Get a bicycle. You will not regret it...Oh, and dream a bit

This quote by Amy Webster could make you more paranoid about riding on the street: "The sound of a car door opening in front of you is similar to the sound of a gun being cocked."

This quote by David Perry makes sense if you have ever had a car door open in front of you: "What do you call a cyclist who doesn't wear a helmet? An organ donor."

As much as I love and promote biking (even in Los Angeles), there is nothing more stressful than riding a bike in the street with parked cars on one side and speeding by cars on the other. It's just not fun on some streets, even those with Class II Paths (bike lane on a street)

The shot above is a nice dream though...

Okay, so that picture is from a Kaiser Permanente commercial. And the title is a quote from Mark Twain in Taming the Bicycle

Wear helmets!

This is making the rounds.

As a person who has had his brain on the inside of his skull for twenty-five years and who is in no hurry to reverse that dominant physiological paradigm, I'd also like to point out that the title of the article is "Strange but True", not "Strange but True AND a Good Idea!".

As much as people might lean on the above study to feel better about riding without a helmet, I believe this is all the proof needed to justify wearing one (via Bicycles and Icicles).

StreetFilms.org-The Case for Separated Bike Lanes in NYC

Tour de Cure

I will be riding 100 miles in the Tour de Cure this weekend. If you would like to sponsor me the please do so at my page on the American Diabetes Association fund raising page.

iTunes cracked

The current (?) version of iTunes, 7.1.1 has been cracked by the QTFairUse6 project. Now is the time to uncripple your purchased iTunes tracks (especially those brutally expensive, hard-to-rip audiobooks) before Apple spends more engineering dollars to punish you for wanting to "think different," "switch" and otherwise enjoy the stuff you bought from them. Link (via Digg)

Update: Note that this crack is only for Windows -- Mac users are still punished for buying from Apple.

Macaframa SF Track Bike Promo

Death traps can be graceful, too.

And NO, there will not be any of this in my future. My proximity will not increase my predilection for this type of riding; I can wreck myself just fine on USCF-approved road and CX courses, no need to do it on my morning commute as well.

You, You, You -- you really are special

This is a very amusing article...and somewhat concerning..

Here is the opening text..written by

By Jeffrey Zaslow
From The Wall Street Journal Online

You, You, You -- you really are special, you are! You've got everything going for you. You're attractive, witty, brilliant. "Gifted" is the word that comes to mind.

Childhood in recent decades has been defined by such stroking -- by parents who see their job as building self-esteem, by soccer coaches who give every player a trophy, by schools that used to name one "student of the month" and these days name 40.

Now, as this greatest generation grows up, the culture of praise is reaching deeply into the adult world. Employers are dishing out kudos to workers for little more than showing up.

Lost Delivers

How good was "Lost" last night? Damn!

Unlike many of its critics, I was/am happy with this crazy show meandering and wandering and dragging its feet. I don't need to know why The Others are obsessed with babies. I don't bother myself with details such as why the fat guy hasn't lost a pound on that island despite eating better (less greasy, no fast food) and moving around more. And I don't care that we haven't seen a polar bear in years.

I am very satisfied just seeing these interesting characters move around on the screen and weird shit befalls them. Hell, I even like all the new people they bring on board as if this whole thing is just a parade. Seriously, for a show about an island, the amount of people that have ended up with a credit on Lost has got to be nearing 1,000.

Which is why, I think, they need to kill so many people.

The only problem when you do that though is you don't get to answer any of the questions that those who want answers keep demanding.

Which is part of the beautiful mystery of the Lost "plot", and one of the reasons I like it so much. You seriously never know what is going to happen from one episode to the next.

And if you haven't yet seen last night's episode, go watch it on ABC.com because after the jump I'm going to get into some spoilers that will spoil part of the goodness that went down.

Everything was great last night.

We learned about creepy Ben and how he got on the island and what his parents were like and why everyone bows down to him.

We learned about how The Others began their rule on the island, and what happened to the Dharma Initiative peeps.

We learned about the dead guy with the beer cans in the back of the VW.

And we got to see Locke be the badass that we love. He beat the crap outta eye patch guy, he showed Ben up in front of The Others, and he marched right into the lair of one of the scariest semi-invisible creatures we've seen so far, Jacob.

