Why Foil? – Bike Snob NYC

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Way back in the 20th century, in between real jobs*, I worked for a time as a bicycle messenger. Even in pre-9/11 New York City, you could not just saunter into a big office building; instead you’d be directed deep into its bowels, where you’d have to find the messenger center and wait for a freight elevator and waste like half your day. So how in 2025 is it possible for someone to just walk into one and start shooting?

*[I realize some people may be offended by my suggestion that being a bike messenger is not a “real job,” but come on, it’s basically just riding your bike all day, let’s get real.]

Well, for one thing he wasn’t dressed like a bike messenger, because if he had been he’d never have gotten in. (I used to occasionally flirt with the idea of wearing a suit when I worked as a bike messenger since I’d probably have been able to go straight to reception.) Still, in all the analysis, I didn’t see anything about how easy it still is to drive right into Manhattan from Queens or Jersey or Las Vegas or wherever and just double-park your car:

Clearly we can easily prevent this in the future by simply immobilizing and detaining all double-parking assholes in BMWs. (Though I realize when we’re talking about BMWs both the double-parking and the assholery are a given.) Invariably when something like this happens people start saying we should ban guns, but that’s never going to happen, because too many people are against it. However, cracking down on BMW drivers is something every American can get behind, from the simpering soy-eaters who need to take mental health leave after elections to the coal-rollers who must employ truck nuts because they lack their own.

Now, obviously I’m not being completely serious here (if I were I’d also have included Mercedes and Land Rover drivers), but if you think about what you can get away with in a car it is rather unsettling. For example, yesterday it was like eleventy billion American Freedom Degrees™, and my younger son is no longer in camp, and so I decided, “Fuck it, we’re driving to the beach.” Smuggies will cringe at my frivolous use of a car (or at any use of a car), but it was one of those glorious beach days where the ocean is calm and you can just wade in and float around for two hours, and I regret nothing. NOTHING.

However, being a bicyclist I naturally regard the surrounding traffic with a critical eye, and it’s still surprising how many people are driving around with intentionally crumpled or mutilated or obscured plates, or bullshit temporary ones made out of paper, or in dilapidated cars with plates from distant states that can not have possibly made the drive from those states without falling apart. If a guy in a BMW (always a BMW) can drive right past both me and the state police on a tolled bridge in a car with a Pennsylvania plate and a white sticker covering half the digits without getting pulled over, then what defense do we have against would-be mass shooters driving around with rifles in the trunk?

Though of course in order to really address this I might have to sacrifice the same freedom and convenience that allows me to so easily decide, “Fuck it, I’m driving to the beach.” Also, if we’re going to immobilize and detain BMW drivers in the name of preventing shootings, I guess we’d have to do the same thing to people on bicycles:

I should also note that I did observe two notable examples of police activity during my considerable time on the roads. The first was when a state trooper pulled over the driver of an Infiniti SUV, presumably for driving in the emergency lane to skirt traffic. (This was profoundly satisfying as the driver had just cut me off, probably because they’d seen the trooper up ahead and were trying to blend back into traffic.) The second was when, at the very end of our journey, on the Major Deegan Expressway, traffic suddenly came to a stop, a helicopter appeared overhead, and at least two NYPD detectives (their vests said “DET” on them) ran right past us on the roadway. They were fit and fast and looked like TV cops, and I’m 75% sure one of them was Maddie Bosch:

Sadly I don’t think they caught whoever they were chasing as a few minutes later they walked past the car looking dejected, like baserunners returning to the dugout after the third out, but happily the traffic started moving again and we finally made it home.

Speaking of weapons, here’s Pogačar’s bike:

Look, can we admit this is just a Y-Foil already?

In a nutshell, Colnago didn’t just shrink/flatten tubes; it re‑imagined the rear triangle. The wild “Defy” seat cluster effectively decouples the seatpost from the main structure, creating room for engineered flex and rider comfort while shielding the rear wheel in cleaner airflow. The layout also helps vertical compliance without dulling power transfer.

“…effectively decouples the seatpost from the main structure, creating room for engineered flex and rider comfort”? I mean COME ON:

Trek’s big mistake was not also “shielding the rear wheel in cleaner airflow” by using some sort of vestigial seat tube like Colnago did:

Anyway, I maintain bikes like the Colnago Y1Rs are a good thing, since if pro bikes are allowed to get more and more extreme then perhaps race bike design will “decouple” from regular bike design, instead of the latter following the former.

But probably not.

Also, how are we supposed to believe nobody’s motor-doping when there’s stuff like this?

If it can “catapult an averagely fit rider” into pro rider territory, than what can it do for the pros?

This opens up new possibilities: fully integrated e-road bikes with mid-drive motors tipping the scales below 10 kg – something previously considered near-impossible. And while the motor maxes out at a modest 200 watts on paper, that’s enough to catapult an averagely fit rider into power-to-weight zones normally reserved for the pros. The motor is barely bigger than a clenched fist and, according to TQ, boasts the highest torque density on the market. The compact, round shape allows for a clean integration into the bottom bracket area. Like a stem clamped to a steerer, the motor is fixed to the frame with two mounting bridges, which simplifies removal and any maintenance work.

You can’t even tell a regular Fred from a Moto-Fred anymore!

I know I just said high-tech pro bikes is a good thing, but maybe the real answer is to stoke so much fear of moto-doping that the UCI is forced to require everyone to ride bikes with skinny steel tubes: