Further to yesterday’s post, in which I singlehandedly came up with the brilliant idea of a celebratory ride for not-quite-vintage bicycles, there’s clearly lots of interest in Meh-roica, so even though I’m never, ever going to organize it let’s just pretend I am:
Speaking of pretending, the above flyer is obviously 100% AI-generated, which cost at least seventeen people their jobs. Also, almost all the text on it is completely AI-generated, and pretty much all I fed the beast was the name of the ride, the date range for the bikes, and the fact that I am the world’s greatest bicycle blogger. (Go ahead, tell me I’m not and name one person who’s better, I’ll wait.) It did decide to allow downtube shifters, which is a mistake (Meh-roica will not allow them), and it also mentions something called a “Quill specialisic stem,” which is clearly the AI equivalent of a brain fart. And there’s absolutely no way I’d organize a ride starting Brooklyn of all places, since I left that deeply annoying borough in 2012 and haven’t looked back. Well, apart from the fact that I commute to an office there twice a week.
Still, it’s both scary and amazing that it went ahead and came up with a route, and even a URL. By this time next year with the same amount of effort on my part (which is to say zero) it will go ahead and register that URL, generate a route you can download to your GPS, set up a registration page, create branded ride “merch” (caps, water bottles, jerseys…), and deposit the fees and revenue directly into my bank account.
But the AI will still neglect to insure the ride, and so the event will end in disaster when someone on a Team ONCE Giant TCR crashes Beloki-style, ruptures his spleen, and sues me into oblivion.
Okay, so forget handing the reins to AI (for now). I’ll just keep pretending to be in charge. Anyway, I did see some discussion in the comments yesterday regarding potential sponsors, and I’m proud to announce I’ve pretended to secure one. Nicotine pouches are all the rage with the Meh-roica demographic (that being middle-aged bros who are only just now being forced to come to terms with their diminishing faculties and are desperate to at least slow the decline), but unfortunately you need to be a stand-up comedian with a podcast to get money from those companies, so the best I could manage was $50 from CVS to plug their nicotine gum:
The label says it’s for people who smoke their first cigarette within 30 minutes of waking up, and while this is ostensibly a substitute for that, I’d imagine if you double the recommended dose as soon as you wake up and have that morning cigarette on top of it you’ll be razor sharp at least until it’s time to leave for work. (Unless AI has taken your job, in which case you might as well chase it all with a shot of whiskey.)
There was also some discussion of what will and won’t be allowed equipment-wise, so here’s a brief FAQ:
Do I have to wear a helmet?
No.
Am I allowed to wear a helmet?
Yes.
A commenter mentioned Mavic Mektronic. This falls within the date range. Can I use it?
I’m sorry, but no. I actually thought a lot about this, but I’ve decided it’s best to completely exclude all electronic drivetrains, regardless of vintage. Also, I’m thinking of organizing a Failed Technology ‘Roica ride at some point in the future, so allowing Mektronic here could potentially cut into my profit margin.
Are compact cranks allowed?
I’m sorry, but no. I actually thought a lot about this, but I’ve decided it’s best to exclude them, even though compacts became popular during this time. So 130- and 135-BCD cranks only. What is my reasoning? Looks, mostly. If you need lower gearing you are free to use a triple, though it must be one of those 130- or 135-BCD triples that only got you about as low as a compact crank does. Hey, sorry, what do you want from me? I don’t make the rules. Wait, actually I do, so screw you.
What about a single-ring drivetrain?
ABSOLUTELY NOT. Show up on that and it’s a lifetime ban…unless it’s a cyclocross bike. You may ride Meh-roica on a cyclocross bike, and it may have a single ring drivetrain, just as long as there are no clutch derailleurs or narrow-wide chainrings or any other post-aughts mishigas. Toughen up and use a chain catcher and a bash guard for chrissakes. Or just learn how to shift.
I took your advice and chewed two pieces of CVS nicotine gum while smoking my morning cigarette. Now I’m having heart palpitations and diarrhea. Can I sue you?
I’m sorry, but no. I actually thought a lot about this, and your gripe is with CVS. Or, just knock back that whiskey. That should at least mellow you out.
I think this should about cover it, but feel free to raise any remaining questions.
Speaking of yesterday’s post, I also mentioned that my Brooks blog posts had disappeared, and a commenter (or two commenters?) were kind enough to resurrect one for me via the Wayback Machine. Thank you! I had actually been looking for exactly this post not too long ago, and forgot it was on the Brooks blog and not my own. Anyway, I’m going to cut-and-paste the whole post below, typos and dead links and all. Also, I found the following quote particularly delectable, since here we are ten years later:
This would supposedly be the first-ever fat bike race in New York City and I wanted to be part of a historical footnote so in ten years I could say “I was there!” to people who couldn’t care less;
So how’s that for timeliness? Here I am now saying “I was there!”
