Got Sense?: Unbridled Entitlement & Fixies

When the mind ruminates on subject matter of great import, it's best to take lengthy walks to aid reflection and clear the mind.  Practitioners of the peripatetic tradition such as Aristotle and Immanuel Kant achieved great progress this way.  Consequently, when my mind was overborne with the heady and perplexing quandary of whether or not I did in fact have milk, I set out on foot to purge my mind of distractions.

While plodding out my front door, I abandoned my usual stroll along the Pathway to Enlightenment because I sought not enlightenment but quietude.  One would think that out-of-doors in Toronto's core would be a poor place to seek solitude, but being a rank and malodorous clod, I part crowds of people like a sidewalk Moses:

AJ Jacob's models the Old Testament line in BikeSnobNYC's 'hood.

Strolling thusly, I was alone to chew my mental cud for some time till I stopped for a red-light at an intersection.  [Here, I regretfully must pause and make a brief description of what I'm talking about for Toronto's cyclists, since the vast majority of them don't seem to understand what they are:

A red light.

A red light is a traffic control device meant to interrupt traffic flow to allow for crossing and merging traffic to enter the traffic flow.  By stopping, users of the road allow for a safe and predictable crossing and merging of other traffic.]

Standing silently on the street corner pondering various methodologies of dairy product ownership, my subconscious fault-finder began frantically clanging resounding alarms about a metaphysical disturbance in the fabric of my immediate surroundings and that I should, as a person of good sense and will toward self-preservation, take a step back.

I glanced over at west-bound cyclist enter the intersection and instead of turning north or south continued on, at the Urban Repair Squad's insistence, against obviously on-coming traffic.  However as this cyclist did so a cyclist heading north along the sidewalk rode through the red light into the intersection into the path of the west-bound cyclist.  Not to be outdone, a south-bound cyclist also skipped the red-light without looking for cross-traffic and also rode into the path of the west-bound (and now salmoning) cyclist.

The confluence of idiocy: you can't make this stuff up.

The stunning confluence of idiocy was enough to create a black hole-like vortex into which the universe suddenly and precipitously teetered for a brief moment before some well-timed swerving and an exchange of wrath-laden glares and other bits of nerd rage righted the universe back to normalcy.

Shaken and stirred to new heights of pessimism, I pondered various aspects of the indelicate ballet I had just witnessed: Does stupidity have mass?  If so, would it explain why some people seem to be Stupidity personified?  Did the sudden confluence of stupid mass create a sucking black hole that caused all three cyclists to gravitate towards each other uncontrollably?  Could you roll stupidity in to a ball and push it down a hill?  Is that how Rob Ford's campaign gained momentum?

Certainly, no real harm had been done because no accident occurred.  And certainly, Toronto cyclists had embarrassed themselves awfully, but no one was really surprised to see cyclists ride down sidewalks, run red lights, and salmon down one-way streets.  Ruefully, this is all regrettably common in Toronto.  Truly, the only real consequence of the incident was an entrenchment of negative stereotypes of Toronto cyclists.

Having realized the incident was insignificant, I wondered whether something was wrong with my subconscious fault-finder?  Hearing the irksome sound of a hipster skidding, my attention regrouped with fresh annoyance and immediately grasped his lack of adequate foot-rention for riding brakeless effectively, thereby reassuring me that my subconscious fault-finder was in fact working perfectly.  Moreover, it also reminded me that there's only one more sleep till Tom Mosher's Hell Track 3, an attempt to create sustainable entertainment for Toronto's hipsters by doing the same thing over and over again, but differently.

[Yet more laps around the school at Bickford Park?  What is that?  Gym class for hipsters?!]

Fortunately, it appears that it will rain tomorrow evening.

The weatherway courtesy of The Weather Network.

This is fortunate because rain terrifies sissy cyclists and will keep them from spoiling Mosher's event with their sissyness, which will help apply a convenient veneer of dedication to those who are willing to endure the savage beating of raindrops on their skin for the sake of glory.  However, having been force-fed my fill of stupidity for the week, I won't be attending.

