More fertility non-news

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1196254/Men-cycle-186-miles-week-face-fertility-risk.html

Yet another “study” directed at scaring people into leaving their bikes behind and grabbing the car keys.  I wonder if these studies are covertly sponsored by auto manufacturers. Kind of like the global warming “studies” funded by oil companies to deny that its a real phenomena.

In addition one of the comments on the article from some muppet named Scott from Kentucky wrote:  “A normal person will not cycle anywhere near 186 miles a week unless they cycle competitively”,which is utter rubbish. 25-30 miles a day will get you there and if all you do is a 12-15 mile commute to work and home you hit this mark easily.

Hey Scott from Kentucky, if you’re out there, try riding a bike before talking about it like you have.

On the plus side, ifyou don’t want little bastards anyway, then even if it is true you win both ways, you get to ride a bike AND not have to worry about horrid little creatures appearing 9 months from now.

Heres where to live.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/autoban-german-town-goes-carfree-1720021.html

No cars? And en exorbitant fee if you want to keep one “on the out skirts of town”? Yes please.

Michael Jackson.

People sure fired up over Jacksons death.
I lost facebook “friends” over my post that went something along the lines of:

“When one dies, it is a tragedy. When a million die, it is a statistic”. The world has bigger problems now than some celebrity  death it should be thinking about. Too bad people have been dumbed down so much michael jackson dying is a bigger story that gets more people talking than Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, Palestine, Israel, hell even our situation here in the U.S. has more pressing issues.

It should not surprise me that people care more about a  pop stars death than matters that actually impact the word, but alas, this is the MTV generation, and they do. In fact, so many people were googling, twittering, and scouring the internet for Jackson related news that it ALMOST KILLED THE INTERNET.

It makes me feel like this guy.

Its indescribably sad that more people find Jacksons death a reason to cry in public in parking lots as one of my co-workers saw a woman doing last night, and at a grocery store in the produce section, although bruised peaches bring a tear to my eye, and if I get a bad avocado, well then I’ll have a full blown meltdown. I digress, the fact that people are more moved to mourn publicly for a man who wore this: (Oh and lest we forget, the man slept with little boys, and readily admitted to it in an interview with Martin Bashir)

reasonable, yes.

than to mourn the deaths of people dying daily from war, famine, disease, or any other horrible means leaves me speechless. At least I can still type.

Pelotonia

I was genuinely excited about the pelotonia this year, until i read the fine print in the contract. If you pledge $2k and don’t raise all of it yourself, YOU make up the remainder. No thanks. I’d love to help raise money to cure cancer, but being held responsible for an arbitrarily set amount is ridiculous. Seemed to generate a lot of negative reaction from many people I know, and those on message boards such as yaybikes.

One good thing to come of this however was the post from paktinat which read in part:

“Park street patio had a fund raiser for Pelotonia tonight, $15 all you could drink and $10 of that went to the participant of your choice.
I used to work with a guy who is doing the whole $2k ride, so i headed down to support him and cancer awareness.

Honest to god, I was the only freaking person associated with Pelotonia who rode a bike to the bar.
Of the bike rack outside, i was the 5th bike there.

It was an evening of over hearing these recreational bikers discuss their rigorous training regimen; most discussed 7 miles every day like it was a feat proportional to walking on water.”

Now, this is a smart way to raise the money, and if i was a frequenter of bars or clubs I may have gone, but I’m not. The awful thing is that none of the cyclists involved rode to the fund raiser itself. Gotta love recreational cyclists fair weather (literally even as most of them wont ride in the rain) approach to biking.

This extends to the usual rant that I go off on about people who drive their bikes places such as the park to ride them. It defeats the entire purpose of riding a bike to drive it in a car a few miles to ride around aimlessly then shove it back on your bike rack and go to Whole Foods for vitamin water and powerbars. Way to go!

I’m sure a lot of these people had some expensive racing bike with carbon fiber water bottle cages that they hang in their garage to show off to their friends when someone stops by. God forbid they actually ride the damn thing.

Being able to ride 7 miles doesn’t mean crap. It only means that you possess the higher brain function of a gerbil. It means that you have a modicum of coordination and the faculties to process basic external stimuli. Try riding in the rain or snow or more than 2 months between spring and summer before it gets too hot and you break a sweat.

Id like to know more about this one…

From craigslist:

http://columbus.craigslist.org/mis/1228329181.html

I was the dude who swallowed gravel during a cycling disaster at the construction zone near the Blue Danube. You were the “ohhhh shit” out of my right ear moments before impact. Damn, that hurt. Thanks for insisting that I go to the hospital. They charged me $5900 for a cat scan and an 11 hour wait in the ER. You were sure that it would be pretty cheap even though I don’t have insurance. You owe me $5900 or a bunch of BJ’s; your call.

who/what did this

I ride through this construction are fairly regularly and the road is beyond awful. And so are the remains of that bike. The post doesnt say what caused it though, other than a disembodied voice yelling “ohhhh shit”. Since there was a voice, we can rule out bears and an out of control drunken cheetah. This still leaved the amount of damage to the bike itself however, I’d assume it was a car, but with the disembodied voice, the driver must be exceptionally loud. Perhaps a scooter or a motorcycle? The title however is “we crashed bikes” so it must have been a bike. I wonder then what the other bike was? A bear riding a bike? A bike with a snow plow attached? An abrams tank riding a bike? A BEAR DRIVING AN ABRAMS TANK WITH A SNOW PLOW ATTACHED?

