Fatty or Snooty? The Hobson’s choice for Bloggies

So it’s come to this in the bicycle culture. We have the choice of voting, in the annual Bloggies Awards, between a fat cyclist and a bike snob.

Now we in the cycling community know perfectly well what’s going on here. Fat Cyclist isn’t really fat, and Bike Snob isn’t actually a snob. Fatty may have started out that way (using the term loosely), but for quite a while now he’s been a barrel-chested, iron-thighed, pedal-mashing Thor of muscle and bone. The guy has ridden with Lance Armstrong and Team Radio Shack, fer crissakes. He’s training for a freakin’ marathon. You and I know that.

Odd maybe...but not fat

But the non-velocipedes who make up the vast majority of the American public do not. The American public sees “Fat Cyclist” and thinks folds of lycra’d flesh balanced on two wheels like mounds of whipped cream on a spoon, with a flabby pear-shaped head that makes his helmet the size of a yarmulke. The American public sees Chris Farley on a comfort bike. They see someone called Fat Cyclist is in line for a Bloggie, and they go Wha??? Is that the best they can come up with?

Well, as a matter of fact, it is. Because the alternative is the Snob.

Now we all know that Bike Snob isn’t really a snob or he’d never blog about something as common and filthy as cycling. He would be some bow-tied oenophile blogging about what Bordeaux goes with foie gras and Muenster cheese. Or about the definitive interpretation of the libretto to The Magic Flute. A true snob would not be caught dead riding some oily contraption along the besotted gutters of 42nd Street. A snob on a bike would perspire on his tux. He would get grease on the cuffs of his Armanis. Snobbery, really, has no place in the cycling community, except when a roadie meets a mountain biker. And the outcome of that is never pretty.

What a BikeSnob fan looks like

The mainstream public doesn’t realize that Bike Snob is just another loser who can’t scrounge up cab fare home. They think he’s some epicure putting on airs, carrying on like he’s better than the rest of us. They think he blogs for Slate, or maybe The Daily Beast.

Unfortunately, we bona fide members of the cycling community are stuck with a choice of incredible political incorrectness. It’s either obesity or snootiness. ShopWrech.net and BottomBracket.org didn’t make the cut. If we really want to support our precious avocation, we have to ignore public perception and vote for a cyclist. Knowing this, knowing they’ve got us between a proverbial fat rock and snob place, both candidates have put together shameless self-promotional solicitations worthy of Donald Trump on crystal meth, which as a public service we are linking to because … well, because we care.

FatCyclist: “Vote for me because my third win means I won’t be eligible to harangue you next year!”

BikeSnobNYC: “Vote for me and you could win a new bike that is too declassé for the Snob to be seen with, let alone ride!”

Daily Roundup: Bike beating, Bike parking, Bike Corraling & more

Guy gets beat over the head with a bicycle … did the cops ask victim, “Were you wearing a helmet?”

The Capitol Hill Seattle Blog is tracking what happened to the neighborhood Bike Corral.

NY Times writeup on Danny MacAskill is also about how YouTube makes celebrities out of everyday folks … the way newspapers used to.

RC asks for help tracking down this weird unicycle. Never seen one, would love to ride one!

If you have the time BikeSnobNYC has the loquacity.

Daily Roundup: Giro to start in New York?

Start the Giro d’Italia in America? In New York? Little Italy? A criterium? Would Lance try to organize another slowdown? I can’t wait… I mean, what would BikeSnobNYC say?

More coasting backwards: Easton Bell, joining Shimano, SRAM and Mavic, says sales are in the tank, down 11.3 percent for 3Q.

“On the Bell side, preseason orders increased in the low single digits in part due to demand for the new Variant mountain bike helmet. At $80 retail, the helmet fills a desirable pricepoint and allows for increased presence in the important mountain bike crategory, Harrington said.”

Right on. Mountain biking will save the bike industry yet!

Local boyz do good: EVIL, FSA headline Bike Magazine’s “10 promising new products.”

Just when you think cyclists are making some headway in the political-justice system, the surreal, goofy, bizarre, inexplicable 3-year-old injunction against the SF Bicycle Plan rears its antediluvian head. And here’s the list of what the injunction is holding up.

Cyclelicio.us: Analysis of bike accidents show t-bone is most prevalent (not right hook). Like Yokota, I’m a bit surprised. You certainly read more about “hooks” causing fatalities. Studies like these are important, though, for establishing baseline data from which to make policy. Numbers work wonders for getting legislators to move. (The riding against traffic one hurts, though.)

This Day in Doping: Did Lance, Alberto & Astana get preferential treatment?

Team Astana, including stars Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador, got preferential treatment when it came to drug testing, two leading French newspapers have reported (linked by Bicycle.net).

This is part of an ongoing snit between the UCI, the international cycling governing body, and French anti-doping authorities over the rigorousness of dope testing during the Tour de France. The UCI undoubtedly considers the irregularities, including the infamous 45-minute delay at one point during the Tour, as trivial. If the AFLD is correct in its allegations, however, it raises serious questions as to the diligence of UCI procedures.

It’s hard to know — particularly based on a reading of press reports rather than original documentation — whose side to take, other than the truth’s, which will always remain in question. As we’ve said before, doping at this point is not an athletic issue or even a political issue. It’s a financial issue. Say they found doping on Team Astana and Lance and Bert got kicked off the Tour. Where would that leave the Big Money — TV and commercial sponsors — that makes the Tour possible? This is the main reason why the worst penalty a steroid-soaked baseball star can expect is an asterisk next to his records.

So cycling governance just muddles along, engaging in petty feuding and self-righteous posturing, while the doping continues.

Bert’s and Lance’s main transgression here may be that they’re not French. I mean, where was the AFLD (or equivalent) when Hinault and Fignon were ripping up the Tour?

BikeSnobNYC takes a swing at the doping scene as well, with his usual amusing speculation (every time Lance is tested he tweets? really? or does he tweet only when he knows full well that supposed irregularities will get reported?) thrown in for comic relief. Worth a read as always.

Meanwhile, doping is migrating its way down into the amateur ranks as well, and even the excuses are the same.

And back in Italy, yet another suspension.

Daily Roundup: More Interbike, This Day in Doping

Interbike 2009 dribblings …

Attendance a mixed bag. Overall attendance declined, but buyer numbers were up. Exhibitors were said to be happy, so that’s good, because if the exhibitors aren’t happy, then the booth bimbos aren’t happy, and if the bbs aren’t happy, well, you know…

Great video from Mountain Bike Action with Richard Cunningham showing off Ibis’ new HD Mojo (beefy, very beefy), Magura fork/brake combo and a new rack from Kuat that, face it, puts the Thule T2 to shame.

And BikeSnob goes off on Reynolds’ $6,000 set of carbon wheels.

Finally, re our standing feature This Day in Doping, check out this video on new anti-doping controls that somehow feels like a 5th grade tutorial on urine testing for pot. No wonder Lance gets annoyed with these people. We support rigorous dope testing of cyclists (emphasis on rigorous, because so far there’s little evidence testing is inhibiting doping). We also support doing it in a professional and respectful way.