Around And Around We Go – Bike Snob NYC

In yesterday’s post I mentioned that gravel rider who went missing, but if you really want to disappear it’s much better to use an e-bike:

Though you’ll also want to use a kayak as a decoy:

Borgwardt was reported missing by his family on Aug. 12, 2024, following a kayaking trip at Green Lake about 100 miles northwest of Milwaukee.

An overturned kayak and lifejacket that authorities believe belonged to the missing father were eventually recovered — leading investigators to suspect that he had drowned.

Then while they’re dragging the lake for your bloated corpse simply ride your e-bike to Canada:

After staging his death, Borgwardt rode an electric bike 70 miles overnight to Madison. He then caught a bus to Detroit and crossed into Canada to board a plane in Toronto, according to CBS News.

Now that’s what I call being multimodal.

Of course, during my own upstate vacation I too was ideally poised to flee to Canada, and in fact I could have easily and cheaply obtained both the kayak…

…and the e-bike at Walmart:

Come to think of it, perhaps the e-biker I saw during my own brief trip across the border was also pulling a similar disappearing act:

Fact I just made up: 58% of e-bikers in Canada are fleeing Americans.

Then again, why would I run away to Canada or Eastern Europe or anywhere else when New York City is so wonderful? Sure, we don’t even have Walmart, but we do have incredibly bizarre tableaus, such as this one I happened upon deep in the park:

It consisted of several dozen broken eggs:

Various empty six-pack containers:

A stuffed animal:

An orange wig and a carrot:

A pair of freshly-cut jorts:

And numerous notes and graffittoes reading “White People” but with the words crossed out:

I’ve been trying to put it all together, and my two leading theories are as follows:

Someone was practicing an extremely high-concept juggling act but kept getting drunker and drunker until they broke all the eggs

They held the Singlespeed World Championships in New York City this year and somehow I missed it.

In any case, besides solving mysteries, after a highly satisfying fornight with the Roadini I’ve also been getting reacquainted with my other road bikes, specifically this one:

And this one:

For some people, the word “decadence” might mean drinking champagne in bed, or having a wild drunken egg party deep in the park, but to me it means having dedicated road bikes for short, medium, and long-reach brakes–not to mention Campagnolo, Shimano, and friction shifting respectively. Of course, some might say that I could just use those new Growtac shifters instead, but quite frankly the more I hear about them the more they piss me off:

As I’ve noted before, these things manage to eliminate the best attributes of both friction shifting (that is to say the utter simplicity) and integrated shifting (namely the idiot-proof nature of indexing) and combine them into one ass-backwards component, all while being more expensive than any of them:

Also, they sound very complicated and annoying to install…and according to the video they’re now introducing “click plates” so they’ll index, go figure:

It never ends:

Look, all I’m saying is that when it comes to road bikes there are two teams*: Team Friction, and Team Integrated Shifting. JUST PICK ONE AND STICK WITH IT.

Or, you know, have lots of different bikes, like I do.

It’s the only sensible choice.

*[Okay, fine, there are other teams, like Team Indexing Downtube Shifter, but let’s not overthink it.]