I caught a lot of heat for yesterday’s post imploring Atlanta police to ticket cyclists for traffic infractions, the general thrust of said heat being that I am a nerd, a teacher’s pet, and a hall monitor. When I say “caught a lot of heat” I mean, of course, that there were like two snarky tweets about it.

Mind you, even a single tweet can have lasting emotional impact for which the tweeter can be forced to apologize. Just ask Johan Bruyneel, who has issued apologies for the following brain-melting insults directed toward Tour de France officials:

“Ok people! Now it’s official! To be a race commissar you don’t need brains but only know the rules! Their motto: ‘c’est le reglement!’”

Get a look at these swingin' reglements, baby

That might not seem like much of an insult, until you translate the last phrase, which is in French, a language spoken in France, Canada, and any Starbucks in which an American college student wishes to appear cultured. “Reglement” is a slang word for a goat’s scrotum (goat scrot for short). Suffice it to say that the UCI officials were not amused, and Bruyneel has posted what is I’m sure a heartfelt apology.

Even so, the UCI, whose members can be fired for smiling, are pursuing disciplinary action against Team Radioshack for wearing black cycling kits on the podium to raise awareness for Lance’s anti-cancer foundation, Livestrong.

You might be saying to yourself “Wait a minute, self. If the UCI fines Team Radioshack and Team Radioshack is raising money and awareness to fight cancer via Livestrong, doesn’t that mean that the UCI is pro cancer?”

You might also be saying “Wait a minute, self. If Lance and Radioshack want to raise money to fight cancer, why are they spending so much on racing bicycles? Couldn’t they just raise all that money and then give it straight to the research foundations?” I don’t know the answer to that question, though, so forget I brought it up.

What is important is that the UCI’s “reglement” is stuck in a bit of a vise here. Clearly they are hell bent on punishing Team Radioshack, for whatever reason, but they can’t appear to be even slightly pro cancer — even though the idea of anyone being pro cancer is ridiculous. So, they’ve stated that any fines levied against Team Radioshack will go to their own competing cancer charity, the Swiss Cancer league.

Ha HA! Take that, Lance! Their cancer charity is way better than yours!

Unlike Johan, however, in the case of my opinion that greater policing of cyclists would ultimately be good for the health of the cycling community, I cannot back down. Swerving across lanes, running lights, and generally behaving lawlessly isn’t helping anyone.

If we want a more bike friendly city, we should start by being a friendlier city of cyclists, and if we want to raise money for cancer, well, I guess we’d best not piss the UCI off. Who knows what they’ll do?

I have loved The Onion’s news reporting for many years. God only knows how many hours of lost productivity I have logged by scanning their pages instead of doing whatever I was supposed to be doing. Which is why I was so hurt by the end of their article titled “Massive Hit-And-Run Prematurely Ends Tour De France“. In it, the entire Tour peloton is struck by a motorist, injuring all and killing Alberto Contador, or as he is now known in his native tongue, “El Shockalero”.

Here’s the closing paragraph that stung me so:

“We are investigating the possibility that this is the same driver responsible for several hit-and-runs during the French Open, the death of three Spaniards and a bull at Pamplona, and the vehicular homicides on the pitch during this year’s World Cup final.” special investigator Jean de Valery told reporters. “Then again, he may just be a normal motorist. Bicyclists can often be very annoying.”

This is hurtful to me because, damn it, its accurate. Cyclists can be annoying. They annoy me regularly, and I like riding more than everything that doesn’t involve drinking and/or nakedness.

Watch out, bicycle! That big white rectangle looks pissed!

It was only last night on my way down to the velodrome when I witnessed a bevy of riders hopping back and forth from the sidewalk to lanes of travel in a two-wheeled parody of one of my favorite video games, Frogger.

Ugh, the sidewalk is such a little hussy, sitting there looking all tempting and safe — we must resist its siren song, my brothers and sisters! It is no more safe to ride on the sidewalk than it is to continue smoking and switch to “Light” cigarettes.