And then we see him get shot!

But if he actually dies, how will we learn how it was that he was no longer paralyzed?

However, Ben alluded to the fact that Jacob still could "save" Locke, which I'm not so sure I want to see. Because if he is a god the way Ben is presenting him as being - a pissed off, bitter, lo-fi god, then why can't he stop the new moms from dying and why can't he cure Ben's spine?

Fie on you, Superheroes and your limitations!

Television Without Pity has an interesting take:

Turns out that Craphole Island really is the Land of Bad Dads. (Do I see a Disneyland ride in the future?) Ben's craptastic father was so awful that he turned Ben away from the peacenik lovey-dovey ways of the Dharma Initiative and towards the dark side of Otherdom. Ben's chosen path was chockfull of evil doings: he not only killed his Bad Dad (remember Roger? The dead guy with all the beer?), but was actively involved in the Purge of the Dharma Initiative off the Island. The nasty hostiles, lead by a hirsute Richard, gassed those hippies right good! To top off his campaign to be most evil shrimp ever, Ben admits that he lied about being born on the Island and then shoots Locke in the stomach leaving him to die in the mass grave where they left the woebegone Dharma Initiates. Did I mention that he had a Bad Dad who didn't love him enough?

I just want to see more from Ben's daughter now.

Because we haven't learned to love enough characters yet.

Photos via ABC.com

Yetti LA

The Yeti boots are rebelling against me. They have mutated, grown wheels, and are preparing to take over Los Angeles. Take cover people. This is your warning.

Il Giro v. Le Tour

OK, everyone knows Le Tour de France is now and will always be THE race of races. But that doesn't mean we can't find ways to compare No. 2 to No. 1 and see who comes out ahead in other, less meaningful ways. Also, below is a partial list of comparisons; I invite all others to add to the list and make verdicts.

Since things are getting crowded on the main page I'll do this on the Flip:

Competition: Campionissimi v. Galacticos

The only serious note on this post... so the Pro Tour hasn't exactly saved the Giro from the intramural scrum it has been for a decade or two? Once upon a time Tour heroes like Indurain and Hinault and LeMond came to Italy to win. But while the Giro will always fall just short, the comparison could be closer... if Italy weren't producing so many great cyclists. Face it: home teams have big advantages in grand tours, and Italy almost always fields a formidable home team... while French racers have made the Tour available to any foreigner who wishes. If you're Joe International Cyclist, do you want to go take on all of Italy, or wait til July to duke it out with a select handful of outsiders?

Verdict: Le Tour... for now.

Aesthetics: Pink or Yellow?

Kind of a hobson's choice. But the pink has grown on me, and actually looks kinda cool with just about any Pro Tour kit that isn't red.

Verdict: Il Giro

Wine: Chianti or Bordeaux?

As a grandson of Italy, I've tried for a long time to like Italian wine. Ain't happening. Yes, everyone can gin up a nice bottle now and then, but speaking in broad brushstrokes, there's a reason they wrap Italian wines in straw. But don't ask me what it is. Anyway...

Verdict: Le Tour

Crowds: The Nation or the World?

Nobody can top the Tour for crowd size, enthusiasm (albeit largely imported from across the Spanish border), and drunks. The Giro's crowds are smaller and more manageable, though I'm confident it has its share of drunks. Italians are said to harbor the most love for their race... Still, Le Tour has given the world the sport's most intense fan-images, where riders count on the sea of flesh parting just in time to let them turn the pedals again.

Verdict: Le Tour

Scenery: Pyrenees or Dolomites?

The Tour has its monuments, but it also insists on long, flat stages across Normandy, Bordeaux, and the North with nuthin much going on. This may be overly subjective, but almost every inch of Italy looks interesting to me. Look at this year: Sardinia, Salerno (Napoli), Tivoli (Rome), Tuscany, the Riviera... and that's all before the mountain stages. Also, seeing them racing on roads cut through towering snowbanks is awfully dramatic. This year's edition will be non-stop postcards.

Verdict: Il Giro

Randomness: Nature vs. Nurture

Well, the Giro is occasionally undone by foul weather beyond the likes of what the Tour would ever experience. French audiences, however, have a knack for making things interesting, blocking the road, punching Merckx in the kidney, stuff like that. And there's no Italian equivalent of riders sitting down in protest, a decadal event in Le Tour.

