More is better.

Why does everybody love this Peter Sagan interview so much?



Apparently I'm the only bike dork in the world who watched it and then spent the rest of the day sick in bed with the douche-chills.

Phil Gaimon even called it "refreshing:"

@velonews the thing where every time an athlete doesn't win the media asks for an excuse is totally bizarre. Refreshing to see it rejected.

— Phil Gaimon (@philgaimon) February 26, 2017

Yeah, that was about as refreshing as a glass of warm milk.

I'm sure I talked to my parents and teachers like that when I was a teenager, and if I could travel back in time and punch myself in the face for cultivating an infuriating air of "couldn't-be-bothered"-ness I certainly would:

Indeed, I'm reminded of my own painfully laconic post-jet ski interview back in 1986:

I used to do my best to keep my hair limp and greasy-looking but I was powerless against the potent combination of wind and salt water which caused the whole mess to go POOF! in an instant.  This is why I generally used to avoid the beach at all costs.  (Now it's a non-issue as I'm rapidly running out of hair, so instead I avoid the beach because my many moles threaten to boil over into melanoma.)

Alas, even the surliest teen cannot resist the siren song of a whiny personal watercraft, and so I briefly sacrificed my carefully-curated image during that fateful family trip to Florida--but you can be sure I tamed the mane and resumed my desultory skateboarding in the shopping center parking lot that very afternoon.

You now know every single thing about me.

Thank the Benevolent Lobster on High I finally grew into a dignified adult:

(Blogger publishes book, thinks he accomplished something.)

If I went back in time to punch my teenage self I'd also stop to knee this guy in the "pants yabbies" on the return trip to 2017.

Speaking of youth, do you remember learning how to ride a bicycle?  Maybe not if you're Dutch or something, in which case you emerged from the womb astride a bike.  (Ouch.)

However, if you're an American born in the last century you no doubt learned how to ride using training wheels--or "stabilisers" as the British call them because: 1) they need to have a different word for everything; and B) they're deathly afraid of using the letter "z" (so they call it "zed" to rob it of its power).  Anyway, I mean these things:

Of course, training wheels are now hopelessly out of style, and the sort of progressive parents who ride cargo bikes to food co-ops would sooner smoke cigarettes around their children then place them on such a contraption.  Instead, now the politically correct learning apparatus is the balance bike, because it has a minimalist design and the idea comes from Europe--plus, now Yuba will sell you a cargo balance bike:

One can only imagine cities full of smug little imps in wool caps pushing themselves along on these things while shod in baby Birkenstocks and sucking on organic food packets.

All it needs is a "One Less Big Wheel" sticker.

Anyway, as the parent of human children I've employed both the balance bike and the training wheels as learning tools.  (Basically I order them to ride the balance bike, and if they refuse or do it poorly I beat them with the training wheels.)  Both have their uses, since the balance bike teaches, well, balance, while the training wheels allow them to focus on the mechanics of pedaling.  And in the end it really doesn't matter which you choose, because just like reading or using the toilet eventually they figure out how to do it no matter what method you use.  (Current POTUS excluded, I don't think he can do either.)

Nevertheless, would-be entrepreneurs persist in their efforts to refine the learning-to-ride experience, and the latest attempt is the Dually Bike:


The incredible Dually Bikes dual wheel design was created by a retired tinkerer with the goal of teaching his grandson how to ride a bike without the aid of training wheels.  "Training wheels are useless," he said, "they don't teach a kid how to balance."

Okay, fine, but what's disturbing about this is that apparently these kids will continue riding Dually bikes into adulthood:

Even more disturbing is that the bicycle industry is going to love this idea.  Thanks to the popularity of fat bikes they can now charge you $130 for a single knobby tire that weighs as much as a Volkswagen.  Traction sells!  Now with the Dually they can sell you even more traction, and best of all you'll have to buy two rear tires for every one you used to have to buy for your now hopelessly outmoded fat bike!

Then once you're locked into the Dually system obviously they'll double the front wheel two for even more stability.

Pure genius.



from Bike Snob NYC http://ift.tt/2mANsQh