasters, deaths, comical pranks, crashes, bad judgment calls, misfortune, contest meltdowns, strange injuries, loss of wit, critical conditions, bike trips gone wrong or "non-riding episodes" that surround the cycling experience. The editor seeks well-written stories that tell a good tale, reflect a culture, and develop the depth of the characters involved. Open to writers and riders of any level.")



RELATED: MIDNIGHT RIDAZZ: SAFETY FIRST

10/11/06 18:01:36 PDT
GRANT'S TOMB IS LIKE KRYPTONITE TO GOTHAM CITY'S BICYCLE THIEVES



During a recent working holiday in New York City, your humble velo-scriveners were able to re-visit the boroughs on bicycle, mostly during lunch hour rides. Alas, we neglected to bring a lock and chain for the daily rides out of mid-town, thru Hell's Kitchen, around Central Park and down 5th Avenue, thus necessitating we stay on or very near the bici burro at all times.



Among our many quirks is a penchant for visiting Civil War sites on our bikes. Although NYC erupted in riots once conscription was enacted by Lincoln in hopes of ending the War Between the States (it seems that the ex-pat Irish were not all that thrilled about the idea of emancipation for the slaves, as competition for menial jobs were tough enough as it was without flooding the labor pool), there are not that many monuments that would sate our desire for Civil War-centric stuff. Excepting, maybe, Grant's Tomb, the eponymous resting place of the commander of the Army of the Potomac and the man responsible for the re-joining of these United States as well as the freeing of all black Americans, Ulysses S. (aka "Unconditional Surrender") Grant...



So, off we went on our bike to such an important monument and symbol, from our toney digs at the Waldorf Astoria, through the sinuous loop of Central Park, uptown into Harlem, where we zig-zagged across 122nd street towards Grant's resting place adjacent to the Hudson River, and mere blocks from Columbia University.

Upon our arrival at those sacred and hallowed grounds, we climbed the steps towards the entrance of the tomb and were faced with a dilemma... what to do about the bike? I mean, after all, we are in New York City and we don't have any means of securing our steed and pre-empting any potential pilfering....

We needn't have worried. Besides a park ranger, we were the only people on the grounds. We went inside the monument, and almost an hour marvelled at the tomb and the caskets of Grant and his wife, looked at glass displays of firearms, basked in the shadows of the domed ceiling and its fresco of Robert E. Lee surrendering to Grant at Appomattox and just got behind the sound of silence. Grant's Tomb is the quietest and most serene, contemplative place in New York City. It is like the Andromeda Strain has hit Grant's Tomb or something.



Yes, we came to realize that the last place college students, bicycle thieves, or uptown residents are going to be seen at is a national monument. Something that honors the valor of our ancestors is like kryptonite to bicycle thieves. You don't have to bother schlepping around a lock for your bike...


RELATED: PORT GIBSON & THE RUINS OF WINDSOR

OVER THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY

ANTIETAM, JOHN BROWN'S BODY & THE ROAD TO HARPERS FERRY

10/11/06 12:05:31 PDT
TOM RITCHEY SETS OUT TO RE-INVENT THE WHEEL



Tom Ritchey is no stranger to the drawing board. Mountain biking's great mustachioed one has been putting his torch to steel tubes since the late '70s and many believe that he is responsible for creating the threadless headset as well as a slew of other off-road cycling innovations. He recently took on a new challenge: build a bike that can portage more than 200 pounds for hours and hours every day, require minimal maintenance, and, just for fun, lift a group of people out of poverty. Sound ambitious? Here's his thinking: the bike will help Rwandans deliver their coffee beans more quickly to processing stations. By shortening this trip the quality of the beans will be better and therefore more valuable, netting the Rwandans more money for their work. But they may have to give up their wooden "bicycles," which look a lot more like scooters to us. Read Lennard Zinn's excellent story at Velo News.

10/10/06 13:17:41 PDT
COLORADO KICKS OFF A PROGRAM THAT ALLOWS CYCLISTS TO DROP THE DIME ON DOUCHEBAG DRIVERS



Instead of flipping the bird to drivers that come to close to them or exhibit some other idiotic behavior, Colorado cyclists can now call *277 to report the offender to state patrol. This program sounds good until you hear about the minimal follow-through: when the Staties receive the license plate info they enter it into an aggressive driver database and then, well, that's pretty much it. After three complaints a letter is sent to the registered owner of the vehicle. That's it--a letter. Subsequent reports earn the driver a visit from the troopers. We're all for creating a paper trail that documents driver negligence, but the program has us asking one question: why wait so long to contact the culprits?

