Friday, March 17, 2017

Full Fredal Jacket

Not to be THAT GUY, but Jason Gay of the Wall Street Journal, who not only officially revealed my identity to an indifferent world back in 2010 but also had me on his podcast not too long ago was totally THAT GUY yesterday:

And so I totally THAT GUY-ed him:
Hey, I can't help it.  I mean really, if you're going to concern-troll, wouldn't you start with the fact that he has no brakes?


As for the video and the stupid jacket therein, it appears to be a year old now, and for all I know I've already bloviated about it.  Regardless, let's look at it again:


First of all, those are some long-ass bars:


To his credit, I suppose they give him a lot of leverage which he can transfer into stopping power, and from what I understand the general brakeless fixie rule of thumb is that every additional foot of handlebar width translates into 1/8th of a coaster brake of stopping power.

That means to give your fixie the stopping power of a bike with front and rear discs you need a handlebar roughly 60 feet wide.

I recommend a repurposed flagpole, which you can pick up for under $7,000:


As for the jacket, having futzed around with that stupid battery-sucking "smart helmet" I can pretty confidently say this jacket is stupid.  I mean sure, ride around town dusting off your sleeves if you want to:


But I'll stick to using my sleeves to wipe my nose--you know, the sleeves of my wildly expensive custom-tailored non-smart jacket:


After all, a jacket's only as smart as its rider.

Anyway, who wants to take calls from the boss while riding?


Unless of course that call is from the Boss and he has some important fashion advice for you:


Seriously, unless you're in a Springsteen cover band you should not be wearing that much denim all at once.  It's like Dorkness on the Edge of Town with this guy:


For Lob's sake, if you insist on listening to stuff while you ride just skip the smart jackets and smart helmets and wear some fucking headphones.  Sure, if you're THAT GUY you probably think wearing headphones while riding is reckless and irresponsible, but as long as you keep whatever you're listening to at a sensible volume it's really not an issue.  (I almost never ride with headphones myself, but have no issues with those who do.)  And yes, it's technically illegal in New York City to ride while using two headphones (you're allowed one), but now that wireless earbuds are taking over you can hide them under your hat or payos:


(Nobody need know but Hashem.)

Yes, I'm a radical who believes it's okay to ride helmetless and while listening to music or podcasts at a reasonable volume as long as you remain aware of your surroundings and use a bicycle with functioning brakes.  This is heresy in Anglophonic countries and I expect to be banished to the Netherlands forthwith.  Meanwhile, Americans seem to be perfectly fine with blasting their shitty music on handlebar-mounted loudspeakers, which I assume is because we think this sort of antisocial behavior is normal due to loud car stereos.  Indeed, it's only a matter of time before they're also bouncing along to the music on Rinsten Springs:



As far as I can tell, this is basically a way to retrofit your plastic Fred saddle into a Brooks:


So that it complements the questionable aesthetics of your wardrobe and Fred bike:


I highly recommend watching the video on the Kickstarter page, which I was unable to embed, but if that's too much link-clicking for you just watch this instead:



You're welcome.

Speaking of hoary British contraptions I was pleased to see a Brompton make a cameo in the New York Times Real Estate section:


The couple arrived last month, paying $321,000. Annual taxes are around $11,000. They bought a used car. Ms. O’Shaughnessy drives it to the station while Mr. Lopez, an early riser, takes a fold-up bike.

I believe you call that "Bromptossining."

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