Anyway, the post is below. Ride safe and enjoy the weekend, but maybe also take some time to reflect given today’s date and consider that you’re lucky to be reading this. (Well not lucky to read this blog specifically, because what you’re reading is crap. In fact you should be ashamed of yourself for squandering your time like this. I’m just saying be grateful, that’s all.)
Thanks for reading,
–Tan Tenovo
The Fat is Out of the Bag
Guest Blogger Bike Snob NYC battles the snow
2 Feb 2016 | Posted by Bike Snob NYC | Categories: Bicycles, Events, Friends, Monthly highlights, Sports Cycling, Travel & Adventure Cycling, Urban Cycling
New York City. The Capital of the World. A great financial and cultural dynamo hub illuminating the rest of America and beyond. Birthplace of the skyscraper, hip hip, and the “New York minute,” which is just a regular minute with extra cheese.
When it comes to cycling, however, one could argue our heyday is well behind us. Madison Square Garden was a Mecca of six-day racing…like a hundred years ago. New York City’s bike messengers were once iconic…though the style’s been appropriated worldwide, and “Quicksilver” to “Premium Rush” represents a precipitous decline. Alas, we used to set the pace, but now it comes to “bike culture” we’re playing catch-up.
Consider the whole fat bike thing. They’ve been riding fat bikes for years out there in “Fargo” country, but New York City’s first-ever fat bike race wasn’t until January 23rd, 2016 in Cunningham Park, Queens:
And even then, it was cancelled due to…snow:
I know what you’re thinking: “Isn’t canceling a fat bike race due to snow like canceling an alleycat due to weed?” Well, sure, but this was no ordinary snowstorm. This was Winter Storm Jonas:
And unlike previous overhyped storms this one delivered. In fact by the day of the race it was snowing so ferociously that the governor had declared a travel ban, which meant even if they hadn’t canceled the race you would have gotten arrested for trying to get there.
So instead the organizers, 718 Cyclery, rescheduled the race for the following weekend, and I resolved to partake for the following reasons:
1) I’m very fond of Cunningham Park;
2) This would supposedly be the first-ever fat bike race in New York City and I wanted to be part of a historical footnote so in ten years I could say “I was there!” to people who couldn’t care less;
3) I’m currently “testing” a bike called the Marin Pine Mountain 1, which while not a full-on fat bike is certainly fat-ish, so as a semi-professional bike blogger I’d be remiss if I didn’t try it in a fat-biking application.
So I signed up.
As I mentioned, Cunningham Park is in Queens. Specifically, it’s in eastern Queens, where the city bleeds out into Long Island. Cleft in twain by the Clearview Expressway and packed with singletrack, it looks like a pair of lungs:
The trails are maintained by C.L.I.M.B., who have done an amazing job within the confines of a city park. While there’s nothing to overwhelm the rider looking to do battle with forbidding terrain it more than lives up to its billing as a place where everyone from novices to experts can fully enjoy themselves–and the fact that you’re still within the New York City limits makes it even sweeter.
On the morning of the race I had three options for getting from my home to Cunningham:
1) A 20-plus mile three-borough slog on three-inch knobby tires through the densest parts of the city and the worst of Queens’s eastern sprawl that would take me a good three hours;
2) Schlepping an almost-fat bike onto public transit;
3) Taking the car.
The first option was the heroic one, the second option was in keeping with the novelty of a fat bike race within the five boroughs, and the third option was just a cop-out.
I went with Option 3:
(Gas: so cheap right now!)
When I lived in Brooklyn I rode at Cunningham all the time, but now that I have to cross a bridge to get there I instead tend to seek out the more convenient (to me) and abundant mountain bike trails north of the city. However, I remain extremely fond of it, and it was good to be back after a longish absence:
I’d gotten there early and there weren’t very many riders there yet, but I could see the registration table beyond the trailhead, and so I trudged towards it:
Then, clutching my race number, I trudged back to my car and civilization (to the extent suburban Queens qualifies as “civilization”), where the food truck was fueling up for a long day of feeding hungry fat bikers:
And where someone rolled up on some kind of e-bike:
Which was towing a fat bike on a trailer, along with a folding card table and what may have been the kitchen sink:
The sheer smugness of it all was breathtaking, and I obscured my face with my number as I slinked back to my fossil fuel burner in which I’d driven to the bike race alone.
