Thursday, February 9, 2017

Snow Day!

Greetings from New York City, where were under siege by our annual Snow-pocalyptic Apoca-lanche of Death!
Evidently someone told the DOT to grow a pair and they eagerly obliged.

So serious is the snow expected to be that many of the city's once-great institutions have crumbled.  Citi Bike is offline:
Schools are closed (which is why today's post will be a short one):
And the Jewish Museum has permanently relocated to Miami Beach:


It's funny because Jewish people love Florida.

Anyway, as it happens, yesterday I took delivery of some new tires for my it's-not-a-fat-bike:


So I figured I'd use that as an excuse to go for a snow ride today:


(It's not a fat bike!)

Even though the tires are only rated for "summer fatbiking:"


Alas, with the schools closed, I must parent instead of ride, and thus the snow ride will have to wait for another day.

I'll never put in a 10,000 mile year at this rate!

Speaking of tires, I chose these for a highly scientific reason, which is that they were the cheapest ones I could find.  Here's a tip: see all that specific stuff about "conditions" and "usage" on the package?  It's mostly BS.  Oh, sure, there's a difference between big, widely-spaced knobs [gigglechortle] and little, closely-spaced ones, but that's about it.  Nevertheless, tire companies persist in offering a near-infinite array of tread patterns for incredibly specific conditions, and Mountain Freds will blather on about how one tire "hooks up" better than another just as interminably as Road Freds do about lateral rigidity and vertical compliance.

And no, I don't need studded tires for the six hours a year I'd actually have any use for them.

I live in New York City, not the surface of the moon Europa:


In any case, I did manage to get a ride in yesterday, albeit an entirely urban one.  There's nothing quite like working your way through Midtown Manhattan in the middle of a weekday when the entire spectrum of city cycling is on display:


It's easy to judge, but the truth is there's no right or wrong way to ride a bicycle.  Whether you prefer riding bolt upright with a basket on your handlebars like the Wicked Witch of the West, or head down/ass up like you're going for the hour record, it really doesn't matter.  Whatever gets you across town.

As for me, these days I'm somewhere in between, as the Ironic Orange Julius Bike sort of marries both approaches by having upright bars yet an absence of multiple gear ratios that becomes increasingly vexing as the years go by:


Anyway, once I got home I went full Wicked Witch by trading the IOJB for the WorkCycles:


And heading out for the school pick-up.

Usually I pedal the kid home on my bike, but he keeps getting bigger and I keep getting older, and there's also a big hill between the school and my home, so yesterday I decided I'd take his bike with me and he could pedal himself home, goddamn it:


It wasn't the most elegant of portaging setups but it got the job done.

If you've got any suggestions about how I can fabricate a proper bike rack for the WorkCycles and about what tire width and pressure I should be running while using it please type them up in a Word document, print them out, and deposit them here:


That happens to be the same file where I keep detailed analyses of mountain bike tire tread patterns.




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