Ya know what’s awesome? I’ve written a couple hundred entries since March or so, about bikes and family and politics and media and stoner rock and all sortsa things. So what sort of search term would you think people follow to this blog more than any other? Xtracycle? Nigel? Karate + Donkey + Coffee? One of Carlin’s seven words?

How about this: “fucking poncho”.

Sweet, I’ll take it.

You know I’m just a bike rider. You know I don’t race. You know I like my bikes heavy, with big cushy tires. You know that if there’s a Girl Scout behind me when I’m on my way to work, it means one thing, namely that I’m about to get dropped by a Girl Scout.

Nevertheless, I think it’s time I bought a jersey, perhaps in XL for “eXtra Luxury”. And I think it’s about time you bought one too. Sure, you could do it because it’ll support some really wonderful folks that could use the help right now, or because the company that’s making them is the kind of company that restores your faith in the goodness of humanity. You could get one because you’re a serious racer, and when the competition sees “WIN” in all-caps on your sleeve, the competition will whither and crumble. You could get one of these jerseys because you will look even haw-haw-hawter in one than you already look when you’re firing yourself down the road like a sexy two-wheeled missile carrying a warhead filled with 50 megatons of Sassy. You could do it for any or all of those reasons, and that’d be swell.

I’m doing it for one reason, and one reason only. I’m doing it because these jerseys will make me faster, and I’m tired of getting dropped by a Girl Scout with a messenger bag full of Thin Mints.

I’m crankin’ on a project with a Friday deadline, so I haven’t been able to think about much else, and my thoughts on this aren’t very interesting if you aren’t me and don’t have this project due on Friday. So posting this week has been, and will be, light.

Know that fall is in full effect here in D.C., the leaves haven’t turned quite yet, but they’re on the edge. The weather’s been perfect, if you like hoody weather, crystal clear skies, and biking in cool breezes. And bygawd I do.

Also, last night in my sleep, I was dreaming my own personal horror movie about a certain snake charming, book banning, enemies-list-keeping, demagogue from Alaska becoming president and bringing some Main St. Wasilla to our nation’s capitol. I came up with a nickname for Governor Palin that I think will stick, and become the “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” of 2008. Check Wkipedia in 2108, you’ll see. So, you ready for it? Okay, here it is:

“Moose-olini”.

Thank you! Thank you very much! There’s that humor rearin’ its head, there.

Let me get to work on this stuff, and next week I’ll be provocative, topical, and mellifluous. For now, here’s muh boy checkin’ out a fixie at the Mt. Pleasant Farmers’ Market. Cheers.

Huck checkin’ out a fixie

It’s happened to any number of cyclists around downtown D.C. You’re pedaling along, stayin’ outta trouble, when suddenly a big guy on a mountain bike rolls up, stakes a position ahead of you and starts clicking away.

And you know you’ve been blawged by Gwadzilla. Not only that, but evidently I stand accused of being a Kool-Aid drinker. I can only refute that charge by noting that the life of an Xtracyclist is always intense, and that what I’m sippin’ ain’t some kid’s stuff, but something else of an entirely different, third-eye opening variety. Grip ‘n’ Sip!

Sorry about the helmet mirror, Senor ‘Zilla, but what can I tell ya, I’m a dork. At least Nigel’s lookin’ good, eh?

A young lady here in D.C. was killed riding her bicycle in the Dupont Circle area last week. Evidently she was going straight through an intersection and was run over by a garbage truck turning right. It’s the kind of story that makes my stomach knot and my heart break for her, for the family, and for the driver as well. The life of everyone involved has been redefined in that instant, and not in a good way.

The blog pundits have weighed in. Matthew Yglesias isn’t looking to accommodate, he thinks we ought to take more street back from the cars and use it for bus lanes, bike lanes, and light rail. Megan McArdle stokes flames by asking whether drivers or cyclists suck worse, and comes to the easy conclusion that it’s the drivers, and further that it’s D.C. drivers in particular. I disagree with Ms. McArdle on a variety of issues, but we’re solidly in concurrence on this one.

Ezra Klein draws attention to a study finding countries with more cyclists are safer. Sounds about right to me, the more familiar people are with mixed traffic, the less freaked out they should be sharing the road. Additionally, as more and more people turn to bicycles for relief from rising fuel costs, we’ll have a larger, more affluent, and therefore more powerful constituency. Sucks that you need numbers and money to get anyone in power to take notice, but that’s life. Mayor Fenty is already a strong supporter of alternative transportation, I’m hoping that between the growing ranks of cyclists and smart, progressive administrations we should see some real improvements in infrastructure.

And then come the comments (some of them mine) where each side shouts J’accuse!, and describes how they saw this bike/car run this red light/stop sign etc, etc. It’s predictable, like a fight in a small town bar that keeps happening between the same drunks over habitual insults and injuries. I frequently throw a punch or two, because shit, someone is wrong on the internet. But every so often, a stranger will walk through the door and throw down with something really special that just leaves jaws on the floor.

This country is not set up for bikers like Europe is, with its smaller city streets and huge population of bikers. Biking to work in most American cities is just taking an unnecessary risk. Go bike on a bike path for fun, but get the hell out of traffic.

Yeah that’s nothin’ I haven’t heard before. Blow it out your…

Biking to work is an affectation, and selfish in many ways. Look at the consequences to the family of that poor girl who was killed.

Wha-wha-Whatdidyoujustsay?!?

It IS selfish to unneccessarily risk your life if you have a family. Of course you can find cities in Europe that are not good for biking — such as Paris and Prague. Those that are, and have by COMMON practice and agreement, a large urban bike population, like Amsterdam, are the ones I was speaking of.

Paris, huh?