Once I’d hoisted my bike from the roof rack and completed my pre-race ablutions I headed back into the park for a quick pre-ride:
I’d registered in the “advanced” category–not because I consider myself advanced, but because it was the first race of the day and I liked the idea of being the last-placed finisher in the first field of the first-ever fat bike race in New York City.
It seemed like a pretty attainable distinction.
This was the advanced course:
Which, as it turned out, the organizers had since halved owing to all that snow. See, the western lung of the park is the “technical” side, whereas the east lung is the “easy” side. (Pssst: they’re both easy.) We’d be doing the whole race on the easy side, so I figured a lap would take all of ten minutes–until I started riding:
You’d be forgiven for assuming that fat bikes simply let you ride effortlessly through snow, but you’d also be wrong. See, in order to ride a fat bike on snow the trail still needs to be “groomed” by means of a snowmobile or snowshoes or something that can pack down all that snow and make it firm and rideable–and while humans had trudged through in order to tape off sections of the course, it would be a considerable stretch to call this “groomed:”
What it was was a slog, and with all the starting and stopping my quick little pre-ride ended up taking me like a half hour, which meant that by the time I got back to the starting area there were a lot more people and the race was starting in like five minutes:
There was also the latest in carbon Fat Bike Fred technology on display:
As well as foot retention (or lack thereof) and sundry other products and components:
Alas, there was nothing from Brooks, but that’s only because they’re biding their time before entering this burgeoning market. See, the Brooks fat bike line needs to reflect the company’s proud heritage, which means everything needs to be made of leather–but in order to do that they first need fatter cows.
Once the herd is large enough you can expect to see lots of exciting new fat bike-specific Brooks products, and they’ve even authorized me to share this spy photo of a prototype saddle:
(The B17 Fat)
I realize it doesn’t look particularly elegant, but that’s only because it hasn’t been chamfered yet.
And of course there were lots and lots of fat bikes:
Which made the “plus”-sized tires on my own bike seem diminutive in comparison:
Indeed, between my unanticipatedly “epic” pre-ride and my “skinny” tires I was already feeling profoundly inadequate, and now the pre-race chatter wasn’t helping. See, at any off-road bicycle race the conversation at the start line always centers around the question of #whatpressureyourunning. Sometimes it’s sincere, as in: “What pressure are you running? I haven’t pre-ridden yet and would appreciate your advice.” Other times it’s an attempt to psych you out by making you feel underprepared, like when you answer and they say: “Really, isn’t that a little high? I took a soil sample and decided to air down.” And still other times it can be downright confrontational, as in: “58psi?!? Are you insane?!? You’re gonna die out there, bro!”
At the fat bike race however the conversation was downright surreal, since it was basically a contest to see who was running the lowest pressure. ”I’m at 5psi.” ”Well, I’m at 3.” ”Oh yeah? I’m actually running negative pressure, and my tire is a vacuum:”
As for me, I honestly had no idea what pressure I was running, but I was fairly certain that as soon as they found my frozen corpse they’d check and use it as my epitaph:
Once everyone had established #whatpressureyourunning to some degree of satisfaction, we left our bikes lying in the snow and a person with a megaphone marched us into the woods for the Le Mans start:
The march seemed interminable. When we finally stopped we were a good two hundred yards from the nearest split-level ranch, and it occurred to me that maybe this whole fat bike race thing was a trap and they were going to shoot us:
“This fat bike thing ends here!” would be the last thing we heard.
But instead they ordered us to run, which we did, for our very lives:
I remained at the back, and once we got to the bikes I made sure everyone entered the singletrack before me:
This was carefully planned on my part. For one thing, as I mentioned earlier, my goal was to finish last. For another, we were doing two laps, and I figured if I let everyone go ahead of me on their fat bikes they’d pack the snow down for me. This way, should I decide to stop concealing my cycling greatness, it would give me the option of abandoning “Operation DFL” on the second lap and making my move.
Unfortunately, the plan backfired. See, instead of packing the trail down for me, what happened was when the people ahead of me were forced to dismount they just left more of a mess for me to deal with:
It was like being the last person at the all-you-can-eat buffet.
I was also wearing stupid shoes for riding in the snow:
I’d briefly considered switching to platforms and hiking boots before the race, but naively assumed that even with the snow I’d have no reason to dismount in a park as tame as Cunningham, so I didn’t bother. However, what ended up happening was that whenever I hit a bunch of powder and was forced to clip out, my foot would plunge into a foot of snow which would then actually open the Velcro straps of my shoe on the way down:
And to top it all off I didn’t even finish last, because somehow at some point I still managed to pass somebody despite my incompetence. This meant that instead of finishing DFL I would up finishing DFP, or “Dead F-ing Penultimate,” which carries absolutely no bragging rights of any kind, sincere or ironic.