And who believes that a visit to the hospital is cheap? Honestly? Especially a cat scan, nowhere in logical thought would I expect that to be cheap, but I suppose after an accident like that I wouldn’t be thinking clearly anyway…

And this is further proof that no one under any circumstance should go within say, five blocks of that shithole bar.

Mountain Bike Champ Arrested for Marijuana

Former mountain biking world champion Melissa “Missy” Giove is being held on $250,000 bail after feds seized more than 200 lbs of pot from a truck she was driving in upstate New York.

Heres the full story

In court Thursday, public defender Tim Austin said the drugs and money were planted in Giove’s truck, possibly by police.

nope. no drugs there.

Now, im not one to defend police, especially those in New York but lets be serious here. The cops planted the pot in this womans vehicle? Uh, yeah…okay. Sure, theres no way that shes up to something, after all, only the best of drugs could make you want to do that to your hair. And i know that doping for “performance enhancement” doesn’t, so pot is the likely culprit.

It just so happens that I was in NY this past weekend to do some mountain biking. Trying to brush up on my cross skills as im in the process of deciding on racing again this year or not. The mountains seemed to be a logical place to practice and “get away from it all”. However between the continual downpour and flooding it only made me question my sanity and wonder why I ride a bike at all. Somehow I avoided death, although through no fault of my own. I didnt think I possessed the requisite “tech” skill for this type of riding but somehow i survived and even got a few shots in the breaks in the rain like this one:

note the conspicously placed handlebars

although mush of what i was riding through was gravel and mud, and oh yeah a few small bodies of water that were more lakes than puddles.

fun? yes, in the sense that the constant fear of ones demise is fun.

Still a fun weekend, I wish I had taken more pictures, but I had a death grip on the bars rather than my phones camera.

Pavement art as speed control…Or just shove cyclists to the ground.

Things like this have been going on for quite awhile, and my jury is out on if its a good idea or not. I just wish the artwork itself was of higher quality, I dont know that its enough to fool anyone, though possibly from a distance. In addition, the article says:
“The majority of cyclists share the space amicably. However, there are a handful who refuse to slow down. That’s why we commissioned this art – we hope it will shock.”

shocking!

If there are only a few cyclists who are riding dangerously, and either see this article or ride over this once its purpose is all but lost.

Although im certain it will terrify people that have sight issues for years to come.

I think that alligators or a lion would be much more effective, or tried and true traffic calming devices such as this policeman:

Yes, shoving cyclists to the ground certainly does slow them down considerably.

You have got to be kidding me.

The sad state of America today.

DISGRACEFUL.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=reilly_rick&id=4247723

For once im speechless.

Self Righteous Cyclists

How dare we slow motorists down for mere seconds! They are in CARS! They must be INFINITELY more important than a person on a bike. I mean, think of the atrocity, a person driving must slow down and wait 10 SECONDS! TEN SECONDS! to pass a person having the audacity to obey the law and ride in the street as prescribed by nearly every municipality laws and regulations the United States over. UNBELIEVABLE! don’t cyclists know that it is worth their life for a driver to make it to the next red light before them? For Christs sake, drivers have to HURRY UP AND STOP! cant cyclists see that?

Cars weigh thousands of pounds more than bikes.

Cars can travel literally HUNDREDS of miles an hour faster than bikes.

Cars can kill.

Slow down, use some common courtesy, and watch out for those of us that are literally risking our lives to go to work, school,  train for a race, or anything else a cyclist may be doing. Drivers, you can spare 10 seconds of your time and get to starbucks 10 seconds later to ensure the safety of a cyclist.

I almost was hit this morning by a young kid texting while driving. My life is not worth your text message.

Please.

BIKES FOR ONE MONEY!

Well, im not sure where to start with this, I’ve seen worse, but its the opening and closing lines that really get me and the bad/creepy photographs…some one must free those bikes from the compound in which they are being held.

http://columbus.craigslist.org/bik/1215048466.html

“SELL ALL FOR ONE MONEY”

and

“…and good rubber”

Now, i appreciate astoundingly horrid grammar as much as the next guy, but who says “sell all for one money”? I know the person means a single payment for all the goods involved, or at least my higher reasoning skills say so, but thats been called into question before.

The white and pink towel with holes in it used as a backdrop in what appears to be a basement really freaks me out. No seriously. There is a whole creepy pedophile or cult compound vibe going on here and i dont like it.

Pretty sure this is the guy selling the bikes.

If thats the case, well, at least the rubbers are good, and theres nothing like a good rubber.