When we ride on the sidewalk, we remove ourselves even further from the minds of drivers, and this is a group of people who happily forget about us as soon as they speed by, remembering only when we crash into the side of their vehicle because they’ve just slammed on the brakes and turned right immediately after doing so, a move known as the Douche Maneuver.

In fact, it seems to me that one of the least safe and most annoying things you can do as a cyclist is behave unpredictably. Cyclists are traffic. We need to be in the lanes of travel, riding predictably, and obeying the same laws cars do, even though we are less likely to get a ticket for flaunting them.

I’m not sure why cops don’t ticket bikes that much, but I wish they would. I’ve even been encouraged once by the police to be on the sidewalk. I wonder why they do that…

I think I have a theory.

My theory is that traffic tickets for cars generate a lot more revenue than tickets for cyclists, so there’s less motivation for any municipality to ticket offending riders. Whereas you can get fined nearly $300 for, say, turning left off of Piedmont onto Piedmont Circle NE during certain hours of the day — ask me how I know! — some cyclists regularly abuse all posted traffic laws with seeming impunity.

While it sucks to get a ticket, it sucks even more to have to admit that your favorite hobby is annoying, regularly unsafe, and seemingly only willing to pause its self indulgence to shoot itself in the foot. We can change this though. All we have to do is get out there with the cars and obey the laws we should be obeying.

And maybe put on a helmet and get some brakes while we’re at it.

You know I love you, fixed riders. Don’t be ha’in’!

Well, my ass is at it again. Last night, down at Dick Lane Velodrome, I leaped aboard my track bike to try my luck on a 2k time trial, followed by a 4k time trial, and my ass immediately made it known that it was having none of it by hurting like hell. I don’t know if I have a saddle position problem, or merely a lazy ass, but this bodes not well.

I wonder if my primary care physician has any tests for ass malaise. I went in last year and three nurses attached about a dozen electrodes to me and measured all sorts of statistics about my heart, which is a throbbing fist of muscle. It’s really just a small, specialized ass cheek when you get right down to it. Maybe they can attach the machine to my hind parts and draw some conjectures about its motivation level.

Of course, I think we all know how Jens Voigt would handle this.

Back in my race last night, it was in that spirit of brute force mastery of one’s own muscles that I powered through the 2k time trial as hard as I could. It didn’t feel smooth or polished, but I did feel like I’d done the best I could given the circumstances, those being, chiefly, irascible butt cheeks. After I rested a while and regained the powers of speech, I talked to the gentleman who was timing our efforts, himself a former champion track racer.

He told me that to describe my pedalstroke as “a monkey humping a football” would be kind.

Crap.

Compounding my concern is the fact that I have invited my non-cycling friends to come down to the velodrome tonight and see the bike racing that we do every Wednesday. It was my birthday yesterday, but I thought this would be a fun way to celebrate a day late. It’s always nice to have people watch the races, but now I’m concerned that my ass will refuse to work properly, thus making an even bigger fool of me than usual.

It occurs to me that cycling is very much like dating. It is fraught with discomfort, requires one to wear outlandish costumes and risk looking like a bit of a buffoon, but for some reason we stick with it anyway.

Well, what else can I do in this life? It’s just me and this bedamned unmotivated ass, trying to get through the best we can.

Normally I avoid spending too much time on Facebook. I have some pretty clever friends who are likely to make me laugh, but every now and then there can be some lurking negativity as well. Overall, it is a great way to stay up to date on the latest photos of my little nieces, as well as to post links to this blog, of course.

A while back, though, I saw a status update from a friend that made me think. He expressed some frustration with the women in his life, and concluded with a cry to the universe that he’d like to, at last, spend some time with some sane ladies. I know this guy. He is a good person; girls like him. I don’t think its fair to say that all girls are crazy, though, try as some do to appear that way.

