the new valencia st.

so i've been in san francisco this week, and i'm literally astounded as to how many fixies i've seen. starting with a packed dolores park, then rvca on haight, which i think is a store that sells clothing but has no less than five track bikes in the windows, and then down at the 16th/18th and valencia/guerrerro bar scene, i was continually shocked to see so many more brakeless fixed gears than i remember just six months ago. not monstrosities either; usually, these are somewhere in the 'very nice' range and often in the 'vanity' category, and more often than not there are about twenty of them all parked together. this tells me three things: one, there are exponentially more hipsters, and more hipsters riding fixed in sf now than there were last summer. two, they have either decided to spend more on expensive off-the-rack track bikes, or have completely exhausted the region's supply of decades-old ten speeds. three, as more hipsters bike up, sloshball has apparently lost some of its near-universal appeal, and kids can finally play soccer next to the tennis courts in dolores park again like they're supposed to.

regain your senses!

jeez luís, gotta apologize for the lag in postings here. please keep in mind, however, that as a college student i have finals and the like, and don't work in a cubicle where i can mess around as much as i like when i know my boss isn't looking (thanks to a complex system of mirrors, plans for which i already have, should the day come when the need were to arise.) thus this blog will not be updated daily, weekly, or even strictly on a monthly level. instead, new content will appear whenever it feels like appearing, no more and no less, much like fleetwood mac albums or the herp.

in other news, i was much saddened to hear of the death of the great journalist Tim Russert. (please note, name capitalized out of respect.) for anyone who watches as much msnbc/cnbc/cnn as i do, this is quite a blow to the political news junky organ, which by the way is located in the gut, right next to where you feel truthiness.

the rest of the pack

i'm obviously kind of a straggler here on the internet bike scene. there were some here a long time ago, and others are even newer and less professional than me, which frankly is embarassing for them. but as a favor to anyone who's looking for, godforbid, even more bike blog smack for your crazy bike blog jonze, here are a few other websites working with roughly the same intent:

firstly, bikeblogcollection is the premier source. bikesnobnyc is kind of the snarky hillary-clinton-as-president-humor that cyclists love, and though not focused on the fixed, always wryly  entertaining.

appropriately for a sport that rejoices in bright colors and flashy garb, there's a boatload of blogs dedicated to looking good. the sartorialist/cyclists of the tweed cycling club warm my heart greatly. these dudes and 'lady cyclists' hold it down for the old school, and i mean old school. their ladies no doubt enjoy london cycle chic. also check out their danish counterparts at copenhagen cycle chic (and please note that the url is, hilariously, copenhagengirlsonbikes.) the danes are a little more on the eurotrashy side, but california's own riding pretty is no less enamored with europe's supermodels. i love these sites; low-budget, yet classy. they make me want to register a domain name for 'hot babes on bikes' or something. better google that. as far as i know, none of these have much for fixed-gear especially, but there's some killer pictures of gorgeous classic cruisers, all lovingly adorned with the greatest accessory a cycle can have. by which i mean, a hot chick.

complainering time

i just spent the weekend in airports, so i'm in a complainy mood. bear with me.

what's with fuckin airlines? how do they get away with overbooking every single flight? i swear i saw about 8 people kicked off their reservation this weekend. and don't even get me started on security - i was at sfo, and the loudspeaker's in the background every two minutes with  "we are now at terror alert level orange" as we wait in a line that is so long it blocks access to all of the united checkin counter, and when i finally get up to the security check, the dude is sitting in a fuckin lawn chair and directing foot traffic with a FAKE INDIAN ACCENT. AND HE IS NOT INDIAN. seriously bro, you have 'tsa' written all over your damn shirt, it's an ORANGE ALERT, and you are GOOFING OFF. why then, i ask, do i have to take off my RUBBER FLIP FLOPS and XRAY THEM? ridiculous. at least i can take solace in the fact that in two years of flying around the country with as much as an ounce of weed, i've never ever been even close to caught. hahaha motherfucker.

also, there's way too many people on fixies doing the over-the-bars leg-kick dismount. you look retarded. stop it. try out for the rockettes, or ride bikes, do not do mix the two. 

