Honestly, I think the most exciting part of my bike ride across Iowa was when John and I spotted two tweens we suspect were Juggalos. Dig.
I spent a good chunk of my Saturday attempting to shoot a short film with the help of Mr. R. Petkovsek, who graciously agreed to spend his day serving as the principal actor. My innate laziness dictated that I do no location scouting beforehand, which wasn’t intially a problem, considering that the first scenes were shot entirely on the street. However, upon arriving at the second location, the OTB on 5th Ave and 12th Street, I quickly realized the benefits of preproduction planning. My storyboards required several shots be acquired inside the OTB; it functioned as the setting of crucial elements needed to advance the film’s narrative. I had assumed that taking a guerrilla filmmaking approach was the best option, and had planned to try to shoot as much as I could before the OTB’s minions ejected us. But facing the cold reality of gambling degenerates likely throwing away their children’s college funds on a Saturday afternoon, I felt my resolve wither, and also felt some responsibility for potentially putting Rick in potential danger/under threat of arrest. So I made the crucial mistake of trying to sweet-talk my way into getting some random ticket taker to let me shoot there. No dice.
After a quick consult with Rick (who really should get a producer credit on this inevitable turd of a movie, or at the very least a compliment on his Comrade Tito t-shirt), we attempted to cobble together a semblance of the required shots by relying solely on close-ups and exteriors of Rick walking in and out of the building. That was when we discovered that degenerates whiling away their childrens’ futures don’t like to have their pictures taken. So after some dicey exchanges with a few gin-blossomed gamblers who seemed intent on dusting their knuckles with our faces, Rick and I decided it better to cut our losses and get out of there with our teeth intact.
The other location I had in mind, Bar Reis, was still closed by the time we made our way over there, maybe around 3 pm. But I think that actually worked out for the best, as I got to put Rick through some method acting paces by compelling him to pretend to take swigs from a tall boy and act trashed in a public park besmattered with small children. His actions likely scarred several of them. Emotionally. Despite the rough go, I think I got some great gems thanks mostly to Rick’s quick thinking and willingness to throw himself into the part zealously. I gotta say that Rick was my rock; after I was resigned to just give up after the OTB and bar failures, he convinced me to keep plodding along, which I thank him for. The MNN editing class I made the short for doesn’t start until early June, so I’m going to force myself to wait until then to review the footage.
I finally got my cyclocross levers in from Performance Bike last Friday, and so spent a few hours on Saturday evening installing them on the Lotus Excelle in an effort to get it ready for regular commuting. I totally lucked out in scoring the Excelle from Ravi’s roommate, who sold it to me for a song. I think he sold it mostly because it had a flat tire and he either didn’t know how to fix it, or was too lazy to deal with it. Anyway, I was gassed to pick up the whip, which other than the flat had some frayed brake cables, which wasn’t that big a deal to fix since I wanted to ditch the road levers anyway. Cross levers are pretty key on road bikes in NYC. Traditional road levers that sit on the curve of the drops are great when you’re trying to get aero, but have the effect of lowering your eyeline on the streets. Better to have levers that keep you sitting upright, keeping your eyes ready for the endless assault of doors, peds and taxicabs. I had to rip the foam grips from the bottom half of the handlebars to get the levers off, but decided I liked the resulting shitty look. (I kind of subscribe to that theory that bike thieves will be less likely to steal shitty looking bikes. Kind of.) In that spirit I left the dork disk on too. The bike is in great shape though. It’s probably mid-80s and has got some nice Tange tubing, beautiful lug work, and was definitely kept away from moisture for most of its life. The bearing systems are all smooth, and I discovered that it had some really nice platform pedals after I took off the crappy plastic toe clips someone had slapped on.
Most of the R&D going on in bikes right now is geared toward building things lighter and stiffer, two traits that are great if you’re trying to haul up a hors categorie in the alps, but that will leave you pretty saddle sore after a few minutes of being abused by New York City streets. Aluminum and carbon frames both have the same problem; their stiffness conveys all the kinetic energy your bike absorbs from Buick-sized potholes and conducts it directly to your ass. Plus when carbon or aluminum frames fail, they tend to do so catastrophically, meaning in a way that will likely leave you fucked up physically. Maybe emotionally too.
Steel is heavier than either carbon or aluminum, there’s no doubt. But it has a much higher tensile strength than both and much more flex, giving you a more dampened ride when you’re rolling over cracks, bumps or whatever else. Plus I think I would go much faster if I dropped 15 pounds from my gut instead of 200 grams from my bike. I’m always on the lookout for Japanese-built steel frames from the 80s. Because the Japanese are just generally real about the shit that they built, Japanese companies tended to invest in higher grades of cro-moly steel for their bikes, even the low-end mass-produced models. And because of the weak yen of the era, the U.S.’s West Coast was flooded with a variety of Japanese imports, some of which have managed to filter their way to the East Coast since that time. I was pretty surprised when I checked out the dealer sticker on the seattube, and saw that the bike was originally sold from a store named A&B Bicycle World that used to be at 663 Amsterdam Ave. (Some place called Window Gates & Locks currently resides there.)
So I think I’ve got most of the kinks worked out of the ride, but am going to test it out on Sunday during the 2009 inaugural Tour de Chomps ride. Hopefully I won’t encounter any serious problems and can start the commuting up again on Monday, if I can cement my willpower into place to do so. P.S. somebody loan me 85 bones so I can expand my brand.
Evidently the NY Times can’t leave the bike blog game alone (sort of), debuting its Spokes “feature” in its City Room blog yesterday. I guess the “feature,” which evidently consists of random posts on bike culture within the City Room blog, is intended to foster discussion on bicycle-related topics, presumably focusing on city-specific issues. It’s interesting to note that the Times feels like the biking demo is significant enough to devote a feature to. Or maybe it’s insulting, I’m not sure…
The first entry was intended to broach the topic of the spring tune-up, but the comments section quickly devolved into a flame war between shit-talking bicyclists and pedestrians. I totally get why some pedestrians hate bicyclists, at least the ones who wade into filled crosswalks, blow by peds on crowded sidewalks and generally act like assholes. The thing is, if you take a sample group of any demographic, you’re inevitably going to get some d-bags up in the mix. As a cyclist, I always have to keep an eye out for pedestrians who jaywalk, emerge suddenly from between parked cars or walk in the middle of the street. There’s not much you can do when you’re going 15 mph with your eyes trained on an MTA bus that is about to merge into your left shoulder, and someone pops out from between two dollar vans directly into your path. But still, it’s disheartening to constantly hear pedestrians’ general hatred of bicyclists. We should be uniting against the cars in solidarity, people! They are the real enemy.
Viva la Revolución Bolivariana. Y la Revolución Bicicleta.
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