Now let me preface any further musing on this matter by saying that I know about as much about women as a slice of pizza knows about brewing beer. It seems like we go together well sometimes, but I haven’t the capacity to fully grasp what’s going on behind the scenes. Most of my friends are happily married homeowners, and I am a single bachelor turning 36 today in a one bedroom apartment.

Let’s just say I have a lot of time to ride bikes. Time, it must be said, that my married friends are highly jealous of.

Even so, I cannot allow myself to sink into the comfortable sullen mud that is the “girls are crazy” conclusion because it puts me in a logical paradox. If women are crazy, then they were crazy when we started seeing each other, not just when we broke up. I don’t meet women out for a first date, find that things are going well, and then say to myself “Wow this girl likes me… she must be nuts!”

Surely I’m not systematically turning perfectly sane women into lunatics, whatever my dating skills may be.

Of course I think any girl with a head on her shoulders would regard me as the greatest opportunity ever to come her way, but let’s just say there are rather a lot of headless women roaming this town. I just have to look myself in the mirror and remind myself that breaking up with me (or doing something that causes me to break up with you) is a Colossal Mistake. Calling people crazy isn’t helping anyone.

Check out Arthur C. Clarke’s third law of prediction:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

And now feast your eyes upon James C. Hodgson’s First Law of People:

Any sufficiently emotional behavior is indistinguishable from madness.

When people make decisions based on emotions, it is impossible to understand those decisions for anyone who is not able to relate to those emotions, and there is nothing more potentially emotional for all parties than trying to compare lives and body parts in hopes of a match.

Additionally, I think that the current social and political climate has left many of both genders at a loss as to how to handle one another. I think most men would agree that women are right to ask for and get all the equality they want, in the workplace or in politics or wherever, but if women can do everything for themselves, what is left for us to provide?

Whatever the factors, we can’t allow ourselves to be sullen about it. Girls aren’t crazy. Guys aren’t crazy. We’re just all trying to find the best match we can and get on with it.

I’m sure that a poll of my Cheryls would reveal an emphatic belief that I am crazy. Hah!

Which, I mean, you know… is probably true.

I’m continually amazed at the tone traditional media outlets take regarding the Internet. It is as though they are continually rocked by waves of surprise each time they lose to formats that are far more convenient for their customers. It reminds me of the Shel Silverstein poem in which the author is being eaten by a boa constrictor, the last line of which is delivered from inside a boa constrictor.

This time it’s Time reporting that E-Book sales have outstripped hardcover book sales on Amazon.com for the first… time.

As a person who has written an e-book and has plans for more, I think it’s pretty cool that they’re becoming more widespread. Nothing makes me happier than my delusions that I might someday be a highly-regarded author, except perhaps those in which I am a wealthy spaceman and philanderer.

In short, I think we’re living in a great time for people who like to write, because anyone on the internet has the capacity for global reach, or at least, as much of the globe that has internet access. Let’s not forget that that mostly includes developed nations. If you want to be widely read, all you have to do is be interesting and capture people’s attention — not that I know how to do either.

The only trouble with that is that important news is very often boring. It only really gets interesting when someone we can relate to gets deeply hurt or killed. Legislation, for instance, very often doesn’t have a face, and as such, is much less interesting even though it can potentially do much more harm.

Long story short, if you’re a news outlet and you want to stay in business, you’re going to have to pretty much overlook any news that can not be presented as a scandal, epidemic, or hologram. Any discussion that has more than two directly opposing points of view can’t be put on the air because it might be too complicated to digest. I wonder if that’s good.

E-books outselling hardcovers on Amazon is great news because to me it represents the ultimate democratization of the printed word. Or in other words, crackpots like myself no longer have to even try to get published. The flip side of this revolution, in my opinion, is that everything must be taken with a grain of salt. Everyone who is talking is attempting to dress things up in order to get noticed.

Sensation is the push-up bra to the breasts of news. Keep that in the back of your mind folks, that’s all I’m saying.