in other news, i've discovered the wondrous hilarity that is online translation. i've been bouncing english phrases off dutch, and coming up with great nonsense. i'll do it soon and you see if you can figure it out. for bonus points, correctly guess which language it bounced off.

myanmar (formerly burma) update

yesterday i speculated on the ethical dilemma presented by providing aid to the regime in myanmar. aid is in from the u.n., and u.s. aid is expected on monday. but check out what the generals did with it. who saw this coming? i did. i have predicted the future once again.

for the record, i also take credit for those sunglasses kanye west wears in the stronger video, not to mention these, which are ever so popular at the moment. 

by the way, what's with the hatred for hipsters recently? seems like every day i come across another website like this one, just spouting vitriol in the general direction of anyone 18-34 and wearing jeans that fit. i don't get it. do these haters really care that much, or are they just jealous? it might be kind of an east coast thing, because a lot of these message boards and blogs look like they're boston and nyc based, but let's hope that kind of hate doesn't make it across the rockies. we don't need those bad vibes, man. don't hate the player, hate the game.

ride report to follow; i'm taking the roadie out later today. peace me bredren! 

if only everybody watched as much cable news as i do

jeez. i'm sitting here watching wolf blitzer explain the situation in myanmar (formerly burma), intercut with clips of a pickup truck taking flight in virginia, and all i want to do is go for a ride. unfortunately, i am beset once again by crappy weather and a mysterious profusion of flats. (full disclosure: the weather isn't that crappy, it's just overcast, and i know damn well that the flats are caused by all the broken forty bottles outside my apartment. but back to the subject at hand.) 

the u.s. and the u.n., along with many other, smaller organizations, are planning on providing aid to the victims of the cyclone that hit myanmar last week. this presents an interesting ethical diversion: in contrast to the massive aid provided after the tsunami that hit thailand and much of the surrounding area in 2004, myanmar is ruled by a fascist military junta. so aid good; aid to non-elected authoritarians, good? 

the u.s. and the u.n. are actually waiting for permission from these assholes to provide all this aid. i mean, come on, you need the aid to help your devastated, starving and thirsty people, and you won't let it into your country because ... why? is the fear that your downtrodden populace, after decades under harsh rule, will finally see that there's a better way out there? hmm?

i'm all worked up, time to go sweat it out on the highways.

peace be unto y'all.

got gears?

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coachella report!

hi gang, i'm back from the land of no internet access, and thusly i present my report of the happenings at coachella 2008:

i went friday and we were late so we missed rogue wave, but I heard they were good. i missed battles by 2 minutes too, which blew, cause they are apparently really good live.  we met up with a friend who does club promoting in l.a., and on his advice checked out dj busy p, who rocked the house in one of the tents. i caught another killer set from diplo in which m.i.a. appeared to dance about in some kind of onepiece, basically looking all kinda international hot, and by this time the crowd was way into it. right after that, i think, dan deacon played his set and got everybody in the huge tent to form a running whirlpool of high fives and a tunnel of love. it was the most fun i've had since daycare. 

somewhere in there i hit up vampire weekend, who put together an enjoyably preppy set and promised us all a new album soon. unfortunately it might be later rather than sooner, cause the new tracks they played were kinda hit or miss, and that's coming from a huge fan. (by the way, me & my friend wyatt take full credit for first spinning their EP to the west coast audience after getting back from brooklyn last summer. you can quote me on that.)

aphex twin started to throw down a really awesome beat, and i tranced out for a few minutes until i realized i was missing aesop rock in the next tent over. aesop came through with a great performance, totally lived up to my expectations, and got the crowd amped enough to scream his rhymes with him. dan le sac vs. scroobius pip, who i had never heard of before tuesday, surprised me with one of the coolest, most interesting, likable, intelligible and dance-able spoken-word/rap/hip-hop shows i've seen since sage francis or saul williams. dan and pip, as they refer to each other on stage, have a great dj/mc rapport and are way worth seeing.

i was all stoked on spank rock, but the mc was apparently sick and the producers weren't quite good enough to hold their own without him. to make matters worse, they brought on a gang of female rappers, one of whom was smokin hot, but not so great, and they lost my interest. 

closed out the day with fatboy slim, who provides one of the tightest shows i've seen. his visuals and stage setup are insane, and at one point he plays a giant, schizophrenic video of man's evolution from bacteria. wicked awesome. 

