What IS IT with the drivers here in NYC?!?!? I mean seriously, getting sideswiped on me bike not twice, not three times but FOUR times on my way to work this morning? One dude sideswiped me on the drivers side, had his windows open and his kid was in the back seat also on the drivers side and heard me go, “Whoa!!” as he grazed past me, and I swear I think even the kid got scared for me!! Another driver rolled down a long street with me on his right, knew I had to be there because (YAY!!) they just put a brand spaking new bike lane on this big street near my house. They took out the second lane to give us riders our own lane!! So anyway, here I am rolling on the right and this dude speeds up to the light so he can cross into the bike lane at the corner to make his precious right turn. However, it’s a red light. Um…yeah….so what’s the point of trying to overtake me at a red light? I had to slam on my brakes to keep from speeding right into the back right side of his van.

Now, I have no energy to argue with people, I really don’t. It’s just not in my nature. I pick and choose my fights and if I argued with every driver that did me wrong on the street, I’d never get down a mile of an avenue. Usualy what I do is to try to roll up into their sight and give them a dirty look. This guy wasn’t even looking in my direction, so I had to roll on without displaying my fury with the carefully crafted “Don’t fuck with me” look that I have. You should see it, it’s genius…..or maybe you shouldn’t…..

Luckily, or thankfully, however you’d like to look at it, I do not freak out when cars come too close or just turn me off my path. I think cyclists that freak out and tense up end up falling or making a bad move and make things worse for themselves. Like scaring themselves more or even worse, getting hurt by falling. All I do is go Whoa!! and then contemplate the near miss later….like on here.

Fucking NY drivers. I don’t know how half these people got their licenses or even stay on the road, but there has to be more to getting your license than just being able to move a few levers…..like any trained chimp can do. Drivers don’t respect cyclists, they NEVER pay attention turning, they think speeding through a red light in traffic is going to get them where they’re going faster. They park in the bike lane!! I want to break out all their lights and windows with my lock and chain when they do that, then leave a sticker right on the windshield in front of the driver’s eyes that says, “Don’t park in the bike lane!!!”

Hey, that may not be a bad idea. If I got those reverse stickers that say the words on the sticky side….but wait, no. I can’t go to a place to have those made up and then get caught by someone who’d track me down by finding me through the printer. Hmm. Maybe then just regular stickers that I can stick on cars that say don’t park in the bike lane. It’s a really good idea, but risky. If caught by drivers, I’d get my ass kicked. If caught by the authorities, I’d probably be charged with defacing property. Maybe I can find some psycho riders that would be willing to do that…..

Must meditate on this one……..

…or do you have to? Who’s to say that a rider can like only one style of ride? I must admit that I have had problems with the fixed gear community–mostly (as I stated previously) the problem being the same as we snowboarders vs. skiiers. I suppose that there must always be two sides to every equation.

But going by my years of riding experience, I have come across many riders. All outdoorsy, clean air loving, out of the box kind people. I cannot say that I have any animosity toward another fellow two wheeler. (I have seen a rider in Prospect Park hit a roller blader, knock him down, injure him and take off without stopping. I wanted to smack the hell out of him and remind him of how cars treat us riders, but alas, he was faster than I was and I lost him on the criterium.) However, it’s like in any movie you see where one car pulls up alongside another at a red light, both drivers look at each other, nod in silent understanding, and as soon as the light blinks out of red and starts glowing green, they peel off in thunderous screeching. Classic American rivalry.

And rightly so it should bleed into the cycling community!! Granted there are sub-divisions of the track and free wheel groups, but I’m sure we can all agree that these two categories are the parents of our own little miniverses. Also at red lights, we too, check out the “other” guy/gal on their wheels and thus begins the drag.

My first thought when you say fixed to me is, “Damn snobs.” I can’t tell you how many times I have been sitting at the end of the turned up nose of a fixed gear rider when we talk shop, and they scoff at the extra components on my bike. Gears? Laughable, they shout out. Brakes? Ugh, they huff, I’m bored with you already. And you know what? That is really not the way to make friends. It’s bad enough that the road is divided among pedestrians, runners, roller bladers, cyclists and drivers–and none of us seem to get along!! So why do the fixed gear-heads want to keep themselves apart from we free-wheelers?

Apart from that, I think that riding fixed gears on the city streets is not really a good idea. I only say that because I know how badly the streets are chewed up, and rolling over bumps, potholes and outright canyons in the asphalt is so much more navigable on a free wheel. With a free wheel, you can roll over these crotch-busters, riding over the bar, legs stationary and ready for anything, absorbing the shock with your knees. With the fixed gear, you have to keep pedaling no matter what…that can’t be good for the bottom to keep pedaling, can it? And to go barreling toward traffic at the end of the block with no brakes…my knees go weak just writing about it… I can stop on a dime with my brakes and even on days when your body is just tired, squeezing those grips to save your life is heaven sent. (Not to mention those days you may be completely hung over and the difference between squeezing handles and having to use more musclature to stop is also what creates the divide for me.) You have to have a higher level of control in order to ride, period. Most people in general don’t pay much attention to their environments around them, even less in the city, but to be hyper-aware on two wheels takes a certain kind of mental fortitude. Fixed, I admit, you have to be Jedi. That is, only if you are a demon on your wheels and know what you’re doing.

