Smoke On The Water – Bike Snob NYC
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Yesterday night I stepped out onto the road and questioned, “Who’s barbecuing?”
After all it was not a barbecue in any respect; it was smoke from the Canada, the place I suppose they forgot to stuff a rolled-up towel into the crack of their dorm room door, and all over the place the panicked citizenry of New York was packing up and fleeing south:
This vendor shut his bubble tea hutch in such haste a buyer was nonetheless trapped in it:
Simply kidding:
By the way in which, a avenue vendor utilizing a crosswalk to hitch his bubble tea hutch to his SUV is exactly the kind of state of affairs that causes a typical livable streets advocate to short-circuit:
Although ultimately they get well and write 3,000 phrase Streetsblog editorials about how congestion pricing will repair all this one way or the other.
In the meantime, over on the Citi Bike rack the state of affairs was equally apocalyptic:
How does that even occur?
It’s like that scene in “There’s One thing About Mary.”
As for me, I took to the Brooklyn Bridge, the place the Manhattan skyline was barely seen by means of the haze:
For the complete impact, construct a campfire, sit very near it, and watch this video:
Sadly I began rolling “tape” after the worst of the motor scooters (I pray that each single one who rides a motor scooter within the bike lane zips up his personal ball, although should you’re using a motor scooter within the bike lane as a substitute of the road you in all probability don’t have any balls to zip up) and the man on the monitor bike with the widest handlebars I’ve ever seen, so that you don’t get to see any of that. In case you haven’t been conserving monitor (pun type of meant), fixie handlebars have gone from >extremely slender< to <R I D I C U L O U S L Y F U C Ok I N G W I D E>. Apparently in some unspecified time in the future between the mid-aughts and now fixed-gear riders found the idea of leverage, and for some purpose they’d quite journey round with what look like Yakima crossbars bolted to their bikes than use a brake. This requires them to unfold their arms unfold very huge and grasp their heads very low, which makes them appear to be they’re attempting to sneak a peek beneath the door of a restroom stall.
However, additional to yesterday’s submit, I nonetheless managed to seize the complete spectrum of bicyclist security conduct, from “overly cautious:”
To “Aw, fuck it:”
Alighting in Manhattan, a brownish pall hung over Chambers Avenue:
Between the smoke and the license plate in entrance of me I felt like I used to be in America’s most flamable state:
I’ve in all probability talked about this earlier than, however till just a few years in the past you nearly by no means noticed a California license plate in New York; now they’re far and wide. I don’t know why that is. Normally in New York you see the apparent tri-state plates (NY, NJ, and CT), plus plates from the “registration rip-off” states (PA, FL), and a smattering from the “I register my automobile at my trip house” state (VT)–plus the now-ubiquitous faux paper ones. However why California? It doesn’t seem to be there’d be a compelling purpose to fraudulently register a automobile in California. Are individuals actually touring forwards and backwards between California and New York that steadily? Actually Californians and New Yorkers are by far essentially the most annoying individuals within the nation, so is there a wormhole for unbearable individuals I don’t learn about that permits them to journey immediately between the 2 states? Or maybe they’re simply right here to begin wildfires. What I do know is there are fewer extra boring topics than license plates, however if you journey a motorbike you wind up gazing lots of license plates and it’s exhausting not to consider them.
Additionally, that automobile had the identical precise warmth protect rattle that mine does. It’s the rattly 9-speed Ultegra shifter cap of automotive annoyances.
As soon as I’d made it throughout city I took to the West Facet Greenway:
They’ve been telling individuals to not go exterior as a result of air quaility:
Yeah, proper, no matter. I don’t journey for my well being, I journey as a result of I adore it. If using exterior for an hour had been the equal of smoking a complete pack of cigarettes I wouldn’t scale back my on-the-bike actions by a single pedal stroke. A few of us simply gotta do what we gotta do, penalties be damned. We thick-headed cussed sorts come from all walks of life, too, although the widespread denominator appears to be we gravitate in direction of actions that contain sporting tights:
This isn’t to say I’m utterly heedless, and I did make sure that I used to be seen by means of all of the smoke:
This contains utilizing a taillight, after all, since not all vehicles are outfitted with a rattly warmth protect warning system:
Oh, I’m nonetheless getting good use out of my Two Wheel Gear pannier, by the way in which, which was full as a result of I ended to hitch in on some wildfire-induced panic-looting:
Simply kidding:
I did choose up some rest room paper although:
I do appear to spend an inordinate quantity of vitality schlepping rest room paper, and maybe I ought to give severe consideration to a bidet:
Although I don’t know the way I’d match it in my pannier.
Additional up the Hudson I obtained to see a person catch a fish:
Although I didn’t get an excellent shot of the fish:
It ought to present him with ample sustenance as he flees New York on his electrical scooter. Higher but, it is going to be pre-smoked.
After all the issue with fleeing by scooter is that it’s essential to cost it, which could possibly be why these persons are fleeing by outrigger canoe:
They need to make landfall on Staten Island by Thursday:
As for me, till the air clears up, I’ll be on prime of Previous Smoky.
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