Good for Them: More Stuff We're Not Getting

In George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four," Winston Smith works in the Ministry of Truth, where his job is basically to retroactively alter newspaper articles so that Big Brother and the Party can surf an endless wave of always being right about everything.  Well, thanks to the Internet this has become standard practice, for after stating quite clearly that George Plimpton rode a Trek Y-Foil, the Paris Review has excised all mention of the gaffe from their website:

Of course, the main difference is that Plimpton actually didn't ride a Y-Foil, so it was in fact I who was engaging in Doublethink by inventing the quote in the first place.  Still, I've always believed that truth is like a used chamois, in that it's highly malleable and can be a source of comfort, but you don't want to examine it too closely or else it might make you throw up:

Long Live Oceana.

Speaking of totaliarian countries, the hatemongers who run Denmark continue to torment and oppress their citizens by forcing them to ride bicycles:

("OH MY GOD THEY'RE NOT WEARING HELMENTS THEY'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!"--An American Eating a Big Mac)

As an American it's tough not to feel like Winston Smith when you read about Copenhagen.  Here, if you're a cyclist you're an enemy of the state, and every week is Hate Week.  This is why drivers are allowed to kill you.  Meanwhile, in Copenhagen, you're free to go pantsless until you get to work:

“I’m very glad because of the better pavement,” said Ms. Nielsen, who wore a rain jacket and carried a pair of pants in a backpack to put on after her 40-minute commute.

By the way, cycling pantless is an old conductor's trick she learned from Leonard Bernstein:



And yes, I always watch "Seinfeld" in the original German.  I know it's pretentious, but all the little nuances were totally lost when they dubbed it in English.

Another important difference is that in Copenhagen the people aren't complete idiots and have a certain amount of common sense when it comes to getting around:

Lars Gemzo, a partner at Gehl Architects, said that within Copenhagen, biking was already the best option for many kinds of trips. “If you want to drive a car for a medium distance, you know you are a fool,” he said. “You are going to waste time.”

Here, for local trips, we prefer to sit in traffic leaning on our horns while burning expensive gas and blaming a new bike lane somewhere across town for all the congestion.

Most notably though, in most places in America it's perfectly fine to take up the entire street by driving alone in a car that's as wide as your apartment, whereas cycling two abreast is an offense punishable by shooting:

Meanwhile, in Copenhagen, they're actually working on "conversation" lanes:

Several biking innovations are being tested in Copenhagen. Some, like footrests and “green wave” technology, which times traffic lights at rush hour to suit bikers, have already been put into place on the superhighway. Others, like garbage cans tilted at an angle for easy access and “conversation” lanes, where two people can ride side by side and talk, might show up on long-distance routes in the future.

At first read a "conversation" lane might seem like a bad thing.  However, it's important keep in mind that Copenhagen is in Europe, where more people are actually able to engage in intelligent discourse and have an interest in subjects beyond celebrity divorces and Spider-Man.  Then again, here in America we don't need stupid slanty garbage cans because we just throw the whole bag of McDonald's right out the car window onto the street, so I suppose the joke is on them.

By the way, if you didn't hate these people already, here's a video to help you revile them even more:



Big Brother kindly requests that you scream your guts out at them.

Of course, it's important to remember that you can't paint a country as huge as America with the same aerosol can, and that there are actually bike-friendly communities here too.  Take Portland, for example,  where this woman rides a bake-feets with six kids:

It's tempting to call her smug, but it turns out she's actually not all that smug about it:


Emily isn't anti-car or opposed to driving one because she feels she's saving the planet. That idea is laughable, given the immense carbon footprint of an eight-person family. "I cancel out my bike riding every day with all the other terrible things I do," she admits. "I don't compost, I stink at vegetable gardening."


Emily bikes for a simple and somewhat corny reason. It makes her happy.

That's how you know she's only lived in Portland since 2010, and there's no way she'll be able to maintain her down-to-earth attitude amidst the constant validation she's now receiving from her new neighbors.  She even admits to owning a car, which is something she doesn't share in common with David Byrne.  Also, another key difference between her and David Byrne is that David Byrne probably never lashed a child to a bicycle with a bungee cord:


"I have literally bungee-corded my 5-year-old to the back of the bike. He wouldn't get on. He was screaming and everyone was staring, so I stuck him on the seat and bungee-corded him in and just started pedaling really hard... He screamed all the way home."

Though he did once design a whimsical bike rack shaped like a dog:

I'd like to see the bake-feets lady bungee-cord her baby to that.

Yes, you can accept cars, or you can renounce them, or you can just run up a bunch of tickets and dispense with them Glasgow style as in this photograph that was forwarded to me by a reader:

That's pretty much the opposite of smugness.  Clearly the car doesn't belong to Bradley Wiggins, because if it did he would have written, "Fucking keep it, cunt."  However, another reader informs me that this could be his mountain bike:

Of course, to get maximum performance from your "CUNT" bottom bracket, you should always pair it with some STD pedals:

Just remember that STD-style mountain bike pedals require different clits than road bike pedals:

And if you're having trouble finding the appropriate clit for your pedal system, just do a quick Internet image search, though the results may be unsafe for work. Also, beware of Internet forums, because they can contain lots of misinformation:


FreshNewbie

As many of you saw my thread earlier this week, i managed to fall at the stop light. Last year i purchase speedplay pedals, and I think they are X2 model. The thing I noticed with them, is that they somehow tend to clip back in. Has anyone else encountered this problem? Maybe I need to tighten the clits a little more? Any suggestions? And as long as we are there, this brings another question- What does the rest of you do when you unclip, how do you place your foot on the pedal so it doesn't slip in road shoes? I tend to slip from the pedal if i place my foot anywhere except directly on the clit? Thanks for all your input.

I realize every pedal is different, but you probably don't want to go stepping directly on the clit.