I understand that there are fixed riders that have been riding forever and know how to navigate through the urban jungle, but there are a lot of newbies with their tracks that think just because they have a track, they are immediately taken into the fold and, by association, they are cool and knowledged. These newbies ride for a crazy short amount of time, perhaps thinking that by being able to get up that hill on the way home they, by right, are a true fixie. Dropping thousands on a track that you only tape up immediately afterward seems to be the thing. Or collecting variations of fixed gears, with pretty colors and straight bars (GRRRRRRR) by default–even having three or more bikes–gets them in the know. It’s easy to differentiate between the old schoolers and the newbies. As for one, I can easily blow the newbies away!! They handle potholes with kid-gloves, slowing down considerably to circumvent the hole. They think of their frames as designer labels, something to show off, not as an extension of thier own bodies!! And if the frame takes a beating, so be it any seasoned rider will say. Chicks, as well as dudes, dig scars. It’s cool.

Keep in mind that I call them newbies because I know that some will truly get the bug and stick with it for years to come, whereas most (by law of permutation) will drop the notion like every other trend they have followed. And many good bikes get recirculated back into the community for those of us that are broke but would spend their last dimes on the used dream bike and forego eating for a few weeks.

Coming off the high of road racing, I rode my road bike for years on the city streets and realised that the streets were killing my poor bike, but I liked the urban course. I did some research and found that the cyclocross was what I needed. Free wheel (of course), drop bars, thinner-than-mountain-bike tires but more bite than road wheels, aerodynamic, lightweight and durable, this was the bike that I had searched for. Then it took a few more years to find the right one. And the right one I did find.

That in mind, I find that a lot of the fixed newbies don’t do any research, they just know what is trendiest (even without history behind the trend), buy blindly and get out there to be seen. This is cycling: sweat, dirt and broken bodies, not a runway guys… get over yourselves. I can’t deal with a rider who thinks that they know everything about riding but have never entered a race. Fashionable gear and flat rides in Manhattan do not a rider make!!

I am making a call to all riders!! We are a breed all our own, whether free-wheel or fixed, but at the end of the day, the result is still the same:

Sweaty, salty and dirty bodies
Another cool story of how you have avoided death one more day on the city street
Dirt, asphalt, tar and grime on your body/bike/clothes/sneakers
Rockin’ thigh/calf muscles
Almost total disdain for drivers
Awesome blood/oxygen circulation
Blood rush to the head that beats any drug or drink you put in your body
Kick ass face/arm/leg tans
Runy nose (hehehe)
Keen insider’s knowledge of city streets–i.e. the Grid
SCARS
Freedom to move around the lanscape anyway you like
Sprocket markings on the ankles
Chain grease on everything you own
Inability to function without your bike shoud a situation arise where you can’t ride

Am I right? Let’s all be friends….can’t we all just get along?

I came across this wondeful page by reading another blog. And being the hopeless information whore, I must post and share!! If you click on this link you will come to a page that details how to do things like making left and right turns in traffic, yielding (by both you and drivers) and defending yourself against mindless drivers.

I am already an urban rider and I knew a lot of things on this page. There were a few new things I picked up which made the read enjoyable, but also I just recommend reading something like this anyway, even if you DO know all the rules. It’s good just to reiterate and get info back to the forefront of your crazy (helmeted) biking head.

Here I will post for you some information I have come across regarding eyewear for riding. Good stuff, very informative. I have gotten all of this info from the Village Cycle Center catalogue (link in sidebar). Read on…

Road Cycling Lenses tend to be darker than ones for mountain biking and generally use a red tint to filter out blue light and glare.

Off Road Lenses need an orange or amber tint also for filtering blue light that causes glare. Orange or amber tints increase contrast on the trail that pop out obstacles a little more than if you were not wearing glasses at all.

Road and Trail Lenses call for brown tints which improve depth perception and also reduce glare. They are good for variable conditions and the dark tint reduces eyestrain.

Grey or Smoke Tints keep colors in their most natural, unfiltered state, also reducing eyestrain.

Low Light Conditions, like cloudy days, yellow, red or orange tints are the way to go. They help protect the eyes and also create contrast.

Clear Lenses don’t provide contrast but are good for keeping wind, bugs, dust and other outside factors away from eyes.