I have more important things to think about.

Of Corn & Carbon: Happy Thanksgiving Weekend

Firstly, I am ambivalent to announce that Tom Mosher has decided to host yet another Hell Track event.  Watching the videos of previous Hell Tracks, one would think that Hell Track 3 will be riveting and unforgettable.  However, for those uncertain whether to imbibe this instance of 'bicycle culture', allow me to summarize the event in advance for your convenience.

The event is patterned upon the Official Toronto Hipster Cycling Event template:

Pre-party:  Authentic real-live messengers will congregate, drink beer, and make fun of each other while begging off racing on the grounds that they can't get injured because they have to work.  Their authentic real-live hipster attendants will circumscribe the nucleus of messengers in a desperate attempt to fit in and rub shoulders.  Tom Mosher will spend the entire time talking to his friends and ignoring the attendants.  Trick riders will attempt ad infinitum to execute various manoevres without success.  Holding your breath here in anticipation of seeing something awesome means certain death. 

Race:  The racing will be so lame that some imbecile who doesn't have to work the next day will attempt unnecessarily theatrical maneouvres under the auspices of 'epic-ry'.  This will make the race seem epic by association.  Do not be fooled.

Post-race: Prizes are assigned.  Given the poor organizational skills and levels of inebriation, this portion of the event is tediously drawn out.

The whole event will be like taking a poop after eating corn: You'll stand there and think "Is that it ...or is there more?"

Speaking of stool passage, I am equally ambivalent to announce that the dieting fad of colonics has reached bicycle frame design.  Felt's frame designers have data-mined the age-old technique of wrapping toilet-paper around a cardboard tube to develop their InsideOut Internally Optimized Molding technology, which enables them to shave off precious ounces of manufacturing dross that "is stuck to the frame walls like spackle or paste."  As Felt engineer Ty Buckenberger puts it:

“The bottom bracket and other junctions are all nice and clean with no excess material inside.”

Snickering aside, Felt seems to have truly pushed the boundaries in their work.  With their InsideOut method, Felt can now eschew the lug-&-tube technology of last century's carbon frames (no, that's not a typo) in favour of molds that shape the carbon sheets and minimizes excess material build-up internally.  The assembly culminates thusly:

"Finally, the frame sections are joined using a special co-molding technique. The individual sections are bonded together and then co-wrapped."

An internally optimized toilet paper roll demonstrates Felt's wrapping technique.

In other words, lug-&-tube redux.  Such advancement!  However, Felt assures us that process is worthwhile because it delivers a frame that--wait for it...--offers unparalleled ride quality and weight savings, but at great cost.  As an amateur performance cycling enthusiast on a budget (read, 'that wheel sucking ass with a Sora gruppo'), I'm not able to make such significant investment, so when I want to improve my own ride quality and shave off precious grams, I prefer to employ my patented system of taking a pre-race poop.  The weight savings are astounding!


With that 'out of my system', I am also ambivalent to announce that I will not be blogging on Monday due to prior engagements with a turkey.  I do not mean that I have a dinner date with Rob Ford (though that probably would be a very effective weight-loss strategy).  Rather, I will be preoccupied attempting the unnecessarily theatrical maneouvre of ingesting fowlry for processing in a prostate prostrate position.

Unfortunately I must, by medical necessity, lay down prior to gorging on turkey, unlike others, who prefer to repose after the fact.  Being a misshapen oaf prone to nervous gas and suffering an irrational fear of pacifiers, I was once attacked with a turkey baster and exposed to a near fatal dose of tryptophan.  Ever since, even the mildest amount of trytpo-laced turkey can induce narcoleptic fits of deep slumber.  Four Thanksgivings ago, I plopped face-down in mash potatoes and nearly drowned.

It is my own personal epic sport and I like to tempt fate and push the extreme.  Last year, I conquered a leg.  This year, I hope to tackle the breast.  Next year's summit: dark meat!

If I live, I will resume posting on Wednesday.  Until then, thanks for reading and have a 'fully crunk' weekend.