Verdict: Le Tour

Cycling Media by some numbers

What is the size of the US cycling market. Here's the results of some googling:

Number of USCF license holders as of 1997: 30,000

USA cycling currently claims 58,000 members on its web site:

Recognized by the U.S. Olympic Committee and the Union Cycliste Internationale, USA Cycling promotes American cycling through its 58,000 members and 2,000 annual events.

Bicycling magazine claimed a circulation of 340,000 in 1989:

James McCullagh, editor and publisher of Bicycling, said the acquisition would increase his magazine's circulation to at least 340,000, from 310,000, after eliminating duplicate subscribers.

I've also seen circulation stats of 400,000 (Sports Illustrated is about 3.2M, Golf Digest is 1.5M)

AMERICANS BUY BIKES

More than 20 million new bikes were sold in 2000, a record high. Throughout the 1990s, sales averaged more than 16 million bikes per year, including more than 11 million “adult” bicycles. The bicycle industry generated sales totaling $5.89 billion in 2000. More than 5,400 specialty bicycle dealers and 1,000 companies are involved in the manufacture, distribution, and sales of bicycles in the United States.

How many hard-core fans of the sport are out there in the USA?

My wild-ass-guess is that it's far short of the 300,000 numbers of Bicycling magazine. Maybe on the order of the USCF membership, somewhere between 30-50,000. A total WAG at how much cash the hardcore cyclists invest in their equipment each year. Assume the average is $1000, and the population is divided up into a normal distribution.

30000 Hard Core US Cyclists

3930 Spend 0-500 per year $982,500

10230 Spend 500-1000 per year $7,672,500

10230 spend 1000-1500 per year $12,787,500

3930 spend 1500-2000 per year $6,877,500

Total $28,320,000

Some sanity checks on dollar figures above: So if the high end folks buy a higher end machine @ $5K a pop only 1200 are sold a year? That seems way low!

Holy Shit

Armstrong's seven Tour de France victories between 1999 and 2005 added jet fuel to the bike boom. In 2000 there were 145,000 high-end road bikes -- averaging about $1,100 -- sold across the country, they made up just 4 percent of the total number of bikes sold and accounted for 11 percent of the retail dollars spent, according to Jay Townley, a bicycle market analyst in Wisconsin.

Dayum, that's $159M clams if 145,000 can be believed.

VS 2006 Tour de France Ratings

Live viewership improved 77 percent from the day before. Overall gross total viewers--the addition of OLN's multiple airings on the day's events--gave the network 1.3 million viewers, some 50 percent higher than the first 19-day average of 809,000 for the event. For the rest of the weekend, OLN made significant viewers gains versus earlier parts of the race. For example, its live telecasts on the final weekend rose 85 percent to 622,000 from the weekend before. All major male demo ratings also climbed significantly--men ages 18-34 were up 93 percent; men 18-49 rose 90 percent; and men 25-54 were 98 percent higher.

Microwave popcorn is the new asbestos

Diacetyl, the buttery-flavored chemical used in microwave popcorn, may be banned in California by 2010. The fumes from it cause terrible lung-disease in people who work around it.

Assemblywoman Sally Lieber (D) has introduced a bill to ban diacetyl use by 2010. The chemical is an artificial butter flavoring most commonly used in microwave popcorn. Numerous study have found links between the chemical used by flavor workers and a rare disease called bronchiolitis obliterans. For those of you who aren’t 2000 yr old Romans, that means that the bronchioles and some of the smaller bronchi are obliterated by masses made up of fiberous tissue. It’s like sticking marbles into the networks of tubes in your lung that connect fresh air to the alveoli, the little sacs where oxygen and carbon dioxide are exchanged with the blood. As you Romans can imagine, that’s haud sanus. According to the WaPo, flavoring manufacturers have paid out more than $100 million due to health lawsuits. An excellent case study and background to this whole mess can be found at Defending Science.

Link

Disney World as a Google Map:

A Walt Disney World enthusiast has placed every ride, shop and restaurant in the park onto a Google Maps mashup! Link (via The Disney Blog)