10/09/06 18:37:46 PDT
HOW CAN WE MISS YOU WHEN YOU WON'T LEAVE (STRONG)?

Even after a well-timed retirement that may or may not be one re-arranged molecule ahead of detection of the EPO police, Lance Armstrong remains rather ubiquitous and a perpetual goldfish in the media fishbowl.



Meanwhile, a stringer in San Antonio bemoans the constant exposure to Lance-oid and his new, paparazzi-jammin' celebretroid pals (among them, Matthew McConaughey), and the non-story-as-story of Armstong entering the NYC marathon... "... Armstrong will just be another name on the list of results, under the heading men ages 30-35 ñ another middle-aged guy running a marathon..."

Praise the Lord, and pass the Where-Are-They-Now? file, please....

10/05/06 12:24:22 PDT
THE SUNSHINE STATE GIVE CYCLISTS SOME ROOM TO BREATHE


It's been a rough week here in Los Angeles. We've heard of at least three cyclists getting hit in two days. Orlando Godoy, a LA native, longtime messenger, and winner of the Global Gutz Alleycat got the worst of it. He is still in the hospital at this writing after being rear-ended on Sunset Boulevard. Godoy has a broken jaw, broken bones above his left eye, a concussion, and may need surgery.



To add expense to injury, he doesn't have health insurance. Stay tuned for benefit info.

This morning we heard about a state adding a law to the books that may help cyclists. Florida now requires drivers to give cyclists a three foot buffer. It replaces a nebulous law that required drivers to "pass safely". The new law is tough to enforce, but a step in the right direction. Another way to possibly buy yourself a few feet? One poster at Cicle.org reports that cyclists in Chicago "Run a short flag hanging out to the left side of their bikes to create an added buffer zone for passing cars, and it seems to work."

10/04/06 16:54:46 PDT
TWO DICE TO GUIDE YOUR NEXT TWO WHEELED TRIP

In the 1950s literary outlaw William S. Burrough's decided to bring the letter arts up to speed. He believed that the written word was a few decades behind painting because the boys with their easels and brushes had been playing with collage for a good while to break up the linear narrative of their canvases. So Burroughs started cutting up newspaper articles, putting them in a bag, and pulling them out at random. The results were cryptic, thought-provoking, and made an odd sort of sense. Later the cut-up method was used by David Bowie and more recently by Radiohead.

Now, the good folks at Gothtober are bringing cycling into the fold. Their "Roll of the Dice Ride" lets chance be your guide. Print these bad boys out, build the dice, roll them thirteen times, scribbling down their instructions and you've got yourself a ride even Burroughs would be proud of.



10/04/06 07:29:29 PDT
THE FAST, THE FURIOUS, AND THE FOLIAGE (IN DUTCH)

The leaves are changing in New England. The skies are returning to gray in the Pacific Northwest. Here in Southern California it's getting so cold at night that some evenings we have to close the windows before going to bed. We all know what that means: cross season is here. For your viewing pleasure and to see how slow you really are, check out all 77 minutes of the 2006 Cyclocross World Championship from Zeddam, Netherlands. It's in Dutch, we think, but the multi-cameara shoot more than makes up for it. Actually, the Dutch makes the beer taste even better from where we're sitting.

10/01/06 09:17:25 PDT
COVERING YOUR KNEES AND KEEPING YO' CONSCIENCE

Before heading out to Interbike , we stopped by LA's latest and greatest, Orange 20 Bikes, a shop run by two pillars of the Southland cycling scene. Jim C has been a messenger for years and is one of the smoothest urban cyclists we've ever pedaled behind. TJ, the other half of the two-person shop, is deep into flatland. We're behind what they're doingãbuying as much non-sweatshop gear as possible. They buy local if possible and also have a lot of gear made in the US and Canada. While there, we ran into the husband and wife team who just started swrve cycling. They're making some good stuff, including a pair $75 burly knickers made here in the City of Angels. They're new on the market, but the initial reports about them are great. Also, Swobo, the creator of the best knicker to ever hit the cycling market have redesigned them. They'll be available this Fall.

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