the bike fag is an okay guy. we've never met, but he has been to portland and has posted an admirably level headed -- but still replete with the sort of sarcasm necessitated by portland's special brand of faux european smug -- analysis of the portland "bike culture" [end link, start link] at his blog. looking at the series of pictures from the portland post (which follow my morning commute across the broadway bridge to the area around my workplace and then lead up hawthorne into ladd's addition along the same route i take to my wednesday extracurricular), i'm surprised i didn't recognize his purple bike while he was shooting and stop to say hello. i'd also had an apparent run-in with bikesnobnyc in november, 2010, but he was still rocking the anonymity identity-way back then, so it wasn't, again, until evidence turned up at his blog that i knew. the bike fag seems to have been inspired by the snob to start his blog, but his opinion of cycling's platinum queen mecca is markedly different from snobby's always acerbic take. but i'm not by any means taking sides, and if i were, it wouldn't be for something so petty as envy over a book deal. (bike snob nyc will be at powell's this sunday for anyone who's interested.)
in fact, i would probably never have read the bike fag had it not been for the snob first pointing him out. i rarely read the latter anymore, but i knew after the "do i REALLY like cyclocross, or am i just a fashion victim" post that i'd found a kindred spirit in the fag. unfortunately, the bike fag isn't a real homo, which i learned the gross way while reading a post having something to do with riding (leg shaving?) impressing the ladies -- and he was serious. although i understand the "art fag" derivation, i couldn't accept the url being taken by a guy who doesn't like smooching boys. which, i know, makes me a racist. but not in bike fag's sense of the word, an altogether different intentional misuse meant to describe having graduated from fashionable functional riding to fashionable performance riding, and then being a dick about it.
last month, the bike fag posted his musings over whether or not racing is the pinnacle of cycling. a racist himself, the fag wondered if that lifestyle of grueling training and dropping stacks of cash on high end gear was really the truest manifestation of what one of the professional racers he interviewed called "bike love" -- a term that i'm sure has been institutionalized here in portland by incorporation into municipal statute. i recalled that post soon after watching the cirque du cycling crit and then again after writing how much i love seeing/hearing all that expensive gear go to pieces in a crash. i'll never race myself; and that's to say i'll never enter a road race, because racists don't consider cyclocross to be real racing. riding with someone in my close periphery is already terrifying enough. i can't imagine trying to do it successfully at over 35 mph. i also can't imagine training enough to sustain that kind of speed.
a bike fag does wonder, though, whether there aren't next steps that should be taken. i love being on my bicycle, whether just commuting, on short tours or chasing trends to the grail of the 'cross crusade. as sexy as all that may be, once an example has been set, shouldn't i want to be, somehow (i know, right?), better? fitness and environmentalism don't go very far in justifying fancy equipment upgrades. in any case, important as they are, those probably weren't the primary reasons that the 'looking good in pants' crowd got into cycling to begin with. in the words of the fag: "i’d like to say i started riding a bicycle as a statement of freedom from oil dependency or as an expression of my autonomous human-powered mobility, but i’d be lying. i started riding...to have fun, and to look cool." and wasn't i at the crit doing both of those things while also getting to watch the riders look cool (syn. hott) without having to endure the training rides myself? i walked to the race, sure, but i definitely would have ridden if it hadn't been so close.
the bike fag recommends racing if you want to and not getting down on yourself if you don't. bland, yes, but maybe the fag is afraid of being prosecuted under the bike love law if he ever comes back to portland. even so, i'll take it, because i don't plan ever to race but can't imagine not being able to ogle people that do. plus, the world is better for shiny gear. it breaks so pretty. personally, i would never have gotten a pair of dragon 2s if sidi made anything humbler that worked for the race-ish activity i hypothetically participate in during the fall and that also came in white. for everyone like me who's still straddling the divide between fixie hipster douche and elite racist, the bike fag also recently posted his summer editorial calendar for ironic cycling fashions. i'm doing my own thing this summer, but it looks promising nonetheless. and the concept sketch for the ironic cycling fashion of 2025 is wearing the road version of my shoe.
alas, despite my alluded promise to avoid antagonism, i have to disagree slightly with the fag on the issue of bike love. "no website can tell you who's got more?" of course one can. this one. we've seen that snuff short at the bike porn festival.
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