What a weekend it was for the cycling of bicycles!
While I do indulge in mid-day rides during the week, on weekends I generally ride early. This is in part due to my role as the co-curator of a human family, but it’s also a habit that stems from my many years as an amateur bicycle racer. Back then, the way it worked was, you’d wake up when most of your peers were going to sleep in order to make the crack-of-dawn start of the race at either Central or Prospect Park. By about 8:30am you’d finish that, then you and your teammates would either ride over the bridge to the state line or maybe even hop in the car and go for a mountain bike ride. This meant that by about lunchtime you’d have about six billion miles in your legs, plus the rest of the day free to cultivate a “normal” live with your partner or spouse. Whilst taking bike racing too seriously does have its pitfalls (principally the potential to subsume the remaining “normal” portion of your life), I’d argue that training you to get started early is of tremendous benefit, for as you get older your non-cycling responsibilities only increase, and the people who can’t get started early are the same ones who see your bike, lift it without asking, and go on and on about how they used to ride but simply don’t have the time anymore.
But this past weekend circumstances were such that, on Sunday, I headed out quite late–“late” being the time at which normal people are apparently riding–and what I saw amazed me. Much ado is made about the dire state of the bicycle industry, and I have no doubt it is dire indeed, but if so it’s certainly not for lack of people riding bicycles. There were a lot of people out. A lot. All types too: roadies, mountain bikers, gravelistas, people from Brooklyn with bags all over their bike who watch way too much Path Less Pedaled… Of course in a few weeks when it gets really cold most of them will disappear until spring; nevertheless, it suggested to me that the state of cycling remains rather hale, and if the bike industry is having problems it’s because they’re eating the fruit of their way.
In addition to my unfashionably late pavement-oriented ride, on Saturday I also did a long rambling micro-adventure ride astride the Jones:
I realize this will sound like I’m trying to sell you a Jones bike, but I don’t care. I also don’t care whether you buy one or not. What you do or don’t do with your own money is your own business. Still, I cannot overemphasize how fantastic these bikes are, and what a savant Jeff Jones is. I’m also going to share this video, even though I’m sure I’ve already posted it:
This is a person who has thought of everything. He explains every single detail of the bike to you, right down to the materials used to make the seat post clamp. And what he says about the bike is absolutely true: it’s a high-performance bike that also happens to be incredibly comfortable, and it excels at everything with the exception of road sprints and “Red Bull Rampage” stuff, as he puts it. I’ll also mention again that since 2019 I have not had to change a thing on this bike with the exception of the chain and the brake pads and doing the tubeless setup because riding 3″ tires with tubes in them is crazy. (I did change the saddle for personal preference, though he’s since updated the saddle, and maybe I would have liked it enough to keep it.) I still love the bike is what I’m saying, and as long as Jeff Jones keeps making bikes and Rivendell keeps making bikes and as many people keep riding as I saw this past weekend I feel very good about the world as far as cycling is concerned.
Meanwhile, on the other end of the “One Bike For Everything” spectrum, there’s this, to which a reader alerted me:
Is there anything worse than tech people (automotive tech peope, no less) who think they’re going to reinvent the bicycle? I’d argue that there isn’t. Also, this is the deranged face of someone who should not be mountain biking:
[The last thing you see on your morning stroll before waking up in a hospital bed.]
In the spirit of the Internet I’m criticizing this without even having watched the entire video, but I guess the idea is that the bike is modular:
Look how goddamn smug they look as they pull it apart like a rotisserie chicken:
Hey, look at that, more stuff that will sit around in people’s garages:
Also, it’s got all these attachments, but I skipped around and I didn’t see fenders anywhere in the video.
Finally, in more e-bike news, another of my astute readers alerted me to this:
Basically, they’ve capped the speed of the electric Citi Bike fleet, and it almost killed this living Brooklyn stereotype:
After spending most of the summer away from home, on tour with his band, Dylan Chenfeld was thrilled to return to New York and slip into his old routines.
But his first time back on an electric Citi Bike — his beloved “White Stallion,” as he calls it — he realized something was amiss.
Pedaling into an intersection, he presumed the bike’s motor would propel him safely through the crossing traffic. But the boost never came, and before he knew it, he was skittering a few feet from the hood of a car.
“I was like, ‘Am I bad at this now?’ ” said Mr. Chenfeld, 31, the frontman for Rebounder, a pop rock band.
The close call, it turned out, was not entirely Mr. Chenfeld’s fault.
If you’ve watched enough e-Citi Bike riders, it’s clear what happened here. Basically, they’re constantly launching themselves through red lights and crowded crosswalks and busy intersections, but without the extra boost they’re learning what the rest of us already know, which is that you don’t launch yourself through red lights and crowded crosswalks or you can die, which is why everyone else hates you and they’re capping the speeds of the goddamn e-Citi Bikes.
Also, I’m sorry to say I only made it about 43 seconds into his band Rebounder’s “Count Me Into Love:”
The bikes need to slow down, but I think his band may need to speed it up a little bit.
And e-Citi riders don’t only miss the speed. They also miss the “texture of the road vibrating up their arms” (and perhaps other unmentionable body parts):
This specific element of Citi Bike experience — e-biking over a bridge, preferably at night — has developed its own ardent following. Liberated for the most part of any physical exertion, e-bikers can instead focus on the texture of the road vibrating up their arms, the wind streaking across their cheeks, the speed heightening their consciousness.
Clearly Citi Bike needs to engage Jan Heine to curate a line of supple tires specifically for New York City’s bike share system. That could also help take the sting out of the recent price increase:
Lyft raised prices for e-bike rentals twice in 2024 and again in January. At the moment, members of the program pay $219.99 a year and 25 cents per minute to use the electric bikes. Nonmembers pay $4.99 to start a ride and 38 cents per minute thereafter.
“And if you’re decreasing the speed, you’ve effectively increased the price again,” Mr. Harris said. “It’s a per-minute thing. So that really pissed me off.”
LOL, Citi Bike is throttling their data! Hey, if you love batteries and motors on bikes, don’t complain when they use them to figure out new and exciting ways to charge you more money. I for one look forward to locked electronic shifters that only work on certain carrier networks until you pay them off, just like the new iPhone.