Monday, November 8, 2010

Snot Falls & Prancing Balls: Not Necessarily In That Order

First off, I wish to extend my congratulations to the winners of the weekend past's tenuously-bicycle-related event, Fall Ballin' 2010: No Big Deal.  Pushing irony to the point of tedium, No Big Deal's victory is, in the grand scheme of things, no big deal, but it's the 15 minutes of Internet fame that count.

While I generally dislike anything that compels hipsters on fixies to congregate, I have to admire Fall Ballin' 2010 for attracting national and international teams to the event.  Apparently, dedicated bicycle polo players are quite rare.  Fortunately, hipsters are peer whipped into appearing to be passionately dedicated to esoteric interests, such as bicycle polo, to give their vain existence a thin veneer of authenticity and mystery, thereby assuring events such as Fall Ballin' 2010 with a reasonable pool of talent.

I also grudgingly appreciate Fall Ballin' 2010 because its the type of contribution to Toronto to makes this place such a great place to live, even if it means that numerous post-&-rings are occupied for the weekend by half-assed fixed-gear track bike curations that clutch to the vaguest thread of irony in a desperate quest for novelty:

Ironic spoke card: the pie plate.

Speaking of using performance bicycles for uses other than originally intended, Toronto also played host to the Canadian Cyclo-cross Nationals this past weekend.  For some reason, I've always had difficulty taking cyclo-cross seriously, mainly because it takes the dilettantism of road cycling and the bawdy roughness of mountain biking and creates moments like this:

That's not portaging; that's prancing.
Image courtesy of Steve Russel of The Toronto Star

And also like this:

Talk about 'snacking on the bike'...
Image courtesy of Steve Russel of The Toronto Star

If I wanted to gawk at pimply, dazed women with snot running down their faces, I'd go to the cheap night at The Brass Rail.

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