On July 15, the day after Bastille Day, Parisians will wake up to discover thousands of low-cost rental bikes at hundreds of high-tech bicycle stations scattered throughout the city, an ambitious program to cut traffic, reduce pollution, improve parking and enhance the city’s image as a greener, quieter, more relaxed place.

Hey, those Frenchie bike rental stations look just like… ah nevermind. It should be noted that we do have common agreements, called laws, that lay out how we share the road. But g’head, continue.

Here, biking to work is eccentric, and therefore often done by people trying to strike a pose. There are some people who refuse to go along with the herd on most things, insisting that every single thing they do be marked by the stamp of their individuality. In my experience, that’s the person who bikes to work in a large U.S. city.

I was angry about this yesterday, but now I can’t stop giggling. Put aside the laughable Eisenhower-era attack on “eccentricity”, or the false equivalencies of cycling with eccentricity, or eccentricity with vanity. Put aside the fact that anyone who’s paying attention knows that your “stamp of individuality” in modern America comes from the products and media you consume. I mean really, c’mon, whattaya new here?

What I’m really curious about is this person’s experience. I know plenty of folks that ride to work, and I read a bunch who care to write about it. Many do it because they love bicycling, some do it because they hate driving, some do it to reduce their impact on the environment, and some believe it’s great for their health. Self sufficiency comes up pretty frequently, as does the need to respond to our country’s addiction to oil. Some even see it as an alternative to war, ambitious! At least one person believes that it saved his life. There are as many reasons for biking to work as there are people doing it, and most of us have more than one.

But I have never, ever heard anyone say, “I bike to work because it’s an expression of my individuality.” I’ve heard people say that about their hair, their clothes, their tattoos, their jewelry, their kitchens, their barbeques, and their lawns. People say it about their cars and motorcycles every day. After all, what’s a Hummer but an attempt to show the world your hairy swingin’ grapefruit-filled ballsack? But I’ve never heard anything remotely like, “I’m going to ride my bike to work and show the world who I am!” (Well, okay, there’s these guys, but to be fair, lookin’ hip is their business, and business is good.)

Which leads me to conclude that this commenter’s “experience” isn’t worth a shot of warm spit.

…in a city like DC, there is ample public transport. Taking a bike is not a practical choice, but some other kind of choice.

Au contraire, mon frer. If we leave the Brookland station of the Red Line, you on the train, and I on my bike, and we both head for Capitol South, I will have been waiting for you for about 20 minutes when you emerge from the station, and that’s if I’ve waited at every red light on the way. I will also be eating a breakfast sandwich, paid for with the $4 I’ve saved from not taking the train both ways. I will also have an extra one to three hours of my day that you do not have, due to your slower mode of transit, and the hour that you now need to spend at the gym to make up for your suffocating cubicle-based job. A gym which, I must remind you, requires lighting, air conditioning, and power so that you can watch television while spinning your hamster wheel.

Tell me again about practicality?

And so long as we’re talking public transportation, let’s return to your original point about selfishness. If you’re driving your automobile (I’ll even assume that it’s not a Ford Excursion for sake of argument) to work in this city, contributing to congestion, pollution, lack of parking, and a general decline in the quality of life for everyone else when there’s ample public transport available, then who’s being selfish?

If you drive a car and are honest about your observations, you know that the lives of bikers are entirely dependent on your driving accuracy and attention in a way that other drivers’ lives are not — you are behind tons of steel, and they are exposed. It’s just that simple — a huge risk, with utterly predictable tragic consequences for some bikers and their poor families. It’s just not a risk worth defending.

Living life in a steel box, decoupled from people and terrain, spending precious moments of a finite life hating everything is not worth defending. Vainly attempting to meet our transportation needs by escalating car-centric solutions is not worth defending. Destroying the livability of a city by accommodating the selfish desires of suburban car commuters, at the expense of our quality of life, is not worth defending. Continuing this way of life that’s wrecking the environment, changing the climate, miring us in middle-east geopolitical conflicts and transferring trillions of dollars of our wealth into the coffers of foreign dictators while our economy continues to degrade is not worth defending.

Riding bikes certainly involves some risk, but the stakes are high and the upside is huge. I think the risk is well worth defending.

I got inspired by the Bicycle MPG article on How Things Work (noted here), did a little investigating and tinkering, and built a Bicycle MPG Calculator. So far, my calculator is not as optimistic as theirs, but the Calorie-per-hour calculations are inside the ranges of several charts I found online, so I’ll say good’nuff’er gubmint work.

It should point out that this doesn’t factor for fuel used to produce the food you would use to get those calories, but plenty of folks have already taken that on. I’d be interested to see a more thorough exploration of that topic that weighs in the effectiveness of the food you eat.

For example, beef takes more fuel and water to produce than lettuce and beans, but isn’t there some efficiency advantage as far as nutrients-per-calorie in going a step up the food chain? And if it’s true that meat delivers a denser package of certain nutrients, can pastured chickens or farmed Tilapia do it for less energy?

Just as importantly, how much “efficiency” are we getting in return for being completely inhumane, torturing, fucked assholes to those animals while they’re doing us the favor of growing that meat on their bones for us? And what’s the additional energy costs of doing massive cleanup operations on the toxic waste dumps that industrial feedlots create?

Other folks have pointed out that eating locally will also increase that bottom-line efficiency, as the fuel for transportinatin’ your food is also a factor. That asparagus from Whole Foods might take a lot less fossil fuel to produce than a steak, but not if it’s been flown here from Argentina. Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s wrong to eat asparagus in the winter, and knowing that, I don’t want to be right. But getting seasonal produce from farmer’s markets does makes that link in the fuel consumption chain a lot smaller.

Lotsa questions! I have no answers to them, but enjoy the calculator, and maybe get happy about how incredibly bad-ass efficient you are on a bike. You’re one hell of a motor, that’s right.