DT On The Lam From The De-Lam – Bike Snob NYC

Well as we head into the weekend, here’s some good news…FOR ME:

This is one of my regular riding routes and that section of Route 9 sucks, so assuming there’s not some weird twists and turns you need to take in order to get onto it that little bridge could be just what I need. I suppose this will also benefit lots of other cyclists heading to the Tappan Zee Mario Cuomo Bridge too, but whatever, I don’t really care about them, I care about ME.

Oh, here’s the Jones on the aforementioned bridge, just by way of illustration:

Until 2020 you couldn’t even ride over that bridge all, so I guesss for all my complaining my cycling life has in fact meaningfully improved thanks to the State of New York, go figure–though it’s probably more accurate to say that we underwrite their graft with our exorbitant taxes and we’re so used to it by now that we feel grateful when they toss us some scraps every once in awhile, fools that we are.

But while I mostly just care about ME, I do hope nobody here is affected by the DT Swiss rim recall:

Not because I care about your safety, but just because I don’t think you should be using crabon rims at all. In addition to being unnecessarily expensive, crabon rims are responsible for all the ills of society, chief among them being the widespread adoption of disc brakes on road bikes. If we’d simply stuck with aluminum rims we’d still have a good braking surface for rim brakes and we wouldn’t have been forced to use disc brakes at all.

Anyway, here are the affected products:

Though when I look at the Canyon site (which I try not to do) it seems like the bikes still come with these wheels:

But perhaps they weren’t manufactured within the Exploding Wheel Manufacturing Window:

These products were sold either as parts of a complete bicycle or as individual components via online retailers or specialist shops. This product safety recall only affects bicycle wheels with carbon fiber composite rims (commonly known as carbon rims) that were manufactured in Vietnam. Only bicycle wheels with a DT Swiss ID number of 2740000 or higher are potentially affected by this product safety recall! Not all products with a DT Swiss ID number of 2740000 or higher are necessarily affected by this product safety recall. It is therefore necessary to check the DT Swiss ID number to determine whether your product is subject to the product safety recall (see «Check Your Product» below).

While I have nothing against overseas manufacturing, there is nevertheless a fair amount of irony in a company called “DT Swiss” having to do a massive recall of their Vietnamese-made rims.

As for the Canyon Aeroad, I don’t know how anyone could possibly own one without hearing this in their head constantly:

I mean Canyon Aeroad literally just “Canyonero” with a “d” at the end.

Also, in addition to being expensive and occasionally exploding, crabon rims foster a culture of weight weenie-ism that is causing an epidemic of eating disorders in men:

Did you know 19.7% of male roadies were at risk of “disordered eating behaviors?”

When it comes to male cyclists, eating disorders are severely underreported. Way back in 2007, a study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that 19.7% of competitive male cyclists surveyed were at risk of disordered eating behaviours. Notably, only a fraction of these men self-identified as having an eating disorder, suggesting underreporting and lack of awareness. The estimated figure of 20% of male cyclists being at risk of developing an eating disorder may be far too low.

In case you didn’t know, signs of a male eating disorder and concomitant body dysmorphia include wearing Pas Normal clothing:

Cultivating weird tans:

And sucking your meager nourishment from a pouch:

Apparently that particular energy gel is called “Royal-D:”

Possibly because that’s exactly what it gives you.

And it’s all because of the “performance obsession, weight-consciousness and metrics culture in cycling:”

The intersection of performance obsession, weight-consciousness and metrics culture in cycling is the perfect recipe for disordered eating and body image issues. Cycling by its nature rewards a leaner, lighter frame. Performance-minded cyclists are innately highly motivated individuals and if they see improvements linked to weight loss, that can become addictive to the point where there is still a drive to restrict food even after gains cease. For many, cycling is not just a hobby but a way of life inextricable from self-worth, discipline and identity.

Sadly, the writer of this article fell victim to this culture:

I had left London and returned to our family home in Ireland, with no job and confined to the house and a small patch of Irish countryside. I would cycle for hours, eating very little food. I may have started riding a bike to keep fit, but my mind made a lethal shift to using cycling as a way to exert control over my body. Gaining weight became a really unsettling prospect, missing one of my many daily sessions was anxiety-inducing, and eating became a shameful experience.

Though he never answers the question we’re all secretly asking, which is how many more KOMs he managed to bag while he was starving itself.

Fortunately, he’s since sought help, and he’s doing much better now as a fat Black woman:

Sorry, I really shouldn’t make light of his eating disorder.