Further to yesterday’s post, you may have noticed a lurker in the background of one of the photos: This is because Yonkers is rife with deer, and they fear no man: In fact this one actually started to approach me, and for a minute there I thought it was going to come up and sniff my crotch like a dog. The trails just north of the city are full of such wonders, and for a time my favorite deer-slayer was the RockCombo, which was more or less in its stock configuration when I first received it in 2020: It grew on me quickly, and over time it became my “ready for anything bike:” Then came The ..read more

As I’ve mentioned before, cyclists have been waging an anti-cotton fear campaign for decades now, and this is the subject of my latest Outside column: Someone on Twitter suggested this was a “straw man” argument, which is entry-level Internet discourse, like using one of those adjustable stems on your road bike: [Instead of those pointless angle indicators all adjustable stems should have a QR code on them that takes you straight to the Rivendell website] However, the fact of the matter is that if someone hasn’t Fred-splained to you why you shouldn’t ride in cotton then you haven’t been ridi ..read more

Further to yesterday’s post, Framework seems to be the Builder of the Moment, because there’s also another review of one over at Escape Collective: It’s considerably different from the review I mentioned yesterday since unlike the other guy James Huang is able to articulate his thoughts in a comprehensible fashion. Otherwise, both reviewers are similar in that they fawn over an overwrought process that seems to result in a bicycle the reviewer finds unsatisfactory: Yes, the Framework’s meticulous construction means you won’t fall victim to the “dreaded ‘ring of death,'” whatever that means ..read more

When you ride all year long there’s not much need to give your bikes a spring tune-up since you’ve been keeping them more or less in tune anyway. However, the so-called “Normcore Bike” is a different story, as it’s currently my elder son’s commuter. This means it’s often hastily lashed to bike racks and left out in the rain, so for the safety of both bicycle and rider I gave it a bit of a going over yesterday: As I took the above photo I heard a splash from that little pond in the background, and just barely managed to get a shot of what I assume to be a Red-tailed Hawk [I have since been inf ..read more

Good morning! I’m pleased to present you all with a quiz. As always, study the item, think, and click on your answer. If you’re right you’ll know, and if you’re wrong you’ll see the last cycling discipline in which steel still reigns supreme. Thanks very much for reading, ride safe, and best of luck in all your cycling-related endeavors. Love, –Tan Tenovo 1. This Ferrari belongs to Grant Petersen. True False 2. What is this? The “green transportation heirarchy” The “urban mobility hegemony” The “inverted triangle of smugness” A breakdown of road users by foot callous thickness 3. What ..read more

While I spend an inordinate amount of time spewing forth words, occasionally I like to take a few in, so I was pleased recently to find my copy of Grant Petersen’s “Bicycle Sentences” had arrived: While the cover suggests the book is “occasionally infuriating,” in thumbing through it most of what I saw struck me as being “eminently sensible:” I guess certain types of people do find sensible things to be infuriating–though even I have to admit this may have been a bit harsh: Just kidding: It’s not harsh at all. Now I should probably state explicitly at this point that the above is not an ac ..read more

Some of the challenges we face today are as old as humanity itself: the need for food and shelter; the desire for companionship; the mortal threat of illness and natural disasters. Other challenges are unique to the 21st century: figuring out which of the ninety billion shows on your streaming services to watch; wandering naked into the shot during your spouse’s Zoom meeting; misgendering your Amazon delivery man person entity. Then there are the problems that are both modern and timeless, like ass-ploding e-bikes: It’s a timeless problem because the e-bikes that are ass-ploding are generally ..read more

I don’t know about where you live, but here a large portion of the sun disappeared yesterday afternoon. It was scary! Incredibly there was nothing about it anywhere on the Internet, and all anybody was talking about was the “Eclipse,” which I recall was yet another mixed-material bicycle from the Aughts: [From here.] I had completely forgotten about the Eclipse until, well, the eclipse. But now that I’m riding a plastic-metal hybrid myself I keep seeing bikes like it everywhere: And you know the bike industry was overly obsessed with inserting crabon tubes into metal bike frames when even Ja ..read more

It’s feeling rather springy out there, though the springy cri-tabium bike I’ve been riding may have something to do with that: [Weird how the phone makes it look like the bike has Biopace wheels.] It really does feel springy, I’m not lying, though I’d have to consult with Jan Heine to determine if it’s actually “planing.” (Planing is the luminiferous aether of cycling, Heine’s claims that he has proven its existence notwithstanding.) By the way, speaking of ti-crabium, Classic Cycle has another specimen from Seven: I always used to think to myself, “It sure seems like there are some fucked-u ..read more

In 1888, John Boyd Dunlop, with the help of his beard, revolutionized the still-nascent pursuit of cycling when he introduced the pneumatic bicycle tire: 136 years later, cycling is poised for another air-filled revolution that will no doubt be just as profound, for a reader informs me that some nutjob is working on an inflatable bib short: Every year around this time at least one reader gets taken in by some cycling website’s April Fools gag and forwards me a link to it, so I assumed this was yet another such instance–but no, this is an actual thing, and the idea is that your bib short will ..read more