Anyway, it took me long enough to finish that by the time I rolled in they were getting ready to announce the first three finishers:
And here they are:
I don’t know if there were any doping controls, but I did see someone in a blazer walking around the area scooping up yellow snow and putting it in a cooler.
After the race I was curious to know if I’d have fared any better on a true fat bike, so I borrowed this Salsa Mukluk and headed out for another lap:
I had a lot more traction which meant I was able to easily ride some spots I’d been forced to walk, and on the packed-in sections like this one I felt like I was riding on tires with suction cups:
All of which is to say I probably wouldn’t have finished any faster, but I might have finished with warmer feet.
Then I visited the food truck:
After which I crouched down like a real photographer:
And took some race photos:
Of course this was a fat bike race so the speeds weren’t much higher than the tire pressures, but there was a dramatic moment when someone burped a tire right off the rim and it was oozing sealant:
Plus at any moment I was liable to get crushed by a fat bike:
“What pressure you running?,” I asked as it rolled over my face.
19 Comments
- Joe
Posted 2:31 pm
2 Feb 2016
A great day and an even better race report!Joe, 718 Cyclery
http://www.718c.com - Name (optional)
Posted 2:34 pm
2 Feb 2016
Snob;You save all your good photos for this blog. - Brian Hoo
Posted 2:55 pm
2 Feb 2016
Here’s some more pics from that day. Great races.https://www.facebook.com/brian.hoo.9/media_set?set=a.1193506413994730.1073742153.100000061474339&type=3&pnref=story - Regina
Posted 3:08 pm
2 Feb 2016
Nice recap! I think I spit my coffee out at the bait and switch, death march masquerading as a fat bike race.A bit disconcerting to see that tire off the rim. That’s the one I rode in the Advanced Women’s category (someone’s idea of a cruel joke). However, hiking boots and flat pedals ruled the day for me.As an aside, my commuter is a 1995 Marin Pine Mountain. Was excited to see the more modern edition; love that bike. - Chazu
Posted 3:38 pm
2 Feb 2016
You had me at “Capital of the World.” - chiwode
Posted 3:50 pm
2 Feb 2016
Ted K. is on the no-fly list. - Chillbro Ballbaggins
Posted 4:22 pm
2 Feb 2016
What no artisan wood salad bowl helmets?! - NHcycler
Posted 4:36 pm
2 Feb 2016
How did you ever come across that tombstonebuilder site?! - wle
Posted 4:50 pm
2 Feb 2016
DF-P is nothing to sneeze at…wle - DC
Posted 5:19 pm
2 Feb 2016
Nice! Looks cold! - le Correcteur
Posted 5:52 pm
2 Feb 2016
Good race report, Snob. Next time: fat bike specific platform pedal boots. - JLRB
Posted 6:04 pm
2 Feb 2016
Those winners sure look Surly - Schisthead
Posted 6:36 pm
2 Feb 2016
“All of which is to say I probably wouldn’t have finished any faster, but I might have finished with warmer feet.”That’s some wisdom right there.There is something to be said for cleaning more sections, even if it is at the expense of a walking pace on a bike. - Regular guy
Posted 6:55 pm
2 Feb 2016
Too bad that snow was still so sugary. Might have been “fun” if it had hardened some.I assume the guy in jeans was the winner and by such a margin he was able to change into street clothes.I’ve had the velcro peel-off problem before, and thought “booties would help”. Nope. Unfortunately, the booties scoop up so much snow when pushing the bike, they stretch out into clown shoes. Platforms and a good pair of boots will suffice if there is any chance at needing to dismount.Congratulations on DFP, in the end, you’ll accept that it was better than DFL. - Name (required)
Posted 7:30 pm
2 Feb 2016
Hey! That is a REAL NY Post Cover! Not a BSNYC Photo Shop Job!Unbelievable…. - Murray The Chamferer,
Posted 8:12 pm
2 Feb 2016
Dear BSNYC,Chicago is the birthplace of the skyscraper:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Insurance_Building - grog
Posted 8:27 pm
2 Feb 2016
Would you say Recumbabe barely finished? - Pablo Fleece
Posted 12:07 am
3 Feb 2016
Waitaminnit! Backup! NYC is the birthplace of “hip hip”? Well then who invented “Hurray!” - mattie D
Posted 2:58 am
3 Feb 2016
I prerode the course on a 27+ bike, and it was a nightmare. I grabbed my friends Beargrease for the actual race, and it was night and day. The plus bike wouldn’t turn for crap, it would just plow the front end out. I was in your race, with the orange camo helmet. After I crossed the finish, I went to wheelie and immediately looped it and wrecked myself good. The helmet cam footage is hilarious.