Further to yesterday’s post, and digitization laying waste to humanity, do you ever get the feeling that you’ll one day be pedaling through a blighted hellscape of bricked Vanmoofs and inoperable Bird scooters?
Yea, the time shall come when all these cursed mobility companies shall go bankrupt. Severed from their abandoned apps, these infernal contraptions shall no longer function. Everywhere, legions of the possessed shall fall face first upon the pavement as their conveyances fail:
And on this day only the true believers–those who ride human-powered bicycles–shall be spared. Smugly, we shall survey the landscape with perverse satisfaction as we pedal in perfect circles anywhere we choose. The clipless, the toe-clipped, and the flat-pedaled alike shall rejoice together and cast aside their meaningless differences. The Roadies shall dance with the Retrogrouches. The Bikepackers shall lie with the Beautiful Godzillas. Steel and crabon shall no longer clash; instead it shall be forged together into frames of unparalleled strength and a featherbed ride quality, laterally stiff and eternally compliant. The Time-Traveling Retro-Fred shall finally return from the Planet Tridork, and a Great Peace will reign for a thousand years:
Or something.
But yes, the days when you could keep a machine going just as long as you were able to fight off the rust are disappearing in the rearview mirror, as now they’re all “smart” and as such need to be connected to a central brain:
Fuck it, I’m buying a Plymouth:
Fortunately for cyclists, there are still options for those of us who refuse to relinquish the simplicity of yesteryear:
The Homer started life as an upright rambler:
But it’s since evolved into a sort of be-fendered sport roadster and I must say it excels in its current guise. It feels comfortable yet fast and light on its feet, and between the long wheelbase, the wide gear range, and the drop bars, hitting the climbs actually feels good–you just roll over that crumbling road surface and keep downshifting seemingly forever with that silky-smooth friction shifter like you’re sinking into a thick down mattress cover.
It really makes you wonder what all that fancy modern road bike tech is for, kind of like when you drink a glass of cool, refreshing water and wonder what the hell the point of alkaline water is:
I admit I also didn’t know who Andrew Jackson was when I saw this truck, and in the process of finding out I came across this video of him riding inconsiderately in Tokyo:
He’s an impressive rider and I did my best to enjoy it, but I kept expecting him to collide with a pedestrian on those little side streets, which made me nervous:
But at least he was wearing a helmet.