anyway i gotta go, but links to follow, as well as new shit to listen to. 

keep the ruber side down yall, peace.

singletrack, get it?

hey yall, ever see that show robot chicken? it's good.

i'm back to weed after a short break. needless to say i'm hizzigh rizzight nizzow.

no riding post today, i didn't get out. i have, however, decided to pursue another peculiar interest of mine. a flight of fancy perhaps, but i've been thinking about putting together a fixed-gear mountain bike, or maybe a cross bike with the rear wheel rebuilt, which would be sick. anyway i'm working on getting a suitable frame, or a not-so-suitable frame, or a downright ill-suited frame, cause it's just for kicks anyway, and doesn't really serve a serious purpose. whatever. i'll keep you posted.

the first day of coachella is tomorrow technically, so i'll be making my reportage on it soon. should be a dance party of epic po-potions. also to follow very soon, links to mp3crib where the 15 mins. album is posted.

hasta luego, vecinos

let's check craigslist, cause, you know, i might want to buy something

3am and time for today's blog. thought i'd check the pistadex in the west, and it's looking bad. although bad in this situation is kind of good and good is a little bad too, so whatever. but as a thought experiment:

SF's is $550, which is on par, but interestingly only one was up for sale earlier this afternoon. sure seems like there used to be more. and it had some deep-vs too, so not a bad deal, maybe. there's even a pista concept on there for $600. 

let's move on.

l.a. doesn't have any p's up right now, but some idiot's trying to get $1200 for an '80s bridgestone. good luck. $400 for a converted aluminum cannondale is kinda ridiculous too. but we all know by now the odd collection of bikes l.a. offers.

san diego's got a $700 concept, shit. no pistas though.

you gotta go up to seattle, it seems, to get a deal over stock pricing: $500 for a stock celeste green. meh.

portland's pistadex is even at $535.  they do have a mostly stock bike for $400 though.

so anyway, though surprised at how few are available right now, the demand must be keeping up. i don't know if that just means that everyone who wants one has one, (cause i keep seein' em,) or if other makes have gotten more popular or what. good? bad? whatever. i'm gonna refrain from judgment calls here, and in most other situations. i'm an online journalist, and i want to emphasize the journalism part there. but i also want to stress the online part cause that means i pretty much get to say whatever i want.

ate logo, yall, i still gotta write that essay about this man.

blown tubes & legal amphetamines

dammit, i shoulda stolen that pista, cause yesterday  i blew out my back tire doing (unnecessary) skids on the top floor of the parking structure. just goes to show, it may be extremely cool-looking to light a grit while doing a no-hands skid, but the accompanying "BANGhissssssFUCK" sound is one of the worst noises i hear. oh well, another oversized rubber cockring needed. i'm gonna go to the bike shop and watch my wallet deflate faster than that tube did. maybe it's time to put a brake on the ugly fucker, not that that would help since it seems i only skid when 'practicing,' aka going somewhere where there's no one to crash into or embarass myself in front of when my lazy foot slips off the cruiser pedals from the seventies i somehow think are acceptable for brakeless fixie riding. 

bikesnobnyc, if you read this, everything you have said about the track bike craze is absolutely spot on. that said, i don't ride a track bike. i ride a conversion. it's a different deal altogether. 

cept not really.

anyway, my main ugly fucker is out of comission til i can afford its peculiar ostentations again. that leaves me with the real badass machine, my old fixie which is now some sort of bastardized upright hybrid/single speed/ancient roman gladiator chariot and almost as dangerous as that sounds. taking that near-brakeless contraption to class is an adventure every time.

speaking of class, i'll be back to the blog tomorrow when i finish this essay i'm supposed to do, and was due this morning. hopefully i'll get it done with the help of an adderall-fueled all-night trip to the 24 Lounge - doping for energy now having expanded beyond cycling into the hitherto caffeine-dominated realm of schoolwork, all thanks due to modern pharmacology. oh well. turning things in on time was never really my steez. 

go ahead, leave your fixed gear unlocked

outside the arbor at 6pm, just one more effing time, and i'm taking it. yes you, pista rider with white deep-vs. i almost came up on it today but you got lucky. seriously, tempt me one more time...