So what was up with all those irate mountain bikers in the comments the other day?
After 18 years of bike bloggery I can say you really only see that sort of collective outrage from the mountain bike bros. (Though I do think there was one time I made fun of vehicular cyclists and a bunch of angry helmet mirror types took a break from practicing their hand signals and showed up here to express their outrage.) Meanwhile, roadies are supposed to be uptight, yet when I ridicule their penchant for flesh-colored PNS jerseys I don’t see them rounding up a posse on over on Weight Weenies and leaving a bunch of aggrieved commentary:
No wonder nobody likes mountain bikers, they really are the worst. Seems to me they could stand to adjust the damping on their sense of humor.
[“YOU OBVIOUSLY DON’T KNOW HOW SUSPENSION WORKS!” — A Mountain Biker]
And yes, I told the AI to generate an image of an “angry mountain biker brandishing a suspension fork” and instead I got this orthodontist’s wet dream with two rows of teeth like a shark.
Moving on, today is Bike To Work Day in New York, but I got started a day early yesterday, and it was the kind of weather that makes everyone’s disc brakes sound like a fog horn blast:
I have no idea how people put up with those stupid things.
[“YOU OBVIOUSLY HATE DISC BRAKES CAUSE YOU RIDE TOO SLOW TO NEED THEM!” — A Mountain Biker]
It did a little better with “Angry Mountain Biker Brandishing A Disc Brake Rotor” but it still gave him a weird extra row of gums.
As for me, between my fenders and my rim brakes I was smugness personified:
Though I could have done without all the Hudson River Greenway detours:
Fortunately, the one above only required me to perform a brief flanking maneuver around the tennis court. And then there’s the permanent detour around 79th street that sends you up a hill:
This one’s basically a group punishment for cyclists because some of them are too inconsiderate to yield to pedestrians–AHEM I’m looking at you doofuses in the PNS jerseys:
[An inconsiderate roadie in search of his PNS mechanism gives himself the reach-around.]
And no, incredibly that’s not AI, that’s the real deal.
Anyway, I took my penance without complaining and continued downtown…
Into Brooklyn…
…and clearly I should have taken that black Corvette with the smashed windshield as as a portent for while my bicycle was parked some brigand emptied my saddle bag:
Was it foolish to leave a loaded saddlebag on my bike in the first place? Absolutely. However I admit I’ve become complacent, and after awhile removing a bunch of stuff of relatively little monetary value (a nearly 30 year-old mini pump, an inner tube, an old multi-tool I found on the roadway in Central Park…) hardly seemed worth the effort. But apparently some complete loser thought it was worth the effort to pilfer them, and I hope at least one of the items somehow becomes inextricably lodged in his anus leading to his slow death by fecal impaction.
But the saddlebag theft is not all bad. For one thing, it gives the angry mountain bikers an opportunity to laugh at my expense. (Just kidding, they’re incapable of laughing–at least not without full suspension and an e-assist.) And for another, I shed a few grams from the bike for the ride home–though not enough to keep up with the roadies in the park:
I counted three t-shirts but only one PNS jersey. What’s wrong with these roadies today?
