Every so often the UCI gets something right, and velocipedal traditionalists will be pleased to learn that they’re set to ban the turned-in brake levers that are so popular with the kids nowadays:
I’m already seeing cycling fans complaining about this on the social medias, and they’ll often complain the UCI stifles “innovation” or whatever, but I have a sophisticated intellectual response to that: pro sports have rules and if you don’t like ’em tough shit. Hey, if you want to ride around with your brake levers turned in nobody’s stopping you–in fact, plenty of people were unwittingly riding around like that long before it was fashionable. I’m old enough to remember when bent-in levers just meant you’d dropped your bike but didn’t know how to readjust them:
[I’m old. This is my lawn. Get off it.]
Anyway, I doubt cycling is going to lose its few remaining fans because of this new rule. ”What?!? No turned-in brake levers!?!” [Turns off Tour de France in disgust] I mean really, race bikes today are ugly enough, and the last think we need is them looking all knock-kneed on top of it:
Anyway, it’s a good start, and if they can now move on to banning the following we’ll really be getting somewhere:
- Electronic shifting
- Disc brakes
- Carbon fiber
- Aero wheels
- Radios
Speaking of pro cycling and things that are crooked, say what you will about this guy but he’s no dummy:
I used to think that if he hadn’t attempted his comeback then Floyd Landis wouldn’t have outed him, he wouldn’t have had to go on Oprah, and he’d still be the seven-time Tour de France-winning cancer hero he was when he stepped off the podium in 2005. Now however I understand that the world would have long grown tired of him by now, because there’s nothing people find more tedious than do-gooders who ride bikes, and there’s no way Bill Maher would be sitting down with him in 2023 if he hasn’t reinvented himself as Doping Guy:
Ironically though even as an avowed cheater with no reason to make stuff up anymore he’s still making stuff up:
This is something that is widely known to be false:
I’m not sure why he’d hide that, since if you’re going to sit down with Bill Maher and tell doping stories, what’s a more bad-ass doping story than failing a drug test and then paying off the UCI by buying them a drug-testing machine?
That’s a much cooler story for a talk show than “I never failed a test,” though who knows what he still has on them and they still have on him and all the rest of it. I guess in these situations all the lawyers hammer out some version of the “truth” that everyone can live with and that’s that. The UCI gets to say they meted out justice by banning him and he gets to say he never failed a drug test. Then they move on to policing brake lever angle, he gets to dine out on the stories, and everybody wins.
Finally, on the subject of truth, you may have heard about a comedian, Kenny DeForest, who recently died after a bike crash:
It’s trite and unnecessary to say this is sad and tragic, but of course it’s sad and tragic; I didn’t know who he was, which doesn’t mean anything because I don’t know who anybody is, but after seeing the story I started watching his special. After a few minutes I forgot I was watching the special because he had died and simply began to enjoy it, and I’d like to think as a comedian he would take a sort of wry satisfaction in that.
I’m generally disinclined to address these sorts of things these days–especially on a Friday–but I can’t help it, because of course when something like this happens everyone wants to pass judgement and advance their agenda before they even know what happened:
And everybody gets angry:
And indignant:
But the mainstream media is giving it plenty of attention–certainly more than it’s given to the 27 other victims this year:
And if you read that mainstream media coverage you’ll learn the person who organized the GoFundMe campaign for the victim says it was not a hit and run after all and the NYPD was not even called to the scene:
This doesn’t mean drivers aren’t horrible, and given how horrible they are it also doesn’t mean a hit-and-run is completely out of the question, since it could have been so swift that nobody even saw it. However, it’s also possible there wasn’t even a driver involved at all. It seems like the person with the most information at this point is the person who’s making the statement, and he’s still trying to learn what happened himself, so the only thing the rest of us can say at this point is we don’t fucking know.
But this is 2023, and it’s simply unacceptable to exist in a state of not knowing. Instead, you must instantly pass judgment and apportion blame. Every death is a choose-your-own-adventure of self-righteousness. So what’ll it be?
- Blame drivers
- Blame ebikes
- We need more bike lanes
- People shouldn’t ride bikes in New York City
- Wear a helmet!!!
Go ahead, take your pick. Until the facts come in it’s a total free-for-all, and even when they do come in it won’t matter anyway, because the headlines will have already been written. (Streetsblog still stays he was “killed by driver” even though that now seems to be in question.) I guess this is why most cultures traditionally take time to mourn when someone dies. It give you time to reflect.
Unfortunately reflection is incompatible with modern discourse.