Homeric Payloads: Portaging Croissants On Your Forehead

Some people just refuse to accept limitations.  Sometimes this creates moments of remarkable achievement and personal transformation.  The rest of the time, however, it creates this:

I want to be charitable when I see the owner of an otherwise respectable hybrid trying to enhance the payload of their bicycle.  I want to think that perhaps, just perhaps, it was recently vandalized by a bicycle-hating stumblebum.  Or perhaps the air turbulence generated by the front wheel at road speed creates sufficient lift to hover the front basket while riding.  Unfortunately, no, the wear pattern on the front tire confirmed this as just another case of stupid.

Ever since cycling fell under the turning wheels of fatuous fashion trends, a plague of goiter-like payload enhancements has been ravishing Toronto's bicycles, threatening the health of the bicycle, and by 'extension', the rider's as well.

You see, after seeing two examples of suspiciously high quill stems on the Common Elite's blog, I've been monitoring the situation and found a veritable multitude, such as these:

Incensed, I convened an emergency meeting with Toronto's bicycle service providers to find out what the hell was going on with Toronto's bike mechanics.  No one showed up though, mainly because I'm just some wanker and they've all got better things to do.  Also, as a kindly hobo pointed out to me as we shared a cupcake and a jug of bourbon, most people are probably installing their baskets themselves or letting their ham-fisted significant other do it for them. 

I'm not sure when the 'pull-out method' became standard procedure for adjusting quill stems to compensate for generic front baskets.  I'm sure the manufacturer, Wald (whose designers I'm told speak fluent Campagnolo, as proven ever-so-woefully previously), did what they could to design a decent product to satisfy consumer optimism, and that the tag line "Know your limit, play within it" was already taken.

Unfortunately, consumers ravished by burning desire to cycle sartorially snapped up the product and during the--err... 'installation' eschewed the fore-play of 'carefully unpacking' the 'product' and 'reading' the 'instructions'.  Instead, they just threw out that little rubber thing that eliminates the need to 'pull-out' in the first place and went right at it.  I refer of course to the rubber shim that allows the brackets to be mounted securely in positions other than vertical, thereby allowing a veritable kama sutra of basket positions that allow for correct quill stem insertion depth, fender placement, and optimal cable routing. 

Or you could just replace your current stem with a, (*ahem*), longer one.  Just sayin'.

The Nitto Technomic at Rivendell; all 8" of it.  It'll hang your basket.  It'll hang it good.

And speaking of unlubricated rods rammed into tight holes, I regret to inform you all that there's still one more sleep till the next mass shaming of Toronto's hipsters.  I refer of course to Pirate Alleycat:

As much as I dislike going to bro-downs like this and watching Tom Mosher herd cats into something socially fashionable, Toronto's lone contribution to the collective culture of cycling, the alleycat, is one of the rare moments where I can watch hipsters huddling awkwardly at a distance, gazing longingly at real-live messengers who refuse to acknowledge the hipsters pleading for the sweet embrace of their approval and instead stand around, drink beer, and ridicule each other.

I thought about attending and even knitting myself a costume.  I'd hoped to dress up like that guy who asks for the DFL spoke card during registration (DFL isn't asked for; it's earned), but after buying in 100 cables of yarn and sharpening my needles, I had misgivings.  "Can an event featuring an ass skull be all that good?" I asked myself.

Pirate Ass-skull / Internet meme: J. Gresham Barrett winning an Asshat Award

One would think that anything featuring an ass skull would be truly Homeric ('epic' is so over), but after hiring consultants to decipher the semiotics and plumb the bowels of the asshat metaphor, I was informed that it's actually a testiskull foreshadowing the DFL prize: death by tea bagging.

Testiskull: Teabag of Doom.  As always, the lowly croissant preserves modesty.

Fearing for my chastity, I decided to stay away.  But if being tea bagged by people who consider you inferior is your thing (and if you commute by bicycle in Toronto